Sounds just like that Marcus Jeter case (discussed earlier in the thread): ABC News Link with dashcam video.
Police: Stop Resisting
Jeter: I am not Resisting.
Police: Stop reaching for my gun, stop reaching for my gun.
Jeter: (Internally saying prayers with hands held high) I am not resisting, I am not reaching for your gun.
Police: Stop resisting.
…
South Park is funny because it’s true.
I’m kind of curious at what point a claim of self-defense takes effect, by Steophan’s reasoning. If you say “it was self defense!” and offer no evidence in support:
What mechanisms exactly go into play in a self-defense case and what (if anything) must a suspect do to invoke them?
If you’ve read this thread, you’ll have seen the vast amount of discussion of the issue.
But here’s a summary of the law in California (as it’s the clearest I’ve found with a quick Google, feel free to look up every other state if you like. It’s not the case in Ohio, it is everywhere else).
Here’s the important quote - “On all of these requirements, the prosecutor is the one who bears the burden of proof. In other words, if the evidence could support a self-defense legal defense, the prosecutor must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that self-defense does not apply.” It’s a long page, the quote comes towards the end of the introduction to part 1.
Florida introduced this sort of law 10 years ago, and almost all the other states have followed.
This doesn’t seem to conflict with xenophon41’s assertions, chiefly that to prove that self-defense doesn’t apply, the prosecutor only needs to prove that one of the elements of self-defense was not present.
No, I was correct on all counts.
However, you are correct here, and I misunderstood what you were claiming. So, my answer was somewhat irrelevant to what you said. You are absolutely right that all the elements of self defence need to be present for it to be justified, and therefore they need to disprove only one.
Here’s a cite that shows you to be correct that I found whilst searching for the cite in my previous post.
The amount of evidence that self defence took place is as simple as the killer claiming that it was self defence. That is evidence that it was. In that case, the killer admits all the other elements of the crime (usually, certainly the fact that he killed the deceased, and that it happened in the relevant jurisdiction) but denies that it was a crime, because killing in self defence is legal. It’s not a justification for murder or any other crime, it is completely legal, not a crime at all.
It’s not a logical construction, it’s an observation. Self defence is rarely offered as a defence, it’s a low single figure amount of homicides.
4,5 and 6 are absolutely true, if it can’t be proven not to be self defence. If the prosecution don’t provide evidence that it was not self defence, the judge is required to throw out the case. If there is some evidence provided, but it cannot prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the judge must instruct the jury to find the defendant not guilty, and set aside the result if the jury don’t comply. This was exhaustively discussed in the various Zimmerman threads.
Zimmerman provides a good example of 1. He claimed self defence, and the police did release him. As for 2 and 3, that’s a matter of legal ethics rather than anything else. A prosecutor should not charge anyone when there is not strong evidence that they can win the case.
None of these are unique to self defence, they are (or should be) the standards for any trial. I genuinely don’t understand the problem people have with this. Killing someone in self defence is not a crime, not a sin, not morally wrong in any way, and should not be treated as such (and the same goes for killing to defend someone else).
Except for the one you admit you were incorrect on, or that one too?
Earlier you asserted this:
(Emphasis added.)
That’s a ridiculously incorrect statement, as is your more recent rephrasing.
No, it’s factually correct in 49 US states. If someone claims self defence, they should only be tried if there is strong evidence that it was not - the same as anyone else should only be tried if there’s strong evidence they are guilty.
Why are you supporting kangaroo courts and show trials of people who are not going to be proven guilty?
Why do you support euthanizing poodles for bad haircuts? Why?! It’s arbitrary and cruel!
You must be a very bad person.
“Strong” is a subjective term here, and I’m not sure if this assertion can be evaluated as to its legal merit. From my understanding, the evidence required to indict (e.g. to have a trial) in the US is probable cause, with a common definition of “a reasonable amount of suspicion, supported by circumstances sufficiently strong to justify a prudent and cautious person’s belief that certain facts are probably true”. Maybe this agrees with your intention for the use of “strong”, but maybe not.
So a “reasonable suspicion” that a case is murder could be, I think, an admission that the suspect shot/killed the dead person plus no clear evidence of self-defense from video or from other witnesses. This might not be enough to overcome reasonable doubt in a trial, but it seems to me that it could be enough to clear this bar to have a trial.
No one here has disputed that. But not every claim of self defense is legitimate, and should not be accepted just because it is asserted.
It should be accepted just as much as anyone else’s claim not to be guilty of a crime - that is, they need to be proven guilty of it beyond reasonable doubt.
Right, but this only requires knocking down one of the “legs” of the “stool of self-defense”. The disagreement here seems to be the level of evidence that counts as “beyond reasonable doubt” to actually knock over one of these legs.
To get back to the old Dunn case, for example, I think that the combination of witness evidence (including Dunn’s girlfriend) and physical evidence was enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Dunn did not meet the requirements for a valid claim of self-defense for his shooting trial. Apparently, the jury agreed with me. IIRC, you disagreed. But the disagreement was about whether the evidence was enough to meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” bar, not whether that bar must be met.
Probable cause is the point at which it becomes legal to have a trial, but it’s only ethical if there’s a good chance of winning. Compare this to the discussion over whether Sandra Bland should have been arrested - just because the cop had probable cause to arrest her for the traffic offence, doesn’t mean it was correct for him to do so.
I would say it’s a bigger ethical deal in a self defence case because if they are telling the truth they are not only not a criminal but the victim of a crime, and in my opinion putting the victim of a crime on trial because of it is hugely wrong.
I believe you need probable cause for each element of the crime, including it not being self defence if the suspect chooses to claim that. So, you’d need some positive evidence it was not self defence.
If I understand you correctly, then you’re right, and I accepted it in a reply to xenophon.
They have to prove that, for example, the danger he was in was not that of death or great bodily harm OR that the danger was not imminent, not that it wasn’t either of those.
This sounds reasonable, but there’s going to be a lot of disagreement about whether a prosecutor thinks he/she has a good chance of winning. And “a good chance” can also be subjective – a certain prosecutor might believe strongly enough in a case to pursue indictment even if they only think there’s a 20-30% chance of winning. I’m not sure that it’s unethical to proceed – I can certainly think of many instances in American history in which a prosecution would have been very ethical even if there was a low chance of victory.
I disagree that this is any more or less ethical.
IANAL (again) – do you have a cite for this? I’m not sure this is the case.
I can’t think of any situation where a prosecutor should waste taxpayer’s money, and put on trial, take up months or years of the time of, and ruin the reputation of a man he thinks is most likely innocent - a 70 to 80% chance based on your figures.
What legitimate purpose is served by putting on trial someone very likely to be innocent?
But that’s not what I said – I said that a prosecutor might strongly believe that the suspect is guilty, but only think there is a 30% chance of winning (perhaps some of the evidence is inadmissible, for example). In such a case, it would be entirely ethical (in my view) to proceed to trial.
Some very obvious examples are the Civil Rights murders in the South – in many cases, due to extremely racist juries (and often racist judges), there was very little chance of getting a conviction, but it was still the right thing to do to proceed to trial (for what seem to be obvious reasons to me).
I think this is where your argument fails. The prosecutor only needs to show the claim of self defense is unreasonable. That does not require positive evidence, only a line of reasoning that the jury finds persuasive. It would be illogical for a judge to impose a burden on a prosecutor to prove a negative.
Presciently including commando barrel rolls as seen in the Texas pool party video: The boys and Ned jump on the ground commando style
But is it a sin to kill a mockingbird if it’s attacking you?