AJ 4 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Jury Instructions, Ant-Zen, Antipsychotic
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30 Dec 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
Jeff Koo
AJ 4
Criminal Law
Fall 2018
4 Units
● Necessity & Duress
○ Affirmative defenses
○ Require preliminary showing to get the jury instruction
○ Necessity
■ 1 – you cannot be the first aggressor, you cannot have created the harm
that causes the necessity, you cannot be responsible for putting yourself in
the sitch
■ 2 – there must be no other reasonable alternative
■ 3 – there must be an imminent threat
■ 4 – the defendant must choose the lesser of the two evils
■ CAVEAT
● Necessity is rarely going to work for property
● Necessity is not a defense to murder – queen v Dudley
● You cant value your life over someone elses life – there is no
lesser of two evils, theyre equal
■ Necessity Elements – when present, no crime occurred:
● Act must have been done to prevent a significant evil;
● There must have been no adequate alternative;
● The harm caused must not have been disproportionate to the hard
avoided;
○ Typically arises when nature causes some situation;
■ Nelson v. State (38) – insufficient circumstances to warrant
stealing/damaging large equipment, seeing as Ds car wasn’t actually in
danger;
■ Queen v. Dudley & Stevens (38) – lost-at-sea men who kill boy are not
■ stealing car to save sister hypo –
■ sister charged as accomplice
■ mere presence plus knowledge is not an accomplice
○ DURESS
■ Imminent threat of harm
■ Serious threat of bodily harm
● Theres a well grounded fear that its imminent and it will be carried
out and there is NO opportunity to escape
■ Cannot use duress as a complete defense to murder
■ Don’t value property as much as people and human lives
■ Duress Elements:
● Immediate threat of death/serious bodily harm;
● Well-grounded fear that the threat will be carried out;
● No reasonable opportunity to escape;