The court stated that attempted homicide was not justified just because Goetz, the individual, believed his life was in danger. The court invoked the elusive reasonable person standard, stating that a person s belief that he or she is in danger must be reasonable under the circumstances. In other words, the standard for what is reasonable is not based on individual belief, as the lower New York court believed. It is based on what most people would do in a given situation. Otherwise, the appellate court said, people would begin to set their own standards for justified killings and other violations of the law.
Courts often refer to, but don t define, a reasonable person.
A jury usually decides what is reasonable. Goetz s jury found his actions to be reasonable under the circumstances and acquitted him. However, he still was convicted of illegal gun possession and sentenced to time in jail. But Goetz was a civilian. The men who fired 41 bullets at Diallo were specially-trained police officers, part of the NYPD Street Crime Unit and a far cry from an armed vigilante.