Homicide is also justifiable when ne cessary for preventing the perpetration of any felony attempted to be committed by violence or surprise against person, habitation, or property ; and where one, in defence of moveable property in his lawful possession, using no more force than is necessary for the defence of such property against wrong, happens to kill the assailant ; or being, from the violence of the assailant, under a reasonable and bond fide apprehension that he cannot otherwise both defend his property and preserve his life, kills the assailant; also where one in lawful possession of house or land, after requesting another, who has no right to be there, to depart, is resisted, and using no more force than is necessary to remove such wrong-doer and retain his possession, happens to kill such wrong doer ; or being, from the violence with which such wrong-doer endeavours to de prive him of possession, under reasonable and bond fide apprehension that he cannot otherwise both maintain possession and preserve his life, kills such wrong-doer.
Homicide is excusable, when a man is involuntarily placed in such a situation that he is under the necessity of killing another in order to save his own life • ae where, in a shipwreck, A pushes B from a plank which can save one only.
Homicide is not criminal when it occurs in the practice of any lawful sport or exercise with weapons not of a deadly nature, and without intent to do bodily harm, and where no unfair advantage is intended or taken. But it amounts to manslaughter where weapons are used the use of which is attended with probable danger; or where, in case of friendly contest, without the use of such weapons, death results from any unfair advantage taken, either as regards the nature of the instrument, the mode of using it, the want of due warning given previously to violence used, or from any want of due caution.
The statute of 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, § 3, enacts, that every person convicted of murder or of being accessory before the fact to murder shall suffer death ; and that every accessory after the fact to murder shall be liable, at the discretion of the court, to be transported for life, or to be imprisoned, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding four years. By an act passed in 1752 (25 Geo. II. c. 37) the bodies of persons executed for murder were directed to be delivered to surgeons to be dissected, or to be hanged in chains. [ANATOMY Aar.] The 2 & 3 Wm. IV. c. 75, required that such persons should be hung in chains, or buried within the precincts of the prison. The 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 36, § 1, has taken away one part of the alter native, and the mode of burial is the only circumstance which distinguishes sen tence upon a conviction for murder from those pronounced in other capital cases. Formerly the murder of a bishop, abbot, or prior, by a person owing him canoni cal obedience, of a master or mistress by a servant, or of a husband by his wife, was denominated petty treason, and punished with greater severity than other murders. The party was drawn to the place of execution ; and if the offender was a woman, burning was, as in the case of high treason, substituted for hanging ; but by the 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, § 2, petty treason is treated as murder only.
The offence of manslaughter is punish able with transportation for life, or fot not less than seven years, or with im prisonment with or without hard labour, not exceeding four years, with fine, by 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, i 9. (Foster ; East ; Fourth Report of Criminal-Lam Com missioners.) [Law, CRIMINAL.j