Paper Example on Nancy Seaman Self-Defense Case

Introduction

The case of Nancy Seaman is one of premeditated murder whereby the offender is charged with a type of murder that was well planned in advance and undertaken willfully. Even though Nancy Seaman was arrested and charged with murder, she is claiming self-defense. Defendants who admit killing their victim in the assertion of self-defense must provide evidence to the court that the use of deadly force was justifiable under the law. The essay will be examining whether the use of force by Nancy Seaman to her husband in the assertion of self-defense is justifiable based on unlawfulness, necessity, and reasonableness.

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The use of force in self-defense is only acceptable in court as a defense when the defendant used it lawfully, on the basis of necessity and reasonableness. Based on these three grounds, Nancy Seaman's use of force to kill Mr. Seaman was not justifiable since it is unlawful. The law accepts the use of force in self-defense when the defendant used it as a proportionate response. The proportionality principle applies here in the use of force to counteract a threat (Sangero 239). In that case, using force in self-defense must match the threat level in question. A defendant must prove that employing force was necessary to avoid, prevent and do away with the imminent threat. In this case, if the threat entailed the use of deadly force, the defendant can claim that they used similar force in counteracting the threat. If the threat was minor, it is unlawful for the defendant to have used deadly force to counteract the threat.

Looking at Nancy's case, she used deadly force to kill her husband without the husband using the same level of force on her. Based on the evidence presented in court, Nancy used excessive force to kill her husband using a hatchet that she had bought a day earlier. Striking the husbands' head and neck sixteen times using the hatchet is using excessive force. It was not reasonable to use such kind of force to counteract the threat from her husband. Also, it was not necessary to use that kind of force in attacking the husband who only had a knife as the weapon. In this case, the knife was a minor force when compared to a hatchet as the type of force used by Nancy to claim self-defense. Because Nancy used force to cause bodily harm and death of her husband, the claim of self-defense is not justifiable and will fail as a defense in the court.

Conclusion

Other than killing Mr. Seaman by applying deadly force, Nancy had the option of applying the duty to retreat which requires the person claiming for self-defense to have made an attempt of avoiding the violence or the imminent threat (Lawlor 127). It was necessary and reasonable for Nancy to have used this type of non-deadly force in avoiding the threat of harm from her husband. She should have attempted to escape the situation instead of or before making the decision to apply deadly force. Therefore, the claim for self-defense is not reasonable considering that Nancy did not attempt to escape the situation. The fact that the death incident reveals the number of times that Mr. Seaman was struck with a hatchet; it is enough evidence for the court to refute the claim for self-defense by Nancy since the use of force cannot be justified based on the events leading to the case.

Works Cited

Lawlor, Bruce, "When Deadly Force Is Involved: A Look at the Legal Side of Stand Your Ground, Duty to Retreat, and Other Questions of Self-Defense," Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2017.

Sangero, Boaz, "Self-Defense in Criminal Law," Hart Publishing. 2006.