Justice Miller's opinion concludes as follows:
"We have thus given, in this case, a most attentive
consideration to all the questions of law and fact which we
have thought to be properly involved in it. We have felt it
to be our duty to examine into the facts with a completeness
justified by the importance of the case, as well as from the
duty imposed upon us by the statute, which we think requires
of us to place ourselves, as far as possible, in the place
of the Circuit Court and to examine the testimony and the
arguments in it, and to dispose of the party as law and
justice require.
"The result at which we have arrived upon this examination
is, that in the protection of the person and the life of Mr.
Justice Field, while in the discharge of his official duties,
Neagle was authorized to resist the attack of Terry upon him;
that Neagle was correct in the belief that without prompt
action on his part the assault of Terry upon the Judge would
have ended in the death of the latter; that such being his
well-founded belief, he was justified in taking the life of
Terry, as the only means of preventing the death of the man
who was intended to be his victim; that in taking the life
of Terry, under the circumstances, he was acting under the
authority of the law of the United States, and was justified
in doing so; and that he is not liable to answer in the courts
of California on account of his part in that transaction.
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