Starr v. United States

Citations

• 153 U.S. 614
• 14 S. Ct. 919
• 38 L. Ed. 841
• 1894 U.S. LEXIS 2209

Syllabus

<p>A warrant issued by a commissioner of a court of the United States is riot void for the want of a seal, the commissioner having no seal, and riot being required by statute to affix one to warrants issued by him. ■</p> <p>The same result is reached under the laws of Arkansas, which prescribed the form of warrant as attested underhand, but not under seal.</p> <p>The settled rule that where a person having authority to arrest, and using the proper means for that purpose is resisted, he can repel force with force, and, if the party making the resistance is unavoidably killed, the homicide is justifiable, may be invoked by a person who resists and kills the officer if he was ignorant of the fact that he was an officer; and, when such a defence is set up to an indictment for murder, it is error to charge the jury that, if the threatening or violent conduct of the prisoner prevented the officer from giving notice of his official character, he would not be required to give notice.</p> <p>The possession of a conscience void of offence towards God and man is not an indispensable prerequisite to justification of action in the face of imminent and deadly peril, nor does the intrinsic rightfulness of the occupation or situation of a party, having in itself no bearing upon or connection with an assault, impose a limitation upon the right to repel it.</p> <p>The motive of a person, accused of murdering an officer trying to arrest him, in being where he was at the time of the killing, has nothing to do with the question of his right of selfrdefence in itself, and his previous unlawful conduct should form no element in the solution of that question, except as it throws light on his belief that his arrest was sought by the officer.</p> <p>While it is well settled in Federal courts that the presiding Judge may sum up the facts to the jury, and express an opinion upon them, he should take care to separate the law from the facts, and leave the latter in unequivocal terms to the judgm