Read your law. If you prevented the commission of a violent life threatening crime by
killing the perpetrator, its called justifiable homicide.
True, but only if the killing was necessary and reasonable. Acting in self-defense you are given more leeway. Acting in defense of another, the rule is stricter.
In case ou care, LaFave and Scott, the recognized authorities on criminal law, put it this way: "The prevailing rule is that one is justified in using reasonable force in defense of another person, evan a stranger, when he reasonably believes that the other is immediate danger of unlawful bodily harm from his adversary and that the use of such force is necessary to avoid this danger. Deadly force is reasonable force only when the attack of the adversary upon the orhter person reasonably appears to the defender to be a deadly attack."
However, while most jurisdictions allow defense of a stranger, some jurisdictions do not. In those cases, if you have no relationship to the person being attacked, you have no legal right to go to their defense, and you would be liable for assault for doing so.
So be sure to know the law of the jurisdiction you are in before going to somebody's aid. Otherwise, you may wind up spending a lot of money with me or one of my colleagues. <g> |
