Per minas, in English Common Law, is to engage in behaviour "by means of menaces or threats".
[2] Per minas has been used as a defence of duress to certain crimes, as affecting the element of mens rea.
[3][4] William Blackstone, the often-cited judge and legal scholar, addressed the use of "duress per minas" under the category of self-defense as a means of securing the "right of personal security", that is, the right of self-defence.
[5] The classic case involves a person who is blackmailed into robbing a bank.
This article relating to law in the United Kingdom, or its constituent jurisdictions, is a stub.