Excuse
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Excuse
The explanation for the performance or nonperformance of a particular act; a reason alleged in court as a basis for exemption or relief from guilt.
An excuse is essentially a defense for an individual's conduct that is intended to mitigate the individual's blameworthiness for a particular act or to explain why the individual acted in a specific manner. A driver sued for Negligence, for example, might raise the defense of excuse if the driver was rushing an injured person to a hospital, or if some unforeseen illness or mechanical failure made safe operation of the vehicle impossible.
EXCUSE. A reason alleged for the doing or not doing a thing. This word
presents two ideas differing essentially from each other. In one case an
excuse may be made in, order to own that the party accused is not guilty; in
another, by showing that though guilty, he is less so, than he appears to
be. Take, for example, the case of a sheriff who has an execution against an
individual, and who in performance of his duty, arrests him; in an action by
the defendant against the sheriff, the latter may prove the facts, and this
shall be a sufficient excuse for him: this is an excuse of the first kind,
or a complete justification; the sheriff was guilty of no offence. But
suppose, secondly, that the sheriff has an execution against Paul, and by
mistake, and without any malicious design, be arrests Peter instead of Paul;
the fact of his having the execution against Paul and the mistake being
made, will not justify the sheriff, but it will extenuate and excuse his
conduct, and this will be an excuse of the second kind.
3. Persons are sometimes excused for the commission of acts, which
ordinarily are crimes, either because they had no intention of doing wrong,
or because they had no power of judging, and therefore had no criminal will
(q.v.); or having power, of judging they had no choice, and were compelled
by necessity. Among the first class may be placed infants under the age of
discretion, lunatics, and married women committing an offence in the
presence of their husbands, not malum in se, as treason or murder; 1 Hale's
P. C. 44, 45 or in offences relating to the domestic concern or management
of the house, as the keeping of a bawdy house. Hawk. b. 1, c. 1, s. 12.
Among acts of the second kind may be classed, the beating or killing another
in self-defence; the destruction of property in order to prevent a more
serious calamity, as the tearing down of a house on fire, to prevent its
spreading to the neighboring property, and the like. See Dalloz, Dict. h.t.