EXCUSE. A reason alleged for the doing or not doing a thing.
2. This word presents two ideas, differing essen tially from each other. In one case an excuse may be made in order to show that the party accused is not guilty; in another, by showing that though guilty he is lees so than he appears to be. Take, for example, the ease of a sheriff who has an exe cution against an individual, and who, in perform ance of his duty, arrests him : in an action by the defendant against the sheriff, the latter may prove the facts, and this ehall be a sufficient excuse for him : this is an excuse of the first kind, or a complete jus tification ; the sheriff was guilty of no offence. But suppose, secondly, that the el.eriff has an execu tion against Paul, and by mistake, and without any malicious design, he arrests Peter instead of Paul: the fact of his having the execution against Paul and the mistake being made will not justify the sheriff, but it will extenuate and excuse his con duct, and this will be an excuse of the second kind.
3. Persons are sometimes excused for the com mission of acts which ordinarily are crimes, either because they had no intention of doing wrong, or because they had no power of judging, and there fore had no criminal will, or, having power of judging, they bad no choice, and were compelled by necessity. Among the first class may to placed infants under the age of discretion, lunatics, and married women committing an oflence in the pre sence of their husbands not malum in Be, as trea son or murder, 1 Hale, Pl. Cr. 44, 45; or in offences relating to the domestic concern or man agement of the house, as the keeping of a bawdy house. Hawkins, Pl. Cr. b. 1, c. 1, a. 12. Among acts of the second kind may he classed the heating or killing another in self-defence, the destruction of property in order to prevent a more serious cala mity, as the tearing down of a house on fire to prevent its spreading to the neighboring property, and the like. See Dalloz, Diet.