The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 13: I Had No Choice!
Necessity pg 12: Objective Test
Becky explaining herself
BECKY
But wait! I really thought that destroying the house wasn’t as bad as losing my car!
It doesn’t matter. We do care what you believed when it comes to the imminence of danger, but when it comes to the lesser of two evils, the law weighs them objectively.
And someone’s home is gonna outweigh your car, no matter how nice your car might be.
Scales weighing a house and a car, the house weighs more, there’s a check mark by the house and an X by the car.
(Also, even if Becky was protecting an orphanage, there’s going to be a question of how immediate the need was to raze the last house on the block, far away from the actual fire.
A jury’s going to have a hard time believing that Becky actually thought the danger was truly imminent.”