Dressler’s Criminal Law, Third Edition (Black Letter Outlines) by Joshua Dressler

Author:Joshua Dressler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781634596541
Publisher: West Academic
Published: 2015-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

a. Original (Now Minority) Approach

The original common law rule, followed today in a few jurisdictions, is that a police officer or private citizen is justified in using deadly force upon another if she reasonably believes that: (1) the other person is committing a felony; and (2) deadly force is necessary to prevent commission of the crime. This rule applies to all felonies. As such, this version of the defense is controversial because it can authorize use of force grossly disproportional to the threat caused by the felon.

Example: F is about to steal D’s automobile. Because of the value of the car, this theft constitutes a felony, rather than a misdemeanor. In a jurisdiction applying the original common law rule, D (or a police officer) is justified in killing F if this is the only way to prevent F from taking the car. This is true, even if F does not represent a threat to anyone’s safety (and, thus, self-defense, etc., is not implicated).

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.