Defense
As an excuse defense, the "urban survival syndrome" is presented as a version of the abuse defense. Here an individual experiencing the daily life of racial segregation and violence common in many inner cities in the United States causes a subjective state equivalent to that caused by survival in a violent battleground of war. As such it leads to a condition similar to a syndrome already recognized in both psychological and psychiatric practices, that is, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
As a justification defense, the "urban survival syndrome" is offered to bolster self-defense claims in which a defendant argues that he or she should not be held criminally responsible for actions which broke the law, as the defendant was objectively reasonable in believing his or her lethal actions were necessary for survival. In this case, the act would be termed justifiable homicide. A defense of justification is a codification of the common law defense of necessity.
Read more about this topic: Urban Survival Syndrome
Famous quotes containing the word defense:
“Unlike Boswell, whose Journals record a long and unrewarded search for a self, Johnson possessed a formidable one. His life in London—he arrived twenty-five years earlier than Boswell—turned out to be a long defense of the values of Augustan humanism against the pressures of other possibilities. In contrast to Boswell, Johnson possesses an identity not because he has gone in search of one, but because of his allegiance to a set of assumptions that he regards as objectively true.”
—Jeffrey Hart (b. 1930)
“Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)