The victim was the leader of a cult and the defendant was a member of that cult. For 30 consecutive days, the victim preached a sermon in which he proclaimed that he had the power to call lightning down from the heavens to strike down followers whom he considered to be sinners. The defendant believed he had this power. One day, the victim saw the defendant’s 6-year-old daughter take a tomato from the vine in the garden. The victim summoned the defendant and the defendant’s daughter before him and proclaimed that he was about to strike the daughter with lightning for her misdeed. The defendant took a knife and stabbed the victim killing him.
If charged with a homicide crime, the defendant’s defense of defense of others will:
A. Not be sustained, because his daughter was not in fact threatened.
B. Not be sustained, because the defendant’s belief that his daughter was in danger was not reasonable.
C. Be sustained, because he actually believed his daughter was in danger.
D. Be sustained, because reflection is not required when there is an imminent threat of death to others.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
@BS – this is the bar exam and thus very far from reality!
Answer B is correct. A person is justified in using deadly force in defense of another only if that person has an honest and reasonable belief that the other person is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. The defendant’s cult membership tends to show the sincerity of his belief that his daughter was in danger, but a reasonable person in this situation would not have believed that his daughter was in any danger from the victim’s alleged power to invoke divine intervention. Therefore, the defendant does not have the defense of defense of another to the homicide crime.
Answer A is incorrect. The other person need not in fact be threatened, but the person who comes to her defense must honestly and reasonably believe that the victim had a right to self-defense. Therefore, the fact that the daughter was not in fact threatened is not dispositive.
Answer C is incorrect. The defendant’s cult membership tends to show the sincerity of his belief that his daughter was in danger, but does nothing to show that this belief would have been held by a reasonable person. An actual belief in the danger is not enough; the belief must be reasonable. Since this belief was not reasonable, the defense is not valid in these circumstances.
Answer D is incorrect. Since this belief was not reasonable, the defendant’s defense of defense of another will not succeed. Moreover, the theory that reflection is not required when there is an imminent threat of death to others is irrelevant. The issue is whether it was reasonable to believe that the danger was imminent. There was in fact no imminent danger of harm in this case.
B. for the defense of others defense, the belief is unreasonable. Obviously, a diminished capacity, insanity, or automatism may work better, but not defense of others.
There are a lot of people in the United States who believe in god and jesus christ and miracles and a whole lot of other crazy religious stuff. They can be seen carrying bibles and going into temples and churches.
Most of the US presidents could be seen at one time or another coming from churches carrying bibles and claiming that they believe the crazy stuff that is written in those books. Their beliefs are no less reasonable than the defendant’s.
Therefore, if I were on the jury, I would find him not guilty of murder.
It doesn’t matter anyway; any decent defense attorney will get manslaughter for this guy.
B – I love this question. So ridiculous. Defense of others with deadly force can be asserted when a person honestly and reasonably believes the person they are defending will be met with deadly force. Unless there is a provision which mitigates the ‘reasonably’ standard from this being that he is defending his child, the answer is B.
Answer B
b
I like B.