Excuse: Duress

Suppose the defendant is told that unless he helps a would-be bank robber, he is going to be killed some months in the future. Many codes would refuse the duress defense because the threat is not imminent. It is unclear why. Sometimes the imminence requirement is justified on the grounds that there are things that can still be done to avert a nonimminent threat. But of course that need not always be true. An alternative justification for the imminence requirement is that unless a threat is imminent, a reasonable defendant just would not feel pressured enough to commit a crime.