Necessity
A Dictionary of Law · Henry Campbell Black · 1891
A Dictionary of Law
HOMICIDE BY. Aspe cies of justifiable homicide, because it arises from some unavoidable necessity, without any will, intention, or desire, and without any inadvertence or negligence in the party an office as obliges one, in the execution of public justice, to put a malefactor to death who has forfeited his life to the laws of his country. But thelaw must require it, otherwise it is not justifiable.
4 Bl. Comm. 178,