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Intro to Courts: Three Defenses

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An alibi defense is when the accused person will state a claim that it was impossible for them to have committed the alleged crime because they were somewhere else at the time the crime occurred. A very famous example of an alibi defense would be the 1995 criminal trial of the People of the State of California vs. Orenthal James Simpson ( O.J. Simpson murder case). Whereas in his initial defense Mr. Simpson claimed he was at home alone packing before he traveled to Chicago. He even had a witness named Rosa Lopez who claimed she saw his car parked outside his house during the time of the murders. Unfortunately for the defense her testimony was never able to reach the jury because his alibi fell through when Ms. Lopez was cross examined by the prosecutor on videoand could not account for the exact time she saw his car parked outside his home.
A justification defense is when the accused accepts responsibility for the crime they are accused of, but then argues that the act the committed was justified due to the circumstances. This was the reason no charges were filed to Sarah McKinley. On New Year’s Eve 2011, two intruders armed with a 12 inch hunting knife threatened the lives of her and her infant child. She called 911 and before the police arrived at the scene the two men tried to make entry into the house through a barricaded door. With all lesser means exhausted she was forced to defend herself by means of shooting the first intruder as he made his way into the house. Upon the initial review of the case the Assistant District Attorney said that Sarah was acting in self-defense. The second intruder was later charged with first degree murder for acting as an accomplice while his partner committed a violent felony. This case sparked some controversy if the use of deadly force against an intruder should be legal or not.
The third defense type is known as an excuse defense. In an excuse defense, defendants acknowledge that what they did was wrong, but are not responsible for committing the crime due to a number of reasons which can include insanity, diminished capacity, age, duress, intoxication, and entrapment. This defense was used in the case of Daniel Edgar Sickles in 1859. A known politician, diplomat, and soldier, Sickles was charged with the murder of Phillip Barton Key II, when he discovered that Key was having an affair with his wife Teresa. This case was the first case in American history with an excuse type defense in which Sickles claimed he could not be held accountable for killing Key because of the blind rage he was in after discovering his wife’s infidelity. Through a leak of his wife’s confession to the newspapers many people were sympathetic towards Sickles case. Though this brought a lot of controversy to the courtroom, Sickles was eventually acquitted of charges.
1. Larry J. Siegel et al., COURTS AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE IN AMERICA (2011), 4, available at http://media.pearsoncmg.com/pcp/pls_1256321966/013174576X/siegel_ch01.pdf
2. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-03-03/news/9503030300_1_christopher-darden-defense-lawyers-nicole-brown-simpson.
3. , http://www.oklahomalegalgroup.com/news/home-invasion-murder-trial-delayed.
4. , http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/542895/Daniel-Edgar-Sickles.

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