Cage Without Bars

When we feel threatened, we give free rein to our governments to hunt down and take the lives of those who would harm us. Unreservedly, we issue licenses to kill to our soldiers, to our antiterrorists, to our state and municipal police forces if we believe ourselves to be in danger. Yet, in many areas of North America and countries throughout the world, courts will imprison a man or woman who apprehend and kill an aggressive intruder in their house at night. Can premeditated homicide within the family home ever be justified? Can we envision circumstances in which the perpetrator had no choice?

California criminal attorney Forrest Spencer, a man who abhors violence, struggles to convince a jury that Lucy Jackson had no choice but to kill her husband, a battle that, in all probability, he must lose.