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Notes -
Turning to some good news:
Article link
This is a WSJ article about the rise in justified homicides in the US in recent years. Much of it is about "Stand Your Ground Laws." I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of the more lawyer-brained Mottizens on those kind of laws and their proliferation over the past decade or so.
On the culture war angle, this article is maybe the starkest example of "erosion of trust in society" that I've come across. A few of the anecdotes are pretty hair raising. They're cherry picked, I know, but the idea that a kid loses his father over an argument about a a fence and a property line made me sad. The "road range" incident they cover in detail seems like it was unfortunate but when one guy levels a gun at another, there's only one reasonable reaction.
Violence must be tightly controlled for a society to function. This is something that's bone deep in humans. We've developed methods of conflict resolution that fall short of violence for our entire existence as a species. Even within the context of violence, there are various ways of controlling it. Duels and so forth. Even informal ones; basic Bro code dictates that when one guy falls down in a fight, the other one backs off.
But this article hints at the idea that people are zooming past any of that to full lethality. It's impossible to compile the stats to determine if that's actually the case or not, but the larger point remains; in a society with plunging basic trust, you're going to see levels of interpersonal violence spike. How should state laws governing violence respond to this? Stand Your Ground is something I generally still support, but my mind could be changed if simple Bad Neigbor fights end up with more orphans.
So self defense claims are based on five pillars:
All the state/prosecution needs to do is show the person is guilty of breaking ONE of those pillars to knock out a self defense claim - even if the other four are met.
Did the jury think you started the deadly force fight? Guilty.
Did the jury think you escalated the fight into deadly force? Guilty.
Did the jury think there no imminent threat? Guilty.
Did the jury think you were not being reasonable with your evaluation of a deadly force threat? Guilty.
Did the jury think you could have run away in the heat of the encounter? Guilty.
News and politicians frequently don't understand (or actively lie) about how self defense is determined in the law - not understanding that Stand Your Ground only removes the requirement of avoidance, but not the other four pillars. It isn't a pass for you to not be innocent, respond to non-deadly force with deadly force, react before the threat is imminent, or have your decisions not be reasonable.
If the news or politicians blame people saying "they feared for their life" on Stand Your Ground, that is arguing reasonableness, not avoidance - Stand Your Ground only deals with avoidance. This is an example of either not understanding self defense law or lying. If the jury felt the fearing for their life wasn't reasonable (or the person is lying about fearing for their life), Stand Your Ground wouldn't matter, as they'd fail the reasonableness pillar and be guilty.
Zimmerman was a classic example of Stand Your Ground being blamed - but the defense never argued it and didn't need to. When Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, he was pinned to the ground and being pummeled - there was nowhere to run to - so there was no need to argue he didn't need to run away (pillar five, avoidance), he physically couldn't.
What people are upset about is they feel stand your ground lets people go "looking for trouble" - Zimmerman should have minded his own business and not go looking for Martin - but that is just something that would be impossible to regulate in the real world. It also puts the cart before the horse: the attacker shouldn't have started a deadly force fight.
Are there situations where things are "awful but lawful"? Of course! If someone who couldn't walk without crutches attacks someone with a knife in a stand your ground state, instead of running to safety it allows you to stab them / shoot them legally, even if you could have easily escaped.
There are also the reverse cases wherein what should be an innocent person who used self-defense correctly only to be convicted because a good prosecutor can have the jury "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" the decision the person who used self defense made in the split second they had in a life or death fight that maybe they could have gotten away (even if the person being attacked didn't actually see a valid avenue of escape, so long as the jury felt they had one)
I'd suggest the vast majority of self defense cases never actually invoke stand your ground in a trial and it is just a boogeyman being used by people to explain increasing violence, but can't regulate a "mind your own business" ethic when something bad happens to a person who is a part of a class that gets special considerations from certain ideologies.
I think that the proportion requirement is also disputable.
Basically, I think that an innocent should not be expected to offer a fair fight to an aggressor. If there is an advantage to be gained by moving a step up on the escalation ladder, then stepping up on the escalation ladder should be fine. Probably not that many steps, though.
Here in Germany, there is no balancing of the legal interests of the attacker and the attacked, with only an exemption for a massive disproportion of the act of self defense. If you need to kill a criminal to stop the theft of valuable property (like a car), German law is generally a-ok with it. Of course, you are still taking your chances with DAs and judges which generally do not like that.
Personally, I have an intense dislike for non-consensual violence. In my opinion, when an adult makes the decision to assault another person, they are taking their life into their own hands. If it ends with the aggressor bleeding to death on the sidewalk, that is sad, but not upsetting. It is not that the attacker deserved to die, but we do live in a world where people can make bad decisions which will cost them their lives. If someone drives 300km/h on the highway while drunk and ends their life in a crash, that is similar -- sad, but not upsetting. Upsetting would be if they killed someone else with their stunt.
Do you have any insight on the case of the german girl who was charged for self defense in the course of getting raped?
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