Don't be confused by the term "homocide", it has nothing to do with killing homos. America is one of the only counties in the world with the idea that homocide can be easily justified and we track justifiable homicide over time:
Here in the South, a valid defense to murder is saying “he needed killin”. In American case law, there many examples of justifiable homicide. I am not a lawyer, but I see these classes of justifiable homocide:
Adultery - A man walks into his bedroom and finds somebody having sex with his wife. In the heat of passion he may legally kill both of them. This dates from olde English common law.
Rape - Few juries would convact a father who kills somebody who is raping their child.
Personal Protection - It's OK in some places to defend against violent attacker with deadly force.
Robbery - A home may be protected with deadly force, and in many places it's OK to shoot blindly at a burglar inside their home. A guard dog is another form of deadly force and cases where a burgular is killed by a guard dog has been ruled justifiable homocide.
Police - A policeman shoots somebody who points a gun at them. So many people commit suicide this way, this for of justified homocide has a name, "suicide by police".
In each of these cases of justifiable homicide, the following is required for the homicide to be justified:
Spontaneous - The killing must be spontaneous, in the “heat of the moment”, and the act must not be planned. While a father may kill someone raping his daughter, he may not kill them the next day.
Erregious - The conduct of the victim must be egregious. They must be committing a “mortal sin” like rape, adultery or robbery.
It's interesting that religous people will claim jusrtifiable homocide when murdering abortion doctors, but that is not considered a valid reason to kil. We also see plenty of examples of justifiable homocide in wartime.
Examples of Justifiable homicide in wartime
Another example of justifiable homicide is when a soldier kills a child pointing an AK-47 at them.
According to Chuck Yeager in his book "Yeager", in WWII during the invasion of Germany it became necessary for the Allied forces to "shoot anything that moves" because women and children were acting as combattents and killing Allied soldiers.
In wartime, some say that there is no such thing as an innocent civilian, everybody is fair game and all homocide is justified.
The Russians lost many soldiers to “civilian non-combatants” in Afghanistan
Conversely, there can be acts of real murder, like when the Japanese murdered thousands of American POW’s in the Bataan Death March, and the horrendous Unit 731 Japanese homocide atrocities.
Passive Justifiable homicide examples
It’s not just overt acts of homocide, justifiable homicide can occur passively, like when you exercise your right to keep a deadly animal in your house.
Rottweiler’s have been known to kill a burglar inside your home.
Years ago a burglar broke into neighbors house and before they could kill him, their protection dog ripped him wide open! He fled, but the police told her that he had lost so much blood that he probably died in the woods somewhere.
Sadly this story did not have a happy ending because their new drapes were ruined by the burglar's blood splatter.
A redneck guard dawg