self-defense, in criminal law, justification for inflicting serious harm on another person on the ground that the harm was inflicted as a means of protecting oneself.
In general, killing is not a criminal act when the killer reasonably believes that he is in imminent danger of losing his life from an assailant or of suffering serious bodily injury and that killing the assailant is necessary to avoid the peril.
The doctrines of self-defense are qualified by the requirements of retreat. An unoffending party subjected to a felonious assault by another may stand his ground and kill when the conditions necessary to lawful self-defense are otherwise satisfied. Some countries, however, require that even in this case the party claiming exculpation must avoid danger by retreat when this can be done without increasing his peril.
When the party has contributed in some measure to the altercation, he is required to make every possible effort to retreat. If he initiated the quarrel by launching a felonious assault, he must wholly withdraw from the altercation and clearly communicate to the other party a purpose to desist from further attack before he can claim the right of self-defense.
The rules relating to the use of deadly force to save a third person from death or serious injury bear an obvious relation to the doctrines of self-defense. In cases in which the party defended is a member of the killer’s household to whom he owes special obligations of protection, homicide is generally excused if the killer reasonably believed the deceased to be an aggressor and the killing to be necessary to save the third person’s life. In some states of the United States and in some European countries, a person can use such force only if the third party would have been privileged to use such force in his own defense.
A person may generally kill to prevent the commission of a violent felony if he reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the felony. And lethal force may sometimes be used to subdue an individual who is escaping from a valid arrest. See also homicide.