The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 13: I Had No Choice!
Necessity pg 10: There’s No Chutzpah Defense
Dylan sincerely (and correctly) believed there was an immediate danger; destroying the one home was less harm than letting the rest burn down; and there wasn’t a less harmful alternative.
Dylan’s proud of himself, the family grieves for the loss of their home.
DYLAN
So I’m justified, right?
No, you’re going to jail.
DYLAN
For burning down my own house, maybe—but surely not for knocking down my neighbor’s house to save everyone else’s!
Why can’t I claim necessity?
Because the Necessity defense doesn’t apply if you’re the one who caused the emergency in the first place.
Average Joe and Dylan talking heads
AVERAGE JOE
There’s no such thing as a chutzpah defense.
DYLAN
Damn.
Doesn’t that incentivize Dylan to do nothing, instead of helping protect people from his little fire gone out of control?
It stops him from being guilty of burning down the other five houses.
Now he’s only guilty of destroying his own, the one he forced Harry to demolish to save others (self defense), and the one he blew up himself.
Is Dylan on the hook for the house Harry demolished? Harry’s demolition was not *objectively* necessary to stop the fire from spreading; Harry only demolished it due to a mistake of fact.
It is meant to disincentivize causing the problem in the first place, I believe.
He’s committing intentional arson of his own house, and reckless arson of his neighbours houses.
It could perhaps provide an opportunity for leniency, but it would be measured against the recklessness that caused it in the first place, so not really.
On the other hand, consider a scenario where you build a campfire and it -accidentally- spreads, causing a fire that would eventually spread to someones house – if you do some damage to his/her property that saves the house… Then it could possibly be considered a factor. Maybe even enough that they’d let you off entirely.
A lawyer could give better insights on it.
(sorry, reposting this as a reply where it should have gone)
I’m not a lawyer, but I assume that one way or the other, that house was going down, and it was going to be Dylan’s fault (either he blew it up or let it burn). His sentence may actually be less because he doesn’t get charged for the property damage to the rest of the houses further down the road, but because of the fire he started, the house he blew up was destroyed, so that one, at least, still counts against him. He just destroyed two houses instead of ten.
Also, we already had a lesson which involved trying to fix things when you realize that you shouldn’ta done what you done did do.
Strictly speaking, he’s on the hook for three houses – his own, the one he destroyed for the firebreak, and the one Harry had to destroy to save everyone else’s.
I’m not a lawyer, but I assume that one way or the other, that house was going down, and it was going to be Dylan’s fault (either he blew it up or let it burn). His sentence may actually be less because he doesn’t get charged for the property damage to the rest of the houses further down the road, but because of the fire he started, the house he blew up was destroyed, so it still counts against him. He just destroyed two houses instead of ten.
Sorry, this should have been a reply to the comment above. Reposting it there.