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Notes -
(FYI, it's spelled ulyssessword, with the second double-s)
That's an unreasonable level of foresight to base your actions on. Suppose that Gannon grabbed his skull and smashed it into the curb. Could Hayes have legally stopped it beforehand?
I'm actually okay with a light sentence if Gannon withdraws early. The court can know (with the benefit of hindsight) that it wasn't a serious attack, and treat it accordingly.
Hayes didn't have that hindsight. How is he supposed to tell the difference between your scenario and mine? I asked downthread if Hayes should have waited until he was dead or unconscious before defending himself, and I'll ask again here.
As another scenario, imagine that this shooting went the same until 4:27, but the officer fumbled his draw and the axe-wielder calmly stopped and explained that he had recovered a murder weapon (right here in his hand!) and urgently wanted help at the nearby crime scene.
There wouldn't have been a crime at all, and yet it was still a good shoot. Since I have no problem with (extremely stupid) non-crime justifying lethal force, you can guess what my stance on minor crime justifying it is.
Yes, depending a bit on the specifics. Gannon meets the threshold.
As I said above, the court has hindsight. It can know the attacker's state of mind based on the actions they took afterwards. If they took a couple swings then left, they weren't serious about the attack and can justly receive a minor punishment.
Aggravated assault make up about 25% of all assaults. The victim has access to some evidence that can distinguish between a ending-at-purely-simple assault and a soon-to-be-aggravated assault, but that baseline 25% makes me awfully apprehensive. Getting tackled and beaten on would very easily be enough evidence to tip me over to the "aggravated" side.
My apologies for the misspelling but I'm glad you found the post! I get what you're saying with the first argument, but the same could be said about someone who shoots and misses. Suppose the perpetrator only intended to scare the victim and used a gun he loaded with blanks, and an inspection of the gun proves it was loaded with blanks and the perpetrator told several people beforehand that he was going to scare the victim. The victim was not, at any point, in danger of being injured. We can prove this with hindsight. I think we both agree that the victim would have been privileged to use lethal force, but assuming he did not, do we only charge the perpetrator with simple assault since we know, with hindsight, that the victim wasn't in any danger?
There's a specific carveout for guns, but otherwise yes. If it had been a prop knife, an inflatable sledgehammer, or other imitation non-gun weapon, then it would be a simple assault and nothing more.
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