Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Court of the United States for the First Circuit, 1854-1856, Vol. 2
Third. If it was not a mutual combat, but Johnson made the first attack on Mingo with a deadly weapon, yet if Mingo could reasonably have avoided killing his adversary, without certain and immediate danger of his life, or of great bodily injury, the homicide is not excused as being in self-defence. But in considering whether Mingo could reasonably have avoided killing Johnson, the law does not demand of him the same coolness and the same deliberate exercise of judgment, which you, viewing the circumstances after the event, and being in safety, can and will exercise. It requires him not to avail himself of such an occasion to indulge his passion. He must have acted from a desire to protect his own life, and not from a desire to kill his adversary; and he must have actually believed, at the moment, that the only way to protect himself from certain and immediate danger of his life, or of great bodily harm, was to stab his adversary; and the circumstances must have been such, that you can see that. Mingo might, reasonably, and did actually so believe, at the time he struck the fatal blow. If the circumstances were such as that you can see these things, then you have a right to say, and should say, he acted in self-defence, and is not guilty of man slaughter. The jury found the defendant not guilty.
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