ABSTRACT
Although the members of the jury could not have made themselves clearer, their verdict of justifiable homicide was not only perverse but also inappropriate. Killing is only justifiable when the situation is such that public justice cannot be advanced without it, as sometimes occurs in the arrest of a dangerous criminal, control of a riot or in judicial execution. Where death is incidental to reasonable self-defence the homicide is said to be excusable. In earlier times the law showed lenience to a man who resisted arrest if there was a doubt about the strict legality of a law officer’s action; in their zeal to protect the rights of the citizen, the courts would not be slow to regard such resistance—even if the law officer was killed—as self-defence against a potentially deadly onslaught.
