Suppose that yesterday I was suicidal and decided to hire a hitman on the internet to kill me.
Today, when they turn up, I have changed my mind and defend myself by killing the hitman.
What crime(s) have I committed? This is completely hypothetical, so any jurisdiction would be interesting.
It appears you want to go for a defense strategy based on a self-defense argument.
This won't work in many jurisdictions, because self-defense usually doesn't apply when you intentionally caused a situation where you knew you would have to harm someone in self-defense. Similar case:
Bob regularly mugs old women in the park by threatening them with a gun. Charlie finds out and wants to stop him. But instead of reporting it to the police, he wants to take care of this himself. Charlie get a gun, dresses up as an old woman and waits in the park. When Bob shows up and tries to mug Charlie, Charlie shoots first.
Well, anyone else who would have found themselves in a park threatened by Bob with a deadly weapon might have had a self-defense argument. But Charlie knew that by dressing up as an old woman, he would provoke Bob to attempt to mug him. This of course doesn't exonerate Bob. But Charlie actively caused the situation which would give him the opportunity to kill Bob "in self defense". Charlie even made a complex plan to arrange this situation and put serious effort into setting it in motion. It's premeditated murder.
Your situation is basically the same. You caused someone to make an attempt at your life, and then killed them to "defend yourself". And you had plenty of other options:
Further, when you hired the hitman you committed a crime: incitement to commit murder. The fact that you were also the victim of that crime doesn't really matter. It also doesn't matter that you wanted to die: Assisted suicide is only permitted in very few jurisdictions, and those only allow it if performed by medical professionals under very narrow circumstances. Those circumstances would certainly not have applied, so the hitman would have been guilty of murder if he had succeeded (he is at least guilty of attempted murder, but you can't put a dead person on trial), so you would too. When you commit a crime and cause someone to die in the process, then that falls under the felony murder rule in many jurisdictions.
You will likely be convicted of manslaughter or murder of the hitman, depending on when you decided to kill the hitman before they kill you. When you can convince the court that you did not premeditate to kill the hitman but only panicked in the last minute, and no felony murder rule applies, then you might get away with manslaughter. You might also be found guilty of incitement of attempted murder (your own murder).
Applying the Model Penal Code, which is the law in most of the United States:
By requesting that A kill B, you are guilty of soliciting murder.
By reaching an agreement with A to pay to kill B, you are guilty of criminal conspiracy.
Because A attempted to kill B, he is guilty of attempted murder. Because you solicited that attempt, you are an accomplice to the attempted murder; because you are an accomplice, you are also liable for attempted murder.
By purposely killing A, you are guilty of murder.
Because you provoked A's use of force against you, you are not entitled to claim self-defense.
defend myself by killing the hit man. What crime(s) have I committed?
Generally it would be manslaughter or [1st or 2nd-degree] murder, depending on whether premeditation can be proved. Justifiable homicide is ruled out because the client had the alternative of rescinding the agreement—perhaps subject to agreed constraints on reimbursement—as soon as he changed his mind or sometime later.
Even a short lapse of time between the client's change of mind and hitman's appearance could support a finding of premeditation because of what is at stake: client's awareness that he will be "visited" by someone whose purpose is nothing short of killing him and who made arrangements to that effect. The nature of this scenario implies that killing the hitman is a foreseeable outcome.
Additionally, each jurisdiction might or might not outlaw any or all forms of "assisted suicide", the hiring of a hitman (regardless of the target being the client himself), and/or the use of a computer for that purpose.
Well, others have covered conspiracy and incitement to murder, I’d like to touch on another angle. So, ignoring those charges, you still aren’t home free.
So, let’s give a little hypothetical background to take away some of confusion. You meet someone who shares the fact that he is a hitman looking for his next job, you say you have been out of a job for over a year and are down to your last 50 bucks and you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, you’ll have the 50 on your kitchen counter at noon the next day, and you would like to have some help committing suicide. Not a lot, but some people don’t need a lot.
Next day at 11:58 you get a text from your dr, it was a lab error, you’re good, 11:59 lotto ticket announced, you won multiple million jackpot, 12:00 hitman walks through your kitchen door, you jump aside saying stop, he shoots. You grab a nice knife and throw it, not to kill but just to get him to pause while you offer a few million not to kill you, unfortunately hits, killing him instantly.
Even if you argue that it wasn’t a murder you were conspiring to commit, it could still be a felony (depending upon jurisdiction), in which case a felony murder charge would be a slam dunk. You were part of conspiracy to commit a felony, someone died during an attempt to commit the crime, you’re doing 20 to life.
Your self defense argument is basically a confession.
Conspiracy to commit murder (self) and murder (killing the hit man) the affirmative defense for the second murder charge would be self defense.
