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Tex. Penal Code § 9.33

DEFENSE OF THIRD PERSON

Applied in 39 court decisions — leading case Rachal v. State (1996)

Most recently applied in Christopher Ernest Braughton v. State (April 2017)

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

How often courts cite this section

1982199020002010201750
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.

A person is justified in using force or deadly force against another to protect a third person if:

(1) under the circumstances as the actor reasonably believes them to be, the actor would be justified under Section 9.31 or 9.32 in using force or deadly force to protect himself against the unlawful force or unlawful deadly force he reasonably believes to be threatening the third person he seeks to protect; and

(2) the actor reasonably believes that his intervention is immediately necessary to protect the third person.

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