Necessity Defense Quotes

The troops are therefore empowered and are in duty bound in this war to use without mitigation even against women and children any means that will lead to success.

What is and isn't justified by military necessity is, naturally, open to interpretation. One of the key concepts, though, is the law of proportionality. A military attack that results in civilian casualties - 'collateral damage' - is acceptable as long as the military benefits outweigh the price that is paid by humanity.

To defeat evil, we may have to traffic in evils: indefinite detention of suspects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war.

If a man by the terror of present death, be compelled to do a fact against the Law, he is totally Excused; because no Law can oblige a man to abandon his own preservation.

Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy.

If my children were hungry I should think I would steal to feed them.

To state that lethal force should not be used without a proper legal justification is to state the obvious.

It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need

Doesn't the fight for survival also justify swindle and theft? In self defence, anything goes.

At what point is someone precluded from availing themselves of the justification of self-defense because of their own poor judgment or bad behavior?

There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.

Finally, with regard to actions manifestly bad or criminal, to which a person is forced through fear of some great evil, and especially death; we must lay down as a general rule, that the unhappy circumstances, under which a person labors, may indeed diminish the crime of a man unequal to this trial, who commits a bad action in spite of himself, and against his own inward conviction, yet the action remains intrinsically vicious, and worthy of censure; wherefore it may be, and actually is imputed, unless the exception of necessity can be alleged in the person's favor.

On great occasions every good officer must be ready to risk himself in going beyond the strict line of the law, when the public preservation requires it; his motives will be a justification.

Necessity may render a doubtful act innocent, but it cannot make it praiseworthy