"Requirements for Necessity Defense" - Justifiable injury or killing of abortionists, accomplices and those within zone of activity; damage or destruction of procured abortion related and other adjacent properties; homes, automobiles, etc. of abortionists, accomplices, etc.

U. S. District Judge Roger Vinson listed the following four elements that the law would require to allow the use of necessity defense arguments in court. Judge Vinson also suggested possible arguments, in quotations, that could be used in regard to each point.

1. A defendant was faced with a choice of evils and chose the lesser evil.

"The test for necessity requires that the defendant faced with a choice of evils choose the lesser evil; it does not require that the evil perceived must be illegal under the law."

2. A defendant reasonably anticipated a cause-and-effect relationship between his conduct and the harm avoided.

"It is possible to hold a reasonable belief that injuring or interfering with abortion providers will prevent at least one or some abortions from occurring. The fact that the number of medical doctors willing to perform abortions continues to decline makes the causal connection even stronger."

3. A defendant acted to prevent imminent harm.

"To many persons opposed to an abortion, an abortion represents the intentional taking of a human life and preventing an abortion is thus seen by them as equivalent to preventing a murder."

4. There were no legal alternatives to violating the law.

Vinson referred to an appellate court's decision that abortion protesters have legal alternatives, such as marching or distributing literature. "But a lurking question may remain as to whether such legal alternatives are viable alternatives to the perceived imminent harm."

"... As a general proposition, evidence that a defendant exhausted all available legal alternatives, and that such alternatives as a class had been futile over a long period, might be sufficient to allow a defendant to present his necessity defense to a jury."

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The above four elements were also stated in at least approximately the same form at a preliminary hearing to the murder trial of Paul Jennings Hill in the Escambia County Circuit Court presided over by Judge Frank L. Bell. The prosecuting attorney presented only weak arguments for the State of Florida. Paul Hill, acting as his own counsel, was either not prepared to respond or did not understand the importance of responding to these conditions for the necessity defense. Mentally he was probably relying upon a brief that had been prepared for him by lawyers who had not been allowed to act as his co-counsels because they were both from out-of-state. The legal brief, which had been presented in a timely fashion by Paul Hill, apparently had not even been read by either Judge Bell or the prosecuting attorney. The brief was neither referred to nor responded to. The brief clearly established the appropriateness of the necessity defense -- in this case justifiable homicide -- according to Florida state law. The attitude of both judge Bell and the prosecuting attorneys clearly indicated at this point that Paul Hill was going to be convicted, no matter what!

Commentary:

The following responses being herein proposed could have been made to the above mentioned four elements required for the use of the necessity defense.

1. Clearly the lives of a known practicing murderer (abortionist, i.e., a guilty person) and accomplices have no value to God or man when placed in comparison to the multiple innocent lives he is expected to terminate (murder) in the near future. In view of the command of God to Noah (GN 9:6) the taking of the life of an abortionist, etc. is clearly not to be seen as an evil, but as a good. Laws made by civil governments in opposition to sound reasoning and God's will, i.e., legal but immoral slavery of 19th century America; the holocaust perpetrated on 16 million people by the lawful German government before and during the Second World War; bombing of Pearl Harbor by the legal Japanese government; etc., are not to be allowed as an excuse for mass murder or other moral and social evils. It should be understood that the violence which takes place in the womb is the worst possible type of violence and has the greatest long term effect upon society as a whole.

Anarchy should be understood as the destruction of a just government or the opposition to sound law, i.e., just law. Anarchy should not be seen to be a part of the actions of God fearing people who deem it important to protect innocent human beings at all stages of life. Further, the defense of innocent human beings cannot be deemed as vengeance when there is no personal relationship involved when protecting ones innocent neighbor in the womb. Personal anger is also absent in this real but in a sense abstract protection of unseen persons.

2. The justifiable cause for an abortionists death is the prevention of numerous deaths he is intending to bring about. The effect of saving countless innocent human lives far outweighs the loss of numerous guilty lives and their protectors, particularly when considered in relationship to eternal values.

Social impact studies, only now beginning to be made available from competent researchers, psychiatrists, psychologists, etc., have not yet had a real influence upon society and law. These studies will eventually prove the long term harm of abortion upon the mother, family, and society. The total monetary cost and more importantly the degrading of the value of human life is only beginning to be understood through such studies.

Because of our interwoven society in regard to those opposed to and in favor of procured abortion there is almost no possibility of insurrection or civil war ever escalating to the point where over 40 million born American citizens would be killed. Before the time such a war, if ever commenced, killed this great a number of people there would be no abortionists left for it to remain a public issue. Surgically induced abortions would not be available by reason of attrition of those willing to perform abortions or produce the chemical or mechanical means to induce abortion. Note: If chemically and mechanically induced abortions were to be added to the number of surgical abortions being done, the number would be increased by a factor of ten according to an organization called pharmacists for life.

3. Both sound religious teachings and natural science -- which cannot disagree as they have the same source, God -- agree that all of the elements of full humanity are present at the moment of conception. Scientifically this can be determined from the ability to implant a fertilized ovum in a surrogate mother without transferring any of the genetic structure, etc. of the surrogate mother to the child. To terminate an abortionist (guilty person) or an accomplice prevents imminent harm to one or more innocent human beings (preborn babies).

4. Because federal law immorally allows procured abortion and even mandates protection of criminal abortionists and facilities, there are no legal alternatives immediately available to save the lives of innocent human beings about to be imminently cruelly destroyed. After over twenty years of trying to use legal methods, to stop procured abortion (with the destruction of over thirty million innocent human beings), it can be said, even from a myopic point of view, that civil procedures and other alternatives have proven to be of no avail. Truly such attempts should be seen as foolish considering that each day in this country alone over four thousand ousand innocent human babies are being slaughtered for reasons of selfishness and/or personal gain.

Jury Nullification

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