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State (1877), the Indiana court rejected a duty to retreat, saying, [1]: 551–2 [5] "the tendency of the American mind seems to be very strongly against" a duty to retreat. [5] The court went further in saying that no statutory law could require a duty to retreat, because the right to stand one's ground is "founded on the law of nature ; and ...
Even areas that impose a duty to retreat generally follow the "castle doctrine", under which people have no duty to retreat when they are attacked in their homes, or (in some places) in their vehicles or workplaces. The castle doctrine and "stand-your-ground" laws provide legal defenses to persons who have been charged with various use-of-force ...
State v. Abbott, 36 N.J. 63, 174 A.2d 881 (1961), [1] is a landmark case in the American legal doctrine of retreat.In it, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously adopted a duty to retreat—a legal requirement that a threatened person cannot stand one's ground and apply lethal force in self-defense, but must instead retreat to a place of safety. [2]
Brown v. United States, 256 U.S. 335 (1921), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that if a person is attacked, and that person reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily injury, he has no duty to retreat and may stand his ground and, if he kills his attacker, he has not exceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense.
A majority of U.S. jurisdictions do not follow the common law rule that a person must retreat prior to using deadly force, [11] but rather have rejected this theory via statutory law in what are known as "stand your ground laws", which explicitly remove the duty to retreat. [12]
The duty to retreat also does not apply if one is attacked in one's own home. "[A] man faced with the danger of an attack upon his dwelling need not retreat from his home to escape the danger, but instead may stand his ground and, if necessary to repel the attack, may kill the attacker." Crawford v. State, 231 Md. 354, 361, 190 A.2d 538, 541 ...
A castle doctrine, also known as a castle law or a defense of habitation law, is a legal doctrine that designates a person's abode or any legally occupied place (for example, an automobile or a home) as a place in which that person has protections and immunities permitting one, in certain circumstances, to use force (up to and including deadly force) to defend oneself against an intruder, free ...
Erwin v. State, 29 Ohio St. 186, 199 (1876), [1] is a criminal case in which the court rejected the duty to retreat when using deadly force in self-defense. [2]: 551 The court wrote that a faultless "true man" would not retreat.