justifiable homicide n. a killing without evil or criminal intent, for which there can be no blame, such as self-defense to protect oneself or to protect another, or the shooting by a law enforcement officer in fulfilling his/her duties. This is not to be confused with a crime of passion or claim of diminished capacity which refer to defenses aimed at reducing the penalty or degree of crime. (See: homicide, self-defense)
JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE. That which is committed with the intention to kill, or
to do a grievous bodily injury, under circumstances which the law holds
sufficient to exculpate the person who commits it.
2. It is justifiable, 1. When a judge or other magistrate acts in
obedience to the law. 2. When a ministerial officer acts in obedience to a
lawful warrant, issued by a competent tribunal. 3. When a subaltern officer,
or soldier, kills in obedience to the lawful commands of his superior. 4.
When the party kills in lawful self-defence.
3.-1. A judge who, in pursuance of his duty, pronounces sentence of
death, is not guilty of homicide; for it is evident, that as the law
prescribes the punishment of death for certain offences, it must protect
those who are entrusted with its execution. A judge, therefore, who
pronounces sentence of death, in a legal manner, on a legal indictment,
legally brought before him, for a capital offence committed within his
jurisdiction, after a lawful trial and conviction, of the defendant, is
guilty of no offence.
4.-2. Magistrates, or other officers entrusted with the preservation
of the public peace, are justified in committing homicide, or giving orders
which lead to it, if the excesses of a riotous assembly cannot be otherwise
be repressed.
5-2. An officer entrusted with a legal warrant, criminal or civil,
and lawfully commanded by a competent tribunal to execute it, will be
justified in committing homicide, if, in the course of advancing to
discharge his duty, he be brought into such perils that, without doing so,
he cannot either save his life, or discharge the duty which he is commanded
by the warrant to perform. And when the warrant commands him to put a
criminal to death, he is justified in obeying it.
6.-3. A soldier on duty is justified in committing homicide, in
obedience to the command of his officer, unless the command was something
plainly unlawful.
7.-4. A private individual will, in many cases, be justified in
committing homicide, while acting in self-defence. See Self-defence. Vide,
generally, 1 East, P. C. 219; Hawk. B. 1, c. 28, s. 1, n. 22; Alis. Prin.
126-139; 1 Russ. on Cr. 538; Bac. Ab. Murder, &c., E; 2 Wash. C. C. 515; 4
Mass. 891; 1 Hawk's R. 210; 1 Coxe's R. 424; 5 Yerg. 459; 9 C. & P. 22; S. C.
38 Eng. C. L. R. 20.