Justifiable homicide

The concept of justifiable homicide in criminal law is a defense to culpable homicide (criminal or negligent homicide). Generally, there is a burden to produce exculpatory evidence in the legal defense of justification.

In most countries, a homicide is justified when there is sufficient evidence to disprove the alleged criminal act or wrongdoing (under the beyond a reasonable doubt standard for criminal charges, and preponderance of evidence standard for claims of wrongdoing, i.e. civil liability).^{[citation needed]} The key to this legal defense is that it was reasonable for the subject to believe that there was an imminent and otherwise unavoidable danger of death or grave bodily harm to the innocent by the deceased, when they committed the homicide.^{[citation needed]}