Duress as a defense
The defense of duress relates to the action taken by the accused when he or his family is extremely threatened. The threat should involve severe injury or death of the accused or his family. For the defense to be legal, the accused must show adequate evidence of various issues. Firstly, the actual threat must be evident. Secondly, the threat must be of serious injury or death to the accused or his family. Thirdly, the threat must be of deep gravity that an ordinary person would have yielded to it. Also, the accused must have acted in such a manner because the threat clinked in his mind at the time of doing the criminal act. Additionally, the treat ought to be seen discontinued if the accused had a reasonable opportunity to render it ineffective (Samaha, 2017, p. 229).
However, there are limitations to duress. Duress as a defense is void for crimes of murder and treason. Also, in cases where the accused voluntarily joins a violent criminal gang and terrorist organization, duress as a defense will not be applicable. Also, it is not applicable where the accused is indebted to drug dealers. Furthermore, if the defendant would reasonably evade the action just like any other ordinary person would do, the duress defense would be rendered null and void (Norje & Quénivet, 2020).
In our case, duress by threat is evident. The fact that the bad guy threatens to shoot is a serious threat as it would lead to death. Shooting by the bad guy is actual duress. However, pushing the girl overboard of the lifeboat is not an action that a reasonable person would do. It is because pushing the girl would result in death through drowning. In criminal law, the act of drowning to death would be considered a murder case. Committing murder is a limitation of the duress defense; hence, throwing the girl overboard would null and void the defense. A reasonable person would take another reasonable action that does not lead to murder. Therefore, in my belief, the fence of coercion would not allow me to act as it would have resulted in death. The action of murder, being a limitation of defense of duress, would render the defense void.
References
Nortje, W., & Quénivet, N. (2020). Limits of, and Exclusions from, the Defence of Duress. In Child Soldiers and the Defence of Duress under International Criminal Law (pp. 87-108). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Samaha, J. (2017). Criminal Law. In Google Books. Cengage Learning. https://books.google.com/books/about/Criminal_Law.html?id=cgI2CwAAQBAJ