[dragonwriter]

> > I hope you are not claiming perception of intent is enough to claim a life > > It is the actual intent that counts.

> As an objective legal matter, it is.

You are both wrong. The requirement for self-defense (which may or may not even be available here if it is ever charged, because it doesn't apply to all kinds of murder, notably generally not to felony murder, which given ICE's very narrow jurisdiction there is a very good case, IMO, applies here) is neither mere subjective perception nor actual intent, but objectively reasonable fear. Actual perception of a threat which is not objectively reasonable in the circumstances does not justify self-defense.

[zahlman]

Fair enough, I misspoke, implicitly accepting a false dichotomy. The case law I cited agrees with you WRT the standard.

But I don't understand the distinction in "kinds of murder" that you are describing; murder is always a felony and "misdemeanor murder" is a term of art not describing an actual statutory offense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misdemeanor_murder). Nor can I see how the "narrow jurisdiction" of ICE is relevant here, given that it includes (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357):

> (a)(5) to make arrests — (A) for any offense against the United States, if the offense is committed in the officer’s or employee’s presence

Obstructing federal officers in their duty is a federal offense, and it necessarily occurs in the presence of those officers.

Anyway, given the evidence I find it quite clear that the threat was "objectively reasonable in the circumstances" (i.e., with the available information in the moment, without benefit of hindsight and given the time pressure).

[dragonwriter]

> But I don't understand the distinction in "kinds of murder" that you are describing; murder is always a felony

“Felony murder” is not “murder which is a felony” but “murder where malice is established not by, by the fact that the death was the consequence of the commission of a felony by the perpetrator, rather than by intent to kill or any of the other alternatives”.

> Obstructing federal officers in their duty is a federal offense

There is no reasonable case, based on any of the video I've seen, continuously from before to through the incident, to be made that she could reasonably be perceived to have been doing that when they exited their vehicle and accosted her.

[zahlman]

Their job involved driving their own vehicles down the road. Her vehicle was in the way, deliberately stopped and deliberately perpendicular to traffic. That is an obstruction of their duty.