“It’s like a Lethal Weapon kind of situation, you know? Television kind of thing. To stop someone, you’ve got to hit them.”

The case of a man charged with manslaughter after a hit-and-run hinges on the reasonableness of this kind of thinking, says Toronto-based criminal lawyer Antonietta Raviele.

As the Star reported Friday, Anthony James Kiss was charged with manslaughter after he fatally hit Dario Humberto Romero with his car on June 7. He did it, Kiss said, because he saw Romero holding a knife and attacking a woman.

Kiss, 31, was also charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle causing death, over 80 mgs operation of a motor vehicle causing death and failure to stop at a scene of accident causing death.

The Star contacted two criminal lawyers, who aren’t involved in the case, to get their opinion.

Kiss’s blood alcohol level and the fact that he fled the scene add layers of complication to the case, said Toronto lawyer Daniel Brown.

“It sounds like the type of issue we would see on a law school exam,” Brown said. “One that really explores a whole number of topics.”

Though Kiss has given his account of what happened, his version of events hasn’t been tested in court. Police won’t comment on the case, but said in a news release issued after the incident that a 59-year-old woman suffered injuries unrelated to the collision.

Raviele said that at the trial, Kiss’s defence lawyer could argue that his actions were necessary in order to prevent another crime — in this case the injury or death of the woman Romero allegedly attacked — from occurring.

That kind of defence is necessary, Brown said, because Kiss has already said he intentionally hit Romero with his car.

“A manslaughter conviction can arise when somebody commits a crime . . . that leads to the person’s death even though it wasn’t intended to kill the person,” Brown said.

The defence will have to demonstrate that Kiss’s action was justified in order to protect the woman, since he does not dispute that the action was intentional.

Raviele said it’s important to consider that, if Kiss’s version is accurate, without his intervention, a woman may have died or have been seriously injured.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Kiss will be acquitted of the manslaughter charge.

The judge or jury will have to consider whether there were “less dangerous and more legal” means that Kiss could have pursued to prevent Romero from stabbing the woman, Raviele said. Whether he considered honking or yelling at Romero, or approaching him with his car without making impact, would be aspects that a judge or jury would take into consideration.

“That’s the most extreme thing he could have done in those circumstances,” Raviele said. This could be the focus of the prosecution.

The case is further complicated by Kiss’s blood alcohol level (he blew above the legal limit but said he was not impaired) and the fact that he fled the scene after he hit Romero, citing shock.

The defence will have to show that Kiss’s judgment that night was sound, and that a reasonable, sober person would have made the same call, Brown said.

Kiss blew over the legal limit but, as Raviele pointed out, being over the legal blood alcohol level does not necessarily denote impairment.

That’s why impaired driving causing death and driving above 80 mgs causing death are separate charges.

Raviele said that toxicologists presenting opposing views of how likely Kiss was to be impaired will be called by the prosecution and the defence at trial.

The lawyers agree that the fact that Kiss was drinking is likely to cause problems for him in court.

“I think there’s a greater likelihood that he’ll be convicted of the other offences,” including impaired driving causing death, than of manslaughter, Raviele said.

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The fact that Kiss fled rather than stay and call 911 is also a bad sign for him, not just on the charge of failure to stop at a scene causing death, but also for the charge of manslaughter.

“If it was less about shock and more about ‘I did this and now I have to get away’ then that lends more to the moral blameworthiness of him,” Raviele said.

Kiss is out on bail and scheduled back in court on Aug. 3.