Melville Fuller

“ To direct the attention of the jury to the contemplation of the philosophy of the mental operations upon which justification or excuse or mitigation in the taking of human life may be predicated is to hazard the substitution of abstract conceptions for the actual facts of the particular case as they appeared to the defendant at the time. ”

“ And, inasmuch as the question in such cases frequently is not only whether there was actually imminent peril to the slayer's life, but whether he entertained an honest belief to that effect upon reasonable grounds, and also whether the killing was in hot blood, and attributable to the infirmity of human nature, rather than to malice aforethought, the views announced by the learned judge would be applicable to manslaughter as well as excusable homicide, the distinction between which is often extremely close. ”

“ The burden of proving legal capacity, as of other facts necessary to make out the defendant's guilt, was upon the government; and, although the presumption from the defendant's age may have been such as to sustain that burden, yet, as the court charged in relation to the age of accountability, we are not persuaded that the consequences of want of accuracy ought to be assumed to have been harmless. ”

“ The court deemed it its duty to charge upon the question of justifiable homicide, and in doing so to consider and explain two propositions,-one where the danger to life was actual at the time of the killing, and the party could not escape from that danger by the exercise of reasonable means; and the other where the danger might not have really existed at all, but where the appearance of danger was such as would induce a reasonable man to believe that the danger existed. ”

“ And while it is properly argued by counsel for the government that this was not an error injurious to the defendant, because on his own statement he had passed the age of 14, yet we are not altogether satisfied that the result was not prejudicial. Where the question is whether the homicide was or was not done with malice, wrongfully, intentionally, and without just cause or excuse, it would seem proper that the attention of the jury should be called to the youthfulness of the offender, if the circumstances rendered that fact significant ”