TRN305Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Arson, High Standard Manufacturing Company, Henry Morgentaler
28 Feb 2018
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These defences can apply even if the act was committed voluntarily and if there was the required mens rea. The main thing to note is that all of these defences result in an acquittal. Another commonality is that all of these defences require a person to act reasonably in response to the pressure at hand. Traditionally, the reasonable person standard was objective (r. v. hill). The idea was that if they are going to be acquittal they have to have been objectively reasonable. This was the case of a woman killing her abusive partner as he left her room. The shooting had occurred after an argument in which he had physically abused her and taunted her, saying that he would kill her. A psychiatrist with extensive experience testi ed in favour o the defence of self-defence: from within her framework, she reasonably perceived that her life was at risk and that she had no way to get away from him.
