SELF-DEFENSE

1
SELF-DEFENSE

• Honest and Reasonable Fear
• Death or Serious Bodily Harm
• Imminent Threat
• No excessive force
• Duty to retreat
• Not initial aggressor

2
Honest and Reasonable Fear

• CL Reasonable person in defendants situation
  (semi-objective)
• Physical attributes
• Ds prior experiences
• Circumstances of attack (movements, comments and
  past of assailant)
• MPC Defendant believed (subj.)
• Note Imperfect self-defense (Honest, but
  unreasonable belief)

3
Death or Serious Bodily Harm

• CL Strict standard
• MPC or threat of serious felonies, like
  kidnapping, rape and robbery.

4
Imminent vs. Inevitable

• CL Strict time requirement
• Modern CL Reasonably believe imminent
• MPC Subjective approach

5
No Excessive Force

• Lethal force only when confronted with lethal
  force

6
Duty to Retreat

• Only when planning to use lethal force
• May stand ground when defending with non-lethal
  force
• No duty to retreat in own home (Castle Rule)

7
Not Initial Aggressor

• Initial Aggressor vs. Instigator
• Who escalates to violence?

8
Defense of Others

• 2 Approaches
• Stand in other persons shoes
• Reasonable person would have believed that right
  of self-defense

9
Defense of Property

• Lethal force cannot be used to protect property
  alone
• Lethal force can only be used to protect life
• Reasonable non-deadly force can be used to
  protect property

10
Use of Forceby Law Enforcement

• Tennessee v. Garner (1985)
• Can only use deadly force when suspect poses
  threat of death or serious bodily harm to
  officers or others