defenses and defenses of justification. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) Focusing on the defense of excuses, some examples are known as; age, mental disorder, automatism, error of fact and error of law. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) Mental disorder is defined as “disease of the mind”. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) This excuse claims that the defendant was not thinking normally at the time of the criminal act and therefore did not understand the act of the crime committed. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) Some examples of mental disorders are known as paranoia, schizophrenia, and depression. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) Automatism is used as an excuse to claim that the environment around the defendant caused him to involuntarily commit the criminal act. This excuse focuses on the actus reus and is undoubtedly one of the most difficult circumstances to prove in a trial. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) Mistake of fact is used in the trial to minimize or eliminate the mens rea in a criminal act that has been committed. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) The source of this excuse is that the defendant is unaware of the law he broke and that he will be formally charged. A very popular use of the mistake of fact is used with deadly force because it is based on pure judgment which can vary from person to person. The definition of justification is “the involvement of the defendant admitting to having committed a criminal act; their actions were justified by duress, necessity, self-defense, provocation, and entrapment. (Lawteacher.net, 2014) This legal defense allows the defendant to understand why they committed the crime and the best opportunity to justify their version of the story to make it seem okay in the eyes of others. Coercion is defined as “threats, violence, coercion or otherwise… middle of paper… should not be held criminally liable for breaking the law. (Definitions.uslegal.com, 2014) One court case that deals with this topic is US v. Armstrong. In this case the Supreme Court stated that to prove a case of selective prosecution two elements must be proven. (Dfreemanpa.tripod.com, 2014) The first element is that the federal prosecutorial policy must be proven to have a discriminatory effect. (Dfreemanpa.tripod.com, 2014) The second element is that it was motivated by a discriminatory purpose. (Dfreemanpa.tripod.com, 2014) Procedural defenses focus not on guilt or innocence, but on the procedures used to investigate the case. (Crim-law.info, 2014) Many important measures of this defense style ensure that the search and seizure was acceptable, whether there was probable cause, whether civil rights were violated or not. (Crim-law.info, 2014)