Subj: Justification and Excuse -- Self-Defense
(d) Imminence of Attack. Case law and legislation concerning self-defense require that the defendant reasonably believe his adversary's unlawful violence to be almost immediately forthcoming. Most of the modern codes require that the defendant reasonably perceive an "imminent" use of force, although other language making the same point is sometimes to be found. Very few of the self-defense provisions in the modern codes fail to address this point explicitly.As a general matter, the requirement that the attack reasonably appear to be imminent is a sensible one. If the threatened violence is scheduled to arrive in the more distant future, there may be avenues open to the defendant to prevent it other than to kill or injure the prospective attacker; but this is not so where the attack is imminent. But the application of this requirement in some contexts has been questioned. "Suppose A kidnaps and confines D with the announced intention of killing him one week later. D has an opportunity to kill A and escape each morning as A brings him his daily ration. Taken literally, the imminent requirement would prevent D from using deadly force in self-defense until A is standing over him with a knife, but that outcome seems inappropriate. * * * The proper inquiry is not the immediacy of the threat but the immediacy of the response necessary in defense. If a threatened harm is such that it cannot be avoided if the intended victim waits until the last moment, the principle of self-defense must permit him to act earlier -- as early as is required to defend himself effectively."
However, the question of whether there I should be an imminence-of-attack requirement and, if so, how it should be characterized, is most dramatically presented in the context of a homicide by a battered wife. It sometimes occurs that a wife who has repeatedly been subjected to serious bodily harm by her husband will take his life on a particular occasion when there was not, strictly speaking, any immediate threat of repetition of the husband's conduct, though the wife knew with virtual certainty that more severe beatings were in the offing. Such a state of affairs often comes about, experts have testified, because of what is known as the "battered woman syndrome" : "a man physically and psychologically abuses a wife or loved one, gains her foregiveness, seeks her love and reconciliation and then repeats the cycle over and over so many times that the woman, at all times hoping the relationship will last, is reduced to a state of learned helplessness." Some have argued that the "battered wife thus is literally faced with the dilemma of either waiting for her husband to kill her or striking out at him first," and that consequently the "imminency" requirement should be abolished or loosely construed so that on such facts the battered wife's self-defense claim will prevail. Others just as fervently contend that the battered wife case shows just how essential the "imminency" requirement really is, as especially in such circumstances the law must encourage resort to alternatives other than the taking of human life.
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-200.html#NRS200Sec200
NRS 200.200 Killing in self-defense. If a person kills another in self-defense, it must appear that:
1. The danger was so urgent and pressing that, in order to save his own life, or to prevent his receiving great bodily harm, the killing of the other was absolutely necessary; and
2. The person killed was the assailant, or that the slayer had really, and in good faith, endeavored to decline any further struggle before the mortal blow was given.
[1911 C&P § 137; RL § 6402; NCL § 10084]
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NRS 200.275 Justifiable infliction or threat of bodily injury not punishable. In addition to any other circumstances recognized as justification at common law, the infliction or threat of bodily injury is justifiable, and does not constitute mayhem, battery or assault, if done under circumstances which would justify homicide.
(Added to NRS by 1983, 519)
NRS 200.120 “Justifiable homicide” defined. Justifiable homicide is the killing of a human being in necessary self-defense, or in defense of habitation, property or person, against one who manifestly intends, or endeavors, by violence or surprise, to commit a felony, or against any person or persons who manifestly intend and endeavor, in a violent, riotous, tumultuous or surreptitious manner, to enter the habitation of another for the purpose of assaulting or offering personal violence to any person dwelling or being therein. [1911 C&P § 129; RL § 6394; NCL § 10076]—(NRS A 1983, 518)
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NRS 200.130 Bare fear insufficient to justify killing; reasonable fear required. A bare fear of any of the offenses mentioned in NRS 200.120, to prevent which the homicide is alleged to have been committed, shall not be sufficient to justify the killing. It must appear that the circumstances were sufficient to excite the fears of a reasonable person, and that the party killing really acted under the influence of those fears and not in a spirit of revenge.
[1911 C&P § 130; RL § 6395; NCL § 10077]
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My apologies for my last post. I thought you were responding on one of the Bosnia threads, where I constantly get self-defense arguments to justify Bosnian anti-Muslim genocide.
I screwed up; you have my deepest apologies.
(Yes, I will acknowledge when I effed up, when called for!)