Does an act of Perfidy excuse no quarter? Yesterday, Evilstan declared war on Ruritania. One of the Ruritanian units, let's call them the 1st Chasseurs manages to encircle a splinter troop of Evilstanian troops from the 2nd Armored Rifle Brigade. Encircled and rounded up, the commander of this group from the 2nd ARB pops a white flag and his troops leave their vehicles, arms raised to surrender. However, it's a trap and they gun down a couple of the 1st Chasseurs in their act of Perfidy. In response, the rest of this group from the 2nd ARB is wiped out. Clearly, the commander from the 2nd ARB had committed a war crime, and the unit was free game, their protection of the white flag removed by the perfidy. The survivors of the 1st Chasseurs manage to encircle another group of tanks from the 2nd ARB today morning. Apparently, they are just that good. When the commander of this unit pops the white flag after comparable resistance, instead of stopping the fire to receive the POWs in a similar fashion, the soldiers of the 1st Chasseurs only pause long enough to top up their guns with fresh ammunition and then mow down the possibly surrendering soldiers, assuming this too was an act of Perfidy. However, having not honored the white flag in the second instance and by giving no quarter, have the Ruritanian 1st Chasseurs troops committed a war crime by eliminating the 2nd unit from the Evilstanian 2nd ARB? notes Declaring no quarter will be given in itself would breach the rules of war under Article 23 (d) of the 1907 Hague Convention IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land. Assume no such declaration was given. Evilstan (Evil + the Slavic end for a country) and Ruritania are fictional countries. They are not real countries. They are not made to mimic any actual operation. All matches and similarities are coincidental. In fact, the two countries can be assumed to be reappearing from this question.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit attacking anyone who has clearly communicated an intent to surrender. Certainly, there is a point at which if perfidy reaches a sufficient level of frequency, then the side committing it will lose the ability to &quot;clearly communicate&quot; an intention to surrender, but it isn't clear just where that point is.
There is no federal prohibition against sexual discrimination in public accomodations. Colorado has an applicable state law, which covers "any place of business engaged in any sales to the public", where "It is a discriminatory practice and unlawful ...to refuse, withhold from, or deny to an individual or a group, because of ...sexual orientation...the full and equal enjoyment of the goods...". No provision exempts lemonade stands. Churches etc. are specifically exempted: "'Place of public accommodation' shall not include a church, synagogue, mosque, or other place that is principally used for religious purposes". Sex discrimination is allowed "if such restriction has a bona fide relationship to the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations of such place of public accommodation", an argument that can't reasonably be made in the described case. It is also not obvious that running a lemonade stand is a business (the courts will not admit unsubstantiated Wiki assertions as evidence). It would be relevant to wonder what constitutes a "business" under Colorado law. E.g. is a business license required? In Colorado (US) law, it has not been definitively decided whether there can be a religious exception to the anti-discrimination law. Masterpiece Cakeshop was decided without answering that (the state showed clear religious intolerance in its handling of the case). We do not know how a similar case will be decided: Arlene's Flowers was handed back to the state court with the instruction "do it again" (with nothing more than a mention of Masterpiece Cakeshop). The court cannot establish certain beliefs and practices as "valid religions" (Establishment Clause); the proxy expression that is used is "deeply held belief", which includes atheism. The relationship of the issue to the First Amendment is uncertain.
The question is oddly phrased: The law does not give allowances for its violation. Many laws have exceptions. E.g., the law against killing endangered animals contains an exception for defensive killings. Perhaps you are thinking of safe harbors? For example, there are general provisions in the law like "exigent circumstances" that allow police to proceed with actions that, absent those provisions, would constitute violations of law. "Permission" to violate a right can be granted explicitly in the form of a warrant, which allows law enforcement to "violate" specific property and freedom rights. Finally, one might consider an executive pardon or jury-nullification to be ex post "permission to break the law."
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. There is no need for physical contact in an assault, all that is needed is the threat and the apparent, present ability. The drill sergeant was behaving in a threatening manner and had an apparent, present ability to cause harm; he was guilty of assault. Consensually engaging in a legal contact sport lacks the threat of bodily harm; that is to say that the bodily harm is a risk of the sport but it is not the object of it. Of course, an illegal sport where death or maiming is an inherent part would leave the participants open to assault (and battery) charges - you cannot agree to do illegal things. What is necessary to constitute the threat and the apparent means depends on the whole of the circumstances. A person throwing water when they had threatened the victim with acid is most certainly assault. Pointing a replica pistol at someone who doesn't know it is a replica constituted the threat and apparent means in one action.
"Civic obligations" are based on one's personal moral philosophy, best discussed on Philosophy SE. On the legal front, in the US, there is no (existing) legal basis for simply declaring some random thing to be "top secret", even if it has great potential to be used for evil purposes. If this is research conducted under the umbrella of the Dept. of Defense, it might be classified, but a garage inventor is not subject to the laws regarding classified documents. Congress could pass a law prohibiting promulgating research on time travel, but even if such a law were found to be constitutional (unlikely, on First Amendment grounds, see this), one cannot be penalized for breaking the law before it becomes a law.
Interesting question. I routinely write wills that authorize the executor to destroy property that has no significant economic or sentimental value, but I've never encountered a case where a testator or testatrix has directed that property be destroyed and I've never seen a reported case (or even a news report) in which that has happened. To the extent that an estate is solvent, there is no reason that a creditor could complain and if the destruction was done in a safe manner (as opposed to burning down a house or something like that without consulting the fire department) I'm not sure that there would be a public interest in doing so either. There are many religions that had a practice historically of burying someone with grave goods, so there are reasonable First Amendment freedom of religion arguments for allowing such a practice if it had a religious basis. And, if no interested party objected, I don't see how anyone could stop the executor from acting, unless the property to be destroyed was, for example, evidence of a crime, in which case it would be a crime to destroy it and the provision of the will would be void because it was a crime to carry it out. If an executor sought permission from a court to carry out this instruction, the court might require a public notice of the planned destruction to give notice to any third party who might claim an ownership interest in the property allegedly belonging to the decedent. On the other hand, usually, all interested parties in an estate can agree to act contrary to a will by unanimous consent, in which case no one would have standing to fight for the provision in court (unless it was considered a charitable bequest, in which case a state attorney general or an advocate appointed by the court with the "will" as the client could defend it). Given the strong public policies in the law disfavoring "waste" (i.e. useless destruction of property) such a provision could be held to be void as against public policy (similarly, bequests contingent upon marriage decisions are now void as against public policy).
There is a factually similar impeachment case. But there might be a court case fitting these facts as well. No such case is annotated by West under 14th Amendment, Section 3 either with the note or on its list of citations. It is also not mentioned in a law review article looking a WV civil war era jurisprudence up to 1872 when WV's new constitution was adopted. I suspect that the case you are looking for is a pair of related cases (neither of which involves West Virginia), one tried by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court alone on a habeas corpus petition when riding circuit, and a related decision of the Texas Supreme Court involving the same defendant. Griffin's Case, 11 F. Cas. 7, 2 Am. Law T. Rep. U. S. Cts. 93; 8 Am. Law Reg. N. S. 358; 25 Tex. Supp. 623 ; 2 Balt. Law Trans. 433; 3 Am. Law Rev. 784 (Circuit Court, D. Virginia, May 1, 1869) and In re Caesar Griffin, 25 Tex. Supp. 623 (Tex. April 1869). The official summary of the fact and procedural posture of the main case on point was as follows: Caesar Griffin, a negro, was indicted in the county court of Rockbridge county, for an assault with intent to kill. He removed his case as under the law he had the right to do into the circuit court for that county, and was there tried by a jury which found him guilty and assessed his punishment at imprisonment for two years in the penitentiary. He was accordingly sentenced by the court to that imprisonment While on his way thither, in the custody of the sheriff of Rockbridge county, he sent out this writ which was served on the sheriff. That officer produced the petitioner in the district court then in session in Richmond, and made return to the writ that he held him by virtue of the conviction and sentence of the circuit court for Rockbridge county, making the record of the trial and conviction there a a part of his return. This return the petitioner traversed, denying that there was any court or judge in Rockbridge county as pretended by said pretended record, and that the paper exhibited was any record as alleged. The state of Virginia appearing by the attorney-general, Mr., Judge H. W. Sheffey, the judge of the circuit court for Rockbridge by Bradley T. Johnson, Esq., and the sheriff by James Neeson, Esq. they joined issue on this traverse. The petitioner then proved that Judge Sheffey had been a member of the house of delegates in 1849. That in 1862, he was speaker of the house of delegates, and that his votes were recorded for affording men, money and supplies to support Virginia and the Confederate States, in the war then flagrant with the United States. It was admitted that he was duly appointed on February 22, 1866, by the then government of Virginia, to be judge of the circuit including the county of Rockbridge; that he immediately entered on the duties of that office, and that he has ever since and still is discharging the functions of the same. The cause was argued at great length in the district court, before the district judge in December, 1868, who ordered the discharge of the petitioner, whereupon an appeal was prayed by the sheriff under the habeas corpus act of 1867 [14 StaL 385], to the circuit court, and the petitioner admitted to bail. Before the circuit court could meet other writs of habeas corpus were sued out by other parties convicted of felonies, two of them of murder, on the same ground as in this case, and the petitioners were discharged. A motion was then made by James Lyons, Esq. in the supreme court of the United States for a writ of prohibition against the district judge, to restrain him from further exercise of such power. The supreme court advised on the motion, and never announced any conclusion, but shortly afterward the chief justice opened the circuit court at Richmond, and immediately called up the appeal in Griffin’s Case. This statement is necessary for a full understanding of the pregnancy of the chief justice’s statement that the supreme court agreed with him as to the decision he rendered in this case. In consequence of the failure to oust the state officers disfranchised under the fourteenth amendment by these and similar judicial proceedings, congress in February, 1869, passed a joint resolution directing that all such officers should be removed by the military commanders of military districts into which the late Confederate States had been divided. Thus all the old officers of the state government of Virginia were removed except a very few, and new ones appointed not obnoxious to the denunciation of the federal bar — the supreme court of appeals of Virginia; the judges thereof having been removed by the major general commanding, he appointed as judges in their stead, a colonel of his staff, and two others, who had held or did then hold commissions in the United States army. The president judge of the court performed his functions and drew his pay as colonel and judge advocate on the staff, overlooking the execution of the laws of the military, and at the same time those of presiding judicial officer of the state. The procedural posture of the case and its result match your description even though the state does not, and there is a supreme court connection even though it is not a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The West Virginia association is probably a mental mangling of that case with a somewhat similar case from right time frame, a WV murder conviction overturned due to all white jury requirement by U.S. Supreme Court in Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 (1880).
It is reported that this is the result of new legal reasoning in German law. In the cases of Demjanjuk in 2011 and 2015 it was found that being a camp guard is enough to be found guilty of accessory to murder, even without specific evidence of a crime. In a more recent trial (Rehbogen) the prosecution used the same reasoning to charge and try a concentration camp guard.