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Tex. Penal Code § 9.04

THREATS AS JUSTIFIABLE FORCE

Applied in 13 court decisions — leading case Mattox v. State (1994)

Most recently applied in Jordan v. State (June 2018)

Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, Sec. 1, eff

How often courts cite this section

199320002010201820
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

The threat of force is justified when the use of force is justified by this chapter. For purposes of this section, a threat to cause death or serious bodily injury by the production of a weapon or otherwise, as long as the actor's purpose is limited to creating an apprehension that he will use deadly force if necessary, does not constitute the use of deadly force.

Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.