Source: https://law.jrank.org/pages/1478/Justification-Self-Defense.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 04:24:49+00:00

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Self-defense and defense of others are defenses to a charge of criminal conduct in which the defendant concedes the transgression of a norm or statute against violence, for example, assault or homicide, but maintains that under the circumstances the use of force was either not wrongful ( justification) or is wrongful, but it would be unfair to impose punishment (excuse). Either as a justification or as an excuse, the defendant is completely exonerated. In contrast, "imperfect" or "incomplete" self-defense, where a significant element of the defense is absent, mitigates or reduces the charge, for example, from murder to manslaughter.
In other words, faced with certain present death at the hands of a villainous assailant or possible subsequent death from the state's executioner, the will to live inculcated in our human nature is so strong that it would be futile to criminalize self-defense. Though the inevitability and inalienability of self-defense is perhaps self-evident, and serves as a necessary adjunct to the other self-evident truths of the right to life and liberty, the right to self-defense is curiously not a constitutional right (Rowe v. DeBruyn, 17 F.3d 1047 (7th Cir. 1994)).
See also DOMESTIC VIOLENCE; JUSTIFICATION: THEORY; JUSTIFICATION: LAW ENFORCEMENT; JUSTIFICATION: NECESSITY; SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.
People v. Goetz, 497 N.E.2d 41 (N.Y. 1986).
People v. Young, 183 N.E.2d 319 (N.Y. 1962).
Rowe v. DeBruyn, 17 F.3d 1047 (7th Cir. 1994).
Smith v. State, 419 S.E.2d 74 (Ga. Ct. App. 1992).
State v. Norman, 378 S.E.2d 8 (N.C. 1989).

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