Talk:Justifiable homicide
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In the article it is not stated to what country it refers. Laws and jurisprudence vary from country to country.
It's also one very long paragraph.
"The circumstances under which homicide is justified are usually considered to be that the victim was clearly likely to kill an innocent if the defendant did not kill them."
Changing this, I don't see how the victim of the potential killer has to be innocent of anything for the killing of the potential killer to be justified, and if this is relevant, innocent of what? --Teeks 18:27, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- I think that statement might be trying to clarify that, for example, a robber is not justified in shooting a police officer that points a gun at them. Regardless of what it's trying to say, it's too unclear. --67.165.6.76 (talk) 03:45, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] Material removed for clarification
"A homicide performed out of vengeance, or retribution for action in the past would generally not be considered justifiable, although in some cases such a crime is classed as being justifiable due to the impossibility of finding a jury who would convict under the case's circumstances."
- So the law in the U.S. is that a DA or trial judge may decide that a homicide is justifiable without having to wait for a jury to be convened?
- Just passing through... It's more of a procedural thing. A prosecutor can always choose to just not prosecute or the police can choose to not arrest. What happens heavily depends on the area. In Florida for example, authorities will generally give wide lattitude if the person who got shot was comitting a violent crime at the time because they know that local juries wont generally care if a rapist or robber was shot while attacking or fleeing. But it might be a very different story in say, Chicago where attitudes differ (both in government and in juries). Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
- I think the point is tho, it's not a justifiable homicide. It's an unjustifiable homicide which is not prosecuted because DA's aren't enforcing the law and/or because they know the jury will ignore the law and not convict Nil Einne 02:15, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
- Just passing through... It's more of a procedural thing. A prosecutor can always choose to just not prosecute or the police can choose to not arrest. What happens heavily depends on the area. In Florida for example, authorities will generally give wide lattitude if the person who got shot was comitting a violent crime at the time because they know that local juries wont generally care if a rapist or robber was shot while attacking or fleeing. But it might be a very different story in say, Chicago where attitudes differ (both in government and in juries). Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
"In cases of self-defense, the defendant should generally obey a duty to retreat if it is possible to do so (except from one's home or place of business), or it is not justifiable (in the states of Florida and Louisiana, there is no duty to retreat)."
- I think this is ambiguous. Does the "it" mean that the use of force is not justifiable, or that, in the event that a death is caused, what would otherwise have been a justifiable use of force does not make the homicide justifiable?
- Me again... The original statement is very much in error. "Duty to retreat" is a minority viewpoint in the US. Although few states have statutes that explicitly state there is no duty, most states have arrived at this result through common law. I'm currently working on a survey of law in this field. Also, whether death occurs or not is irrelevant. Deadly force is deadly force regardless of whether or not it succeeds. Ironically, you are thus more likely to get in trouble for intentionally wounding someone with a gun than killing them, since the intentional wounding implies that they werent doing something that would justify the use of deadly force. Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
"Justifiable homicides are always initially assumed to be criminal until the evidence warrants a change, as justifiable homicide is one of the most common defenses for homicides both justified and criminal."
- If the homicides were justifiable, they would actually not be criminal at all. What evidence would change this interpretation? And how can justifiable homicide be a defence to homicides "both justified and criminal"?
- There are other redundancies and circumlocutions which I have not bothered to remove, but the whole section should be revised by someone with real understanding of the law. David91 08:58, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
- I'd love to, but there are dozens of pages on this subject and I am busy with law school. I am generally accumulating material on stand your ground laws at the moment, so I'll try and contribute more this semester when things are slow.Beerslurpy 11:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Wikified Links
I'm not sure if this is because of my computer, but why are all the Wikified links on this page red instead of the usual blue (purple if visited)? All the other pages on Wikipedia have links that are blue/purple except for this one as far as I can tell. Pouchkidium 07:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, I'm getting the same here. Don't know what's wrong. Bigmike1020 03:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Abortion issue
Some argue that termination of pregnancy is homicide of the fetus. Abortion is variously justified using a doctrine of necessity to safeguard the health of the mother or, more generally, utilitarianism.
Ignoring for the moment the "some argue" weasel words: Since this is a legal article, perhaps we should note that in most jurisdictions in which abortion is legal, a fetus is not recognized as a legally distinct person and thus cannot be murdered in the legal sense. In the US the Unborn Victims of Violence Act seems to have changed this (though I'm not sure that this has been tested in court, as I believe Roe v. Wade explicitly said that a fetus is not a person). Still, I'm betting that this is the case in most jurisdictions where abortion is legal. --Jfruh (talk) 21:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] undeclared war
"Thus, if there is no formal declaration of war or the casus belli is not legitimate, all those who engage in the fighting and kill combatants could theoretically be prosecuted"
As many people who were anti-Vietnam believe the the war was unjust. According to this statement the war was in fact murder. But with that it raises the question of, because of the draft, were the soldiers that "murdered" in the war actually murdering or were they under duress(forced to usually by threat)However, there is no doubt that no prosecutor could win a case that large against the US Government. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.49.38 (talk) 02:31, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] References Missing
This article has no references at all. It's almost original research. I'm surprised it's not tagged yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.127.16.34 (talk) 05:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
