I agree that fear has nothing to do with legal justification, "fear for my life" is useful to help establish in the minds of jurors that your response was "immediately necessary," because too many jurors try to make ethical judgments instead of legal judgments.ELB wrote:btw, "Fear for my life" is not mentioned in the Texas statutes as a legal justification (nor is "shoot to stop the threat," for that matter). Legal justification run along the lines of a having a reasonable belief that your use of (deadly) force is immediately necessary to prevent someone else's unlawful use of (deadly) force against you or a third party.
But "fear for my life" is often ends up being quoted in the news articles, even when quoting the police.
How many times have we seen jurors interviewed saying that they were influenced by a defendant who "showed no emotion?"