The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 11: Excuse Me!
Excuse pg 9: Anybody else would have done the same thing
Now, not every state allows this defense. And even in the ones that do allow it, it’s not a complete defense—all it does is knock a murder charge down to a lesser manslaughter.
Fred boxing with a child’s inflatable clown punching bag
CLOWN BAG
Dude, take some anger management classes, already!
The rationale here is that society doesn’t think it’s as bad as premeditated murder when you kill someone who brought it on himself, someone who did something so outrageous that it would have caused anyone to become so enraged that they would have lost control.
TV and movies aside, however, this defense doesn’t come up all that much in real life.
TV show “Judge Jacob!” is not equal to a real life trial
And when it does, juries rarely go for it. They used to a hundred years ago, but not any more.
Why?
Is it because a 100 years ago, juries were only male property owners, and they’re more likely to think they would have reacted in violence, as opposed to say, an elderly person or a woman, who would think they would not have responded in violence?
I mean, obviously that’s not the only reason, and our culture has shifted away from war and violence in the past century, but I feel like that must be part of it. I mean, no matter how angry I was, I would never kill (or even attack or hit) another person (and I think the majority of women feel the same way), but some men don’t seem to think that way, and do fight to resolve conflicts, and I feel like that mindset in males was even more common and accepted 100 years ago as well.