Last night I watched an episode of Law & Order: SVU in which a prostitute purposefully sought out violent clients, waited for them to assault her, and then killed them. She subsequently stole their credits cards and so forth, confounding the situation, but absent that and other complicating factors (such as the illegality of prostitution) should her conduct have been punishable by law? Assuming she didn't instigate the violence but only sought out men she thought were likely to be violent, can she legitimately claim self-defense when she kills a violent man to protect herself?
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I would guess that the prostitution and subsequent theft would be irrelevant, except as evidence of her intent. She could still be charged with murder, but she could plead self-defense. The trick to self-defense is that it generally requires some degree of proportionality in the response. If someone threatens to punch you, that generally doesn't entitle you to shoot or stab them.
I don't know about New York, but in Arizona the proportionality thing wouldn't matter in this case. if someone attacks you and you have no other way to defend yourself, then you can shoot to stop them, regardless of whether you thought they were going to kill or seriously injure you (or so they said in my concealed-carry class).
As to Michael's question, I can't answer the legal question, but I can answer the moral question pretty easily. Wwhat do you call someone who risks their life to protect others? I call them a hero.
In this case, the law was not able to protect the other women, so one of the women took it on herself to do it. She deserves a medal.
That's the way of the vigilante, not something I'm a fan of. Ideally legitimate process of law would deal with violent men.
MW's question is about someone seeking violent situations in order to kill, which seems like a description of a psychotic.