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Right of self-defense in Maryland


In the state of Maryland, the right of self-defense is mostly governed by case law, but there is also a statute.

Maryland continues to follow common law principles on the use of force in self-defense, although there is a statute (discussed below) on the subject of immunity from civil lawsuits for the use of force to defend a home or a business.

In the case of Baltimore Transit Co. v. Faulkner, 179 Md. 598, 20 A.2d 485 (1941), which involved a civil lawsuit for assault and battery, the Court of Appeals of Maryland set forth the general common law principles of the doctrine of self-defense:

The law of self-defense justifies an act done in the reasonable belief of immediate danger. If an injury was done by a defendant in justifiable self-defense, he can neither be punished criminally nor held responsible for damages in a civil action. . . . One who seeks to justify an assault on the ground that he acted in self-defense must show that he used no more force than the exigency reasonably demanded. The belief of a defendant in an action for assault that the plaintiff intended to do him bodily harm cannot support a plea of self-defense unless it was such a belief as a person of average prudence would entertain under similar circumstances. The jury should accordingly be instructed that to justify assault and battery in self-defense the circumstances must be such as would have induced a rea[s]onable man of average prudence to make such an assault in order to protect himself. The question whether the belief of the defendant that he was about to be injured was a reasonable one under all the circumstances is a question for the consideration of the jury.

Id., 179 Md. at 600-01, 20 A.2d at 487.

The Court of Appeals said in the case that, even if the plaintiff had struck the defendant's employees first, the plaintiff would still be entitled to prevail in an action for battery if the defendant's employees, in repelling the plaintiff's acts, "used unreasonable and excessive force, meaning such force as prudent men would not have used under all the circumstances of the case." Id., 179 Md. at 600, 20 A.2d at 487.

Maryland also continues to follow common law principles on the issue of when one may use deadly force in self-defense. In the case of State v. Faulkner, 301 Md. 482, 485, 483 A.2d 759, 761 (1984), the Court of Appeals of Maryland summarized those principles, and stated that a homicide, other than felony murder, is justified on the ground of self-defense if the following criteria are satisfied:


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