Affirmative Defenses

Paper Summary:

This is a paper that goes into the different legal defenses that are brought up in criminal trials. The defenses included in this paper are duress, necessity, infancy, automatism, entrapment, and insanity.

From the Paper:

"A defendant may bring the defense of duress up when being prosecuted for a criminal offense, although not very often successful. There are two points that the defendant has to prove in order for this defense to succeed. The first point of this defense can be interpreted by meaning that the force used by the defendant must have been less then, but not greater then, the force which was used or was going to be used upon him. For example, if a person walked up to you on the street and said he was going to punch you in the face, that would not permit you to take out a gun and shoot him, nor would it permit you to take out a knife and stab him. The defense would be applicable though if you used only as much force necessary to subdue him from punching you. If on the other hand a person walked up to you and said he was going to shoot you, and then pulled out a gun, you could in turn shoot him, and have a valid defense. The second important aspect that the defendant must show is that the threat of force or harm must be imminent, meaning that it was happening right at that moment."

More papers on Affirmative Defenses:

• Term Paper # 147733 : "Criminal Defenses"
• Research Paper # 116997 : "Is Affirmative Action Fair?"
• Essay # 143834 : "The Commission's Moral Defence Of "Affirmative Action”"

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