The threat by the aggressor must be immediate. Second, the use of self-defense is limited to imminent harm. If the aggressor lightly punches the victim in the arm, for example, the victim cannot use deadly force in response. To determine whether this standard is met, the law looks at five central concepts.įirst, the use of force must be proportionate to the force employed by the aggressor. This is the standard that every state uses to define self-defense. The law of self-defense holds that a person who is not the aggressor is justified in using deadly force against an adversary when he reasonably believes that he is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury. Photo by Mark Hertzberg-Pool/Getty Images Five elements of self-defenseĪs a professor of criminal law, I teach my students that the law of self-defense in America proceeds from an important concept: Human life is sacred, and the law will justify the taking of human life only in narrowly defined circumstances. Kyle Rittenhouse testifies during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse in Wisconsin on charges in the shootings of three people, two of them fatally. You cannot claim self-defense against a danger you create.” In delivering its verdict, a Wisconsin jury decided that Rittenhouse’s conduct was justified, even though the prosecution argued that he provoked the violent encounter and, therefore, should not be able to find refuge in the self-defense doctrine.Īs prosecutor Thomas Binger said in his closing argument: “When the defendant provokes this incident, he loses the right to self-defense. The lakeside city of 100,000 was the scene of chaotic demonstrations after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The Wisconsin jury believed Rittenhouse’s claims that he feared for his life and acted in self-defense after he drove about 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois – picking up an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in Kenosha – in what he claimed was an effort to protect property during violent protests. In a two-week trial that reignited debate over self-defense laws across the nation, a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting three people, two fatally, during a racial justice protest in Kenosha.
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