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Racism, Unreasonable Belief, And Bernhard Goetz, Stephen P. Garvey
Racism, Unreasonable Belief, And Bernhard Goetz, Stephen P. Garvey
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
How should the law respond when one person (D) kills another person (V), who is black, because D believes that V is about to kill him, but D would not have so believed if V had been white? Should D be exonerated on grounds of self-defense? The canonical case raising this question is People v. Goetz. Some commentators argue that norms of equal treatment and anti-discrimination require that D’s claim of self-defense be rejected. I argue that denying D’s claim of self-defense would be at odds with the principle that criminal liability should only be imposed on an actor if …