The House on Monday reversed itself and approved the latest attempt to make a 2006 self-defense law favorable to defendants apply retroactively in some cases.

The House approved the bill on a 32-23 vote, six days after rejecting the bill 31-27.

Four Republicans and one Democrat who voted against the bill on April 17 cast votes for it on Monday. They were: Republican Reps. Bill Konopnicki of Safford, Jennifer Burns of Tucson, Lucy Mason of Prescott and Jim Weiers of Phoenix, as well as Democratic Rep. Barbara McGuire of Kearny.

None explained their changed votes during the floor session.

The bill would make the 2006 law apply to cases pending in trial court when the law took effect on April 24, 2006.

That time limit and a requirement that defendants had not pleaded guilty or no-contest would have limited the law's reach to about a dozen cases, supporters said.

Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a broader retroactivity bill earlier this year, agreeing with prosecutors who argued it would have applied to numerous cases.

The 2006 law made it easier for defendants to claim self-defense, and many supporters expected it would help Harold Arthur Fish, a hiker convicted in a trailside shooting in Coconino County.

Fish wasn't mentioned by name during either House floor debate, but Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa on April 17 said the bill would have provided an appropriate right to claim self defense to ``good people defending their lives.''

The 2006 law shifted the burden of proof in cases where people charged with a crime are claiming self-defense.

With the change, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a self-defense claim was unfounded. Before the law was changed in 2006, defendants had to prove that they acted to protect themselves.

Fish supporters hoped the 2006 law would be included in instructions given to jurors in his trial on charges he fatally shot Grant Kuenzli during a 2004 confrontation on a trail near Payson. Fish had claimed self-defense, saying that Kuenzli charged him in a threatening manner after Fish shot at a dog that he considered a threat.

A Coconino County Superior Court judge denied a request by Fish to apply the new self-defense law retroactively to his case, and the Arizona Supreme Court on Feb. 9 ruled in another defendant's case that the 2006 law didn't apply retroactively.