photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center is pictured on Sept. 4, 2024.

A store employee was rude to her, so she pulled a knife on him. That’s the state’s version of what happened in the early-morning hours last November at a Lawrence convenience store. The defendant’s version is that she was innocently acting in self-defense.

A Douglas County judge on Monday will decide whether the woman, Jazmine Porchia, should be immune from prosecution based on her claim of self-defense or whether she should stand trial for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The woman’s immunity motion filed with the court does not provide any facts about the Nov. 16, 2025, incident but simply asserts that Porchia “was justified in her use of force in defense of herself, her dwelling, or her property.”

The state’s response, however, includes a narrative of what it says actually happened that day shortly after midnight at the Kwik Shop at 2100 W. 25th St. According to Assistant Douglas County Attorney Cody Smith, Porchia had gone to the convenience store and encountered a male cashier who was rude to her. The nature of the rudeness is not specified in Smith’s response, which was filed Tuesday. The woman then returned an hour later to get the name of the cashier, who told police that she entered the store and began shouting at him.

Soundless video surveillance from the store, cited by the state in its narrative, shows Porchia walking back to the soft-drink station and the cashier motioning with his hands for her to leave. Porchia then pulls something from her waistband that the cashier believed to be a knife or a gun. The cashier retreats toward the front of the store, then Porchia proceeds to leave with a drink she hadn’t paid for. When the cashier comes out from behind the counter, Porchia steps back toward him with a knife in her hand and “gestures” it toward him multiple times before eventually leaving.

Under Kansas law, a person may justifiably use force against another only when she subjectively believes her use of force is necessary to prevent the person from harming herself or another, and her belief is objectively reasonable under the same circumstances.

The state argues that Porchia’s self-defense claim fails this test because she was the aggressor in a conflict with an unarmed person who fearfully retreated from the enounter and because “she was engaged in the commission of a forcible felony (aggravated assault) at the time of her conduct.”

In addition to the aggravated assault charge, Porchia also faces misdemeanor charges of theft and criminal trespass.

Judge Stacey Donovan is scheduled to hear her immunity from prosecution claim on Monday. The Journal-World requested the arrest affidavit in the case in mid-February, but that document had not been made public as of Wednesday morning.