Talk:Justifiable homicide

Contradictory lede
1.) A homicide can only be justified if there is sufficient evidence to prove that it was reasonable to believe that the offending party posed an imminent threat to the life or well-being of another, in self-defense. 2.) To rule a justifiable homicide, one must objectively prove to a trier of fact, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the victim intended to commit violence. The first sentence states the standard as a reasonable belief of a threat to well-being. The second sentence states the standard as an intent in fact to commit violence. 73.235.245.1 (talk) 10:44, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Stand-your-ground law
Stand-your-ground Law deserves a mention here and in what states it is already law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.190.206.63 (talk) 11:45, 3 October 2016 (UTC)

Sweden
I'm not convinced the Sweden section is notable enough to be included here. It provides no details other than that one police officer in Sweden got convicted of homicide at one point, and it's not really even relevant to the article, as it provides no specifics about Swedish law regarding justifiable homicide. I move it gets pulled. Jjcooper0811 (talk) 07:35, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

In the article it is not stated to what country it refers. Laws and jurisprudence vary from country to country.

It's also one very long paragraph.

"The circumstances under which homicide is justified are usually considered to be that the victim was clearly likely to kill an innocent if the defendant did not kill them."

Changing this, I don't see how the victim of the potential killer has to be innocent of anything for the killing of the potential killer to be justified, and if this is relevant, innocent of what? --Teeks 18:27, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * I think that statement might be trying to clarify that, for example, a robber is not justified in shooting a police officer that points a gun at them. Regardless of what it's trying to say, it's too unclear. --67.165.6.76 (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Material removed for clarification
"A homicide performed out of vengeance, or retribution for action in the past would generally not be considered justifiable, although in some cases such a crime is classed as being justifiable due to the impossibility of finding a jury who would convict under the case's circumstances."
 * So the law in the U.S. is that a DA or trial judge may decide that a homicide is justifiable without having to wait for a jury to be convened?
 * Just passing through... It's more of a procedural thing. A prosecutor can always choose to just not prosecute or the police can choose to not arrest. What happens heavily depends on the area. In Florida for example, authorities will generally give wide lattitude if the person who got shot was comitting a violent crime at the time because they know that local juries wont generally care if a rapist or robber was shot while attacking or fleeing. But it might be a very different story in say, Chicago where attitudes differ (both in government and in juries). Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the point is tho, it's not a justifiable homicide. It's an unjustifiable homicide which is not prosecuted because DA's aren't enforcing the law and/or because they know the jury will ignore the law and not convict Nil Einne 02:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

"In cases of self-defense, the defendant should generally obey a duty to retreat if it is possible to do so (except from one's home or place of business), or it is not justifiable (in the states of Florida and Louisiana, there is no duty to retreat)."
 * I think this is ambiguous. Does the "it" mean that the use of force is not justifiable, or that, in the event that a death is caused, what would otherwise have been a justifiable use of force does not make the homicide justifiable?
 * Me again... The original statement is very much in error. "Duty to retreat" is a minority viewpoint in the US. Although few states have statutes that explicitly state there is no duty, most states have arrived at this result through common law. I'm currently working on a survey of law in this field. Also, whether death occurs or not is irrelevant. Deadly force is deadly force regardless of whether or not it succeeds. Ironically, you are thus more likely to get in trouble for intentionally wounding someone with a gun than killing them, since the intentional wounding implies that they werent doing something that would justify the use of deadly force. Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

"Justifiable homicides are always initially assumed to be criminal until the evidence warrants a change, as justifiable homicide is one of the most common defenses for homicides both justified and criminal."
 * If the homicides were justifiable, they would actually not be criminal at all. What evidence would change this interpretation? And how can justifiable homicide be a defence to homicides "both justified and criminal"?
 * There are other redundancies and circumlocutions which I have not bothered to remove, but the whole section should be revised by someone with real understanding of the law. David91 08:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I'd love to, but there are dozens of pages on this subject and I am busy with law school. I am generally accumulating material on stand your ground laws at the moment, so I'll try and contribute more this semester when things are slow.Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikified Links
I'm not sure if this is because of my computer, but why are all the Wikified links on this page red instead of the usual blue (purple if visited)? All the other pages on Wikipedia have links that are blue/purple except for this one as far as I can tell. Pouchkidium 07:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm getting the same here. Don't know what's wrong. Bigmike1020 03:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Abortion issue
''Some argue that termination of pregnancy is homicide of the fetus. Abortion is variously justified using a doctrine of necessity to safeguard the health of the mother or, more generally, utilitarianism.''

Ignoring for the moment the "some argue" weasel words: Since this is a legal article, perhaps we should note that in most jurisdictions in which abortion is legal, a fetus is not recognized as a legally distinct person and thus cannot be murdered in the legal sense. In the US the Unborn Victims of Violence Act seems to have changed this (though I'm not sure that this has been tested in court, as I believe Roe v. Wade explicitly said that a fetus is not a person). Still, I'm betting that this is the case in most jurisdictions where abortion is legal. --Jfruh (talk) 21:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I believe the statement is useless there as well, I vote delete it. 68.102.2.241 (talk) 06:31, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I almost added a section on the UVoVA, and then I thought to myself, "Wowbagger, you'd better check the talk page first, because this is probably a controversial idea you have." Glad I checked.  Here's what I was planning to add (under Common excusing conditions).  My additions are in italics:


 * 6. The doctrine of necessity allows, for example, a surgeon to separate conjoined twins, killing the weaker twin to save the other.
 * 7. In the United States, the 2005 Unborn Victims of Violence Act defined human fetuses as "unborn children" for the first time, recognizing all fetuses as equal holders of general human rights and formally defining feticide as murder (under USC §1111). However, the law retained explicit exceptions which prohibit the prosecution "of any person for conduct relating to an abortion," "of any person for any medical treatment," or "of any woman with respect to her unborn child," thereby preserving abortion rights in the United States under a justifiable homicide framework.
 * 8. Several countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, and the US states of Oregon and Washington allow both active and passive euthanasia by law, if justified.


 * Is there any objection to my adding the above section? Does anyone feel this constitutes OR?  Or that it uses biased language?  Or that its sources are unreliable?  Or that it needs rewriting?  I would be happy to talk through such points with anyone who raises them, because I do think this would be a valuable addition for the article.  If, OTOH, there is general approval of this proposal, I'll add on my next pass through WP, probably in a couple of weeks, maybe more, maybe (if I'm lucky) in the next few days.  Grazie! --BCSWowbagger (talk) 16:17, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I had the luck to have an internet connection and time late at night here, so I'm going to go ahead and add the item while I have the chance. However, because there has been neither consensus nor the time needed for a consensus to develop, I am still very open to discussing the item with anyone who wants to.


 * Oh, and I should have noted this last time: Jfruh, the SCOTUS in Roe v. Wade held that the personhood status of the fetus was sufficiently ambiguous to make killing it legitimate. Indeed, the majority held specifically that, were Congress ever to clearly define the fetus as a human person within the sense of the Fourteenth Amendment, the plaintiff's case would collapse and fetuses would be awarded the right to life.  However, Planned Parenthood v. Casey superseded Roe and made the right to an abortion exist independently of legislative recognition or non-recognition of any rights which may or may not belong to the life destroyed -- the right of recognizance of fetal rights, from then on, belonged solely to the (choose preferred term: mother/pregnant woman).  And that's more or less where we stand today.  At least, that's how I recall it.  I've read both decisions in full, but I am not a lawyer.  Grazie! --BCSWowbagger (talk) 00:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

undeclared war
"Thus, if there is no formal declaration of war or the casus belli is not legitimate, all those who engage in the fighting and kill combatants could theoretically be prosecuted"

As many people who were anti-Vietnam believe the the war was unjust. According to this statement the war was in fact murder. But with that it raises the question of, because of the draft, were the soldiers that "murdered" in the war actually murdering or were they under duress(forced to usually by threat)However, there is no doubt that no prosecutor could win a case that large against the US Government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.49.38 (talk) 02:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

References Missing
This article has no references at all. It's almost original research. I'm surprised it's not tagged yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.127.16.34 (talk) 05:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, and I have tagged it as unreferenced and possible original research.--Aervanath (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd bet that it's the text of a hard-copy encyclopedia article which could perhaps be recognized by someone. I'm surprised it hasn't been yet. GeorgeTSLC (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

www.leginfo.ca.gov might be a good reference for the informal citations to California Penal Code 196: http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&group=00001-01000&file=187-199 --199.80.152.201 (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

self defense and justifiable homicide
The self defense law touching justifiable homicide, as explained to me in handgun permit class in the state of Tennessee, is actually very similar to the 1995 standardized deadly force policy for federal law enforcement in that use of lethal force is justified only if necessary in response to an imminent threat of death or grevious bodily harm to oneself or another person. Civilian self defense also requires meeting the test that "a reasonable person" would believe that the situation, based on what the defender knew, justified fear of death or bodily harm if the defender did not act then and there. There is no judicial finding of "justifiable homicide": homicide charges are not filed, a grand jury returns no bill, a petit jury acquits, a judge sets aside a jury verdict of guilty, or an appellate court overturns a conviction, any of these if the evidence supports a justification of self-defense. Justifiable homicide is not treated lightly, and although a few obvious cases of killing of a felon during commission of a felony are adjudicated by police report, most are actually adjudicated much higher in the justice system, by coroner, medical examiner, district attorney, grand jury, petit jury, trial judge or appellate court. An escalating mutual combat in which the "defender" was a willing participant and which ends in death, or a killing motivated by anger or hatred rather than fear of death or mayhem, is not likely to be adjudicated as a justifiable homicide. This article needs the input of defense lawyers, prosecutors, trial judges, appellate court judges and criminologists with knowledge of the subject. Naaman Brown (talk) 02:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Bureaucratic expertise is not relevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.52.186.148 (talk) 19:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Why not? GeorgeTSLC (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

California penal Code 197.4
It may be noteworthy that in California "Homicide is justifiable ... when necessarily committed in attempting [to lawfully suppress] any riot, or in lawfully keeping and preserving the peace." --199.80.152.201 (talk) 23:22, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Why is abortion not mentioned?
Homidide is defined as a human killing another human. If a human kills a human fetus, that they are clearly still killing a human. There is practically no sifference between a human inside of a womb and one outside the womb ecpect for the fact that beings inside the womb are less devolped humans, but then new born babys are far from being fully devoloped and that doesn't mean they're not human - the fact that they are an organism with human tisue is sufficient. Robo37 (talk) 14:53, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Two questions
1.)

In the "United States" section,

"In the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana,[1] New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, Washington, Wyoming and other Castle Doctrine states, there is no duty to retreat in certain situations (depending on the state, this may apply to one's home, business, or vehicle, or to any public place where a person is lawfully present)."

My question is about the "or to any public place where a person is lawfully present)" component of the castle doctrine. I'm just a second year law student, but my understanding of the difference between "stand your ground" statutes and common law and statutory manifestations of the castle doctrine is that in states that adhere to the castle doctrine but not "stand your ground" laws, the duty to retreat does not exist in certain, specifically enumerated places or classes of places. To my yet-immature legal mind this means that if the castle doctrine includes the proposition that the defendant has no duty to retreat from an attacker when he is in "any public place where [the defendant] is lawfully present," then there is no difference between the castle doctrine and "stand your ground" statutes.

Since the defendant has the right to be in any public space subject to certain restrictions (e.g. hours), does the generalized version of the castle doctrine explained in the article imply that the defendant has no duty to retreat from an attacker when she and the attacker are separated by a large space such as a city park? Is the duty to retreat essentially rolled back to places in which one has no legal right to be? I have not read all of the states' statutes cited in the article, but for this to be true would surprise me.

2.)

A minor quibble with the grammar in the "United States" section:

"A non-criminal homicide, usually committed in self-defense or in defense of another, may be called in some cases in the United States."

To reverse the voice of this sentence for my sake, does one "call a non-criminal homicide" at some stage in criminal procedure? Does the verb "call" have some specific or anachronistic legal meaning?

Hellhounds88 (talk) 23:16, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

UK
A recent change in UK laws now enables spouses to use a partial defence based on "prolonged domestic violence", even in cases where there was no immediate danger involved (e.g. a wife killing her sleeping husband).

This groundbreaking change in Western law should be reflected in the article, but due to an apparent near-complete media blackout on the issue, sources are hard to come by. Many news articles mention this change in passing, but so far I've had no luck finding a source specifically discussing it. Any help finding sources would be highly appreciated. Here is one source just to prove that I'm not making this up or anything. --84.44.229.83 (talk) 13:53, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

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"Antivaxxers?"
I have noticed that somebody has added "Antivaxxers" to the list of conditions of a "Justifiable Homicide", I believe this is incorrect and facetious. 2600:1700:8A00:8910:18DB:C7D8:1396:F25C (talk) 07:18, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Persons engaging in an unjust war could theoretically be prosecuted
I am doubtful that this is correct as a matter of international law. If a soldier is part of a lawful chain of command, wears distinctive insignia, bears arms openly, and fights according to the rules and customs of war, then he is a lawful combatant and entitled to protection as a prisoner of war if captured. If I'm not mistaken, this is a cornerstone of humanitarian international law going back to Grotius, who based this Enlightenment view of war on the assumption that it is always possible that yours will turn out to be the side in the wrong in a war, and you must treat POWs as if there is at least a theoretical possibility that their side will turn out to be in the right. --Kent G. Budge (talk) 18:16, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you are correct. The passage is unsourced anyway; it should be removed.JMM12345 (talk) 05:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)JMM12345