SELF DEFENSE

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Nov 24, 2024

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1 SELF-DEFENSE Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Number and Name Instructor’s Name Assignment Due Date

2 Self-defense Criminal proceedings always involve the presenting of a defense. Proof that the accused did not commit the crime at issue or that they acted in self-defense can be used to exonerate them from criminal responsibility. This is accomplished through demonstrating that the accused is innocent of the charged offense. You can argue your case in two ways: with an affirmative defense or an excuse. If you are facing criminal charges but believe you should be found not guilty due to mitigating circumstances, you may submit what is called a "affirmative defense" in court. A few instances of affirmative defenses are insanity, giving in to outside pressure, and being entrapped. Defenses, also called excuses, are presented to the court to prove that the accused did not commit the crime at issue. The use of an alibi or a claim of a misunderstanding are two common instances of an excuse The right to self-defense is an affirmative defense that absolves a person of criminal responsibility if they are found to have used a proportionate amount of force in response to an unlawful attack or perceived danger ( Fehr, 2021) . When an individual asserts self-defense, they are saying that they were in danger or that they were attacked. The defendant who asserts self-defense must show that they were in imminent danger, that they reasonably believed that force was necessary to protect themselves from the threat, and that the level of force employed was appropriate. The defendant must also prove that any use of force was appropriate ( Sivanandan & Bourne, 2016) . When all three of these conditions are met, the court may find the accused not guilty of the crime for which they have been charged. If I get to court, my defense attorney will argue the following elements about my right to self-defense: 1. Imminent Danger . The defendant must have had a well-founded fear for his or her life or physical safety in order to meet this requirement. My defense lawyer must

3 show that I was in imminent danger of physical harm, and that this danger was real. Even though it's more difficult to demonstrate, it was indeed a cell phone, even though the man had his hand in his pocket at the time. His hand being in one of his pockets is not out of the usual. 2. Necessity . There must be "necessity," or the belief on the part of the defendant that physical force was necessary to avoid serious physical injury. To defend myself and the other customers in the business, I had a reasonable belief that it was necessary to shoot the man ( Yakubovich et al., 2021) . 3. Proportionality . This requires my defense attorney to show that the force I employed was proportional to the threat I faced. The court will have to weigh the severity of the harm that may have been done by the man in deciding whether or not the force I used was proportional. Given the circumstances, the amount of power I used was probably the maximum I was capable of mustering. There's no denying that my reaction was excessive given the severity of the threat you faced, given that I ended the man's life by shooting him. Most difficult to prove, no doubt. Whether or not I prevail in court depends on the details of the case. I may prevail in court if I can show that I reasonably believed my life or the lives of those in the store were in imminent danger and that deadly action was necessary to protect us. This is assuming, of course, that I had to resort to deadly force to defend myself and the other people in the shop. However, it's possible that I won't win in court if it's shown that I used deadly force out of fear or panic, or that it wasn't necessary to protect myself or others. Given the nature of this case, I seriously doubt that I will prevail in court. Self- defense is hard to prove, and the circumstances here do not lend themselves to a successful self-defense claim. The judge and jury will likely rule that my use of deadly force was disproportionate to the threat I faced and that I did not have a reasonable belief that my life

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4 was in imminent danger. I also expect them to rule that the threat level did not justify the use of lethal force.

5 References Fehr, C. (2021). The Constitutionality of Excluding Duress as a Defence to Murder. Man. LJ , 44 , 111. https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi? handle=hein.journals/manitob44§ion=51 Sivanandan, A., & Bourne, J. (2016). The case for self-defence. Race & Class , 58 (1), 61-65. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396816643035 Yakubovich, A. R., Esposti, M. D., Lange, B. C., Melendez-Torres, G. J., Parmar, A., Wiebe, D. J., & Humphreys, D. K. (2021). Effects of laws expanding civilian rights to use deadly force in self-defense on violence and crime: a systematic review. American journal of public health , 111 (4), e1-e14. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2020.306101

SELF DEFENSE

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