As defenses, justifications claim a kind of moral high ground. Justifications may be offered by people who find themselves forced to choose between "two evils

Question

" Generally speaking, conduct that a person believes is necessary to avoid harm to him or to another is justifiable if the harm he is trying to avoid is greater than the harm the law defining the offense seeks to avoid. Define and comment on three of the six categories that are applicable to this defense. Analyze their good and bad points.

Answer 1

Self-defense is the protection of oneself or of one's property from unlawful injury or from the immediate risk of unlawful injury; also, the justification that the person who committed an act that would otherwise constitute an offense reasonably believed that the act was necessary to protect self or property from immediate danger.
The defense of others, sometimes called defense of a third person, is circumscribed in some jurisdictions by the alter ego rule. The alter ego rule holds that a person can defend a third party only under circumstances and only to the degree that the third party could act.
Defense of home and property:In most jurisdictions, the owner of property can justifiably use reasonable, nondeadly force to prevent others from unlawfully taking or damaging it. As a general rule, the preservation of human life outweighs the protection of property, and the use of deadly force to protect property is not justified unless the perpetrator of the illegal act may intend to commit, or is in the act of committing, a violent act against another human being.
Necessity is the claim that some illegal action was needed to prevent an even greater harm.
Consent:Whatever harm was done occurred only after the injured person gave his or her permission for the behavior in question.
Resisting unlawful arrest as a defense is inapplicable in cases where the defendant is the first to resort to force. Deadly force to resist arrest is never justified unless the law enforcement officer resorts to deadly force when it is not called for.