Duress pg 1

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Nathan

The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 14: Do or Die
Necessity pg 1: The Golden Horde

Meet the Golden Horde, a local “outlaw” motorcycle club.

Buncha guys in a biker gang, all shaved bald except for a topknot/ponytail looking thing.

They live for violence, mayhem, and stimulating intellectual debate.

Members of the gang all fighting among themselves, while discussing

BIKER 1 (while getting punched)

Explain again why Schrödinger’s cat is not in superposition?

BIKER 2 (swinging lead pipe)

Because that only works in isolation!

The cat’s environment constantly collapses the cat-box system.

…dumbass.

Transcript

Be sure to share your comments in the Class Participation section below -- that's the best part! Also, you can use the arrows on your keyboard to flip through pages quickly.

Use this link to buy the books, and a portion of the proceeds goes to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Join the conversation! There are now 6 comments on this chapter's page 71. Duress: “Do or Die”. What are your thoughts?

JW says

The fact that they are actually having a stimulating intellectual debate… priceless. I love your thugs.

Reply ↓
Nathan says

Thanks! I love those guys, too. Just don’t say that… you know… out loud. Not in front of them, anyway.

Reply ↓
Murdoc Addams says

I love them too.

Reply ↓
Dane V. says

Nathan, If I may pose a question to you to pick your brain and also to leave a comment.

Bought the book and showed it to a couple of my Under Grad Prof’s they loved it – So I plan on ordering each of them a copy when I graduate.

Secondly we were posed a hypothetical in class today and I immediately thought of your book. In a conspiracy/accomplice liability – lets say someone gets kidnapped and then told at gun point they will be robbing a bank. During that armed robbery an innocent bystander gets shot (and dies). My question is since duress can never be used as a defense against murder – does the kidnapped person have a defense or is he up a creek?

Reply ↓
- WJS says
  in reply to Dane V.
  
  I would expect that, while duress is not accepted as a defense for murder normally, it would be an accepted defense for conspiracy, so you wouldn’t be liable in the first place.
  
  Reply ↓
- Shashakiro says
  in reply to Dane V.
  
  Duress is a complete defense, removing all guilt for the crime. While it doesn’t exist for murder, it does for armed robbery. And if you aren’t guilty of committing a felony, you can’t possibly be guilty of felony murder based on that felony. So I’d guess that in your hypothetical, the defense would work.
  
  Though it does seem like the sort of thing where one could also just say “no, because duress is no defense to any murder charge”. Case law notwithstanding, I think it’s not necessarily a question with a clear-cut answer.
  
  Reply ↓