In an opposite-sex sexual assault case, is &quot;I&#39;m homosexual&quot; a valid defense? Let's say Alice is sexually assaulted by a man, and circumstantial evidence pinpoints Bob as the attacker. Can Bob claim that, because he is homosexual/asexual, he does not find Alice sexually desirable and so cannot be the attacker? I'm unable to find anything on this via Google. The closest is the gay panic defense which is still not what this question is about.
This is not a true defense. It would only go to the credibility of the defendant's account claiming that he was not the perpetrator. Nothing prevents someone who is homosexual or asexual from sexually assaulting someone of the opposite sex within the meaning of the law. Sexual assault is often motivated by reasons other than sexual attraction in any case. Also, some people who publicly hold themselves out as being homosexual are actually bisexual. It is probably relevant evidence, but ultimately, it is up to the jury to decide who to believe and what happened based upon all of the facts and circumstances.
I'm no expert, but I had assumed this clause was present in case of the following situation. Joe is arrested for a robbery of a London bank. Joe says nothing under questioning. At trial, Joe's defense is that at the time of the robbery, he was in Sheffield drinking beer with his brother. On the basis of common sense, a jury could think: "Surely if Joe were really innocent, he would have told the police of his alibi at the time he was questioned, and saved himself a lot of trouble. Since he didn't do that, maybe a more likely explanation is that he wasn't actually in Sheffield, but that sometime between arrest and trial, he came up with the idea of faking an alibi in Sheffield, and convinced people to testify falsely to that effect. Yes, that does seem more plausible. So we are not going to give much credence to Joe's supposed alibi." So it really would be the case that not mentioning the alibi during questioning would harm Joe's defense at trial. The warning, then, is intended to keep Joe from doing this inadvertently. If Joe's alibi is genuine, but out of a misguided desire to exercise his right to remain silent, he doesn't mention it during questioning, he may accidentally increase his chances of being wrongly convicted. Everybody has an interest in avoiding this.
I don't believe it is contradictory. Some kinds of injury are inherently difficult to calculate (e.g. damage to reputation caused by slander) but the judge or jury, as the case may be, will review the evidence and do the best they can. Lord Reed says as much in paragraph 38 of his judgment. ... and as a practical matter, it appears the damages, in this case, were both calculable and supported by evidence. The Court's primary focus was not whether damages could be calculated but rather the measure of damages (i.e. the method of calculation).
I suspect that you would not be convicted in the present case, because the jury would be sympathetic to the plight of the person being dragged out and unsympathetic to the behavior of the draggers. However, we should set aside the emotional elements of a jury trial and focus on legal principles. The basic question is whether a person has the right to use force to defend against an unlawful battery: "a person is privileged to use such force as reasonably appears necessary to defend him or herself against an apparent threat of unlawful and immediate violence from another". This right to defense also extends to defense of others. But it has to appear to be to unlawful, which is to say, you have to reasonably believe that the force used against the victim is unlawful. If a couple of thugs try to drag a person away, then an observer probably has a reasonable belief that this is an unlawful battery. But if a couple of police officers are observed dragging a person away (arresting him), apparently acting officially, the force used (up to a point) is apparently lawful and would not constitute battery of the victim. For defensive force against police to be lawful, the forced used by the police must be excessive. The outcome then depends on what a reasonable person would conclude (this is where the jury or judge makes a rather subjective decision). If a reasonable person would conclude that the assailants are acting lawfully in arresting the person, then a higher bar must be clear to justifiably use force in defense of others. Wearing a jacket that says "Police" favors the "appears lawful" side (though if you happened to know for a fact that the person wearing the jacket is not a police officer, then the "police exception" would not be applicable). In the relevant case, the facts point to the appearance of a lawful arrest (even if were to turn out to be judged unlawful). In the case that this is an apparent arrest, it would have to be the case that a reasonable person would find the force used to be excessive. Generally speaking, force used by officers is held to be reasonable, except in some cases where it is not. See for example the matter of Eric Garner, where the officers involved were not indicted. On the third hand, in this case, it might matter what the actual legal status of the "officers" is (they are not Chicago police).
In the US, there are no (and can be no) laws against hate speech. You also cannot sue a person for using an ethnic or similar epithet. A false accusation, however, might be grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Word connotations do not matter, what matters is the denotation, for example calling someone a "rapist" denotes a specific criminal act. Even calling someone a rapist isn't necessarily defamatory, since hyperbole abounds especially on the internet, so in order to actually be defamation, the statement would have to be understood as a particular accusation (a form of unlawful sexual assault). A defamatory statement has to be made with reckless disregard for the truth of a statement, which is not the case in the situation you describe (perhaps the person correctly said that so-and-so is a therapist, but was ineffective in their use of English).
This is, in effect a defense of mistaken identity, and an assertion that the person on trial is not in fact the person who committed the crime. It is not legally significantly different from a case where the defendant claims that a witness has identified the wrong person. Exactly how the defense would be conducted would depend on what evidence establishes that &quot;Herschel Greenbaum&quot; committed the crime, and what evidence establishes (or disproves) that the defendant on trial is that same Herschel Greenbaum. The purpose of a trial is to establish or fail to establish the guilt of the person actually on trial, normally the person present in the courtroom. (trials do not establish innocence in the US). &quot;The defendant&quot; is the person actually on trial, even if an incorrect name has been used in bringing the charge. In such a case people would need to be careful about evidence that applies to a person named &quot;Herschel Greenbaum&quot; but might not apply to the defendant actually on trial.
It depends on the particular law in the particular jurisdiction in which you are charged. Most statute laws enumerate the defences that are available. In common law countries there is a general defence that (except in strict liability offences) the perpetrator must well ... perpetrate the criminal act; what you describe does not appear to meet that requirement. Other jurisdictions would not be so forgiving.
Chief Justice Roberts, dissenting, says (at p. 24): The equal protection analysis might be different, in my view, if we were confronted with a more focused challenge to the denial of certain tangible benefits. That indicates to me that there is probably a majority on the court that thinks same-sex couples should have the same adoption rights and other tangible benefits as opposite-sex couples, but that would have to be tested in court. Regarding level-of-scrutiny, this opinion says nothing on the issue. But, given that Justice Kennedy follows a fundamental rights analysis, it could be argued that it is likely strict scrutiny, or at least a level of scrutiny higher than rational basis. Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997), citing Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 631 (1996) (emphasis added, internal punctuation removed): If a legislative classification or distinction neither burdens a fundamental right nor targets a suspect class, we will uphold it so long as it bears a rational relation to some legitimate end.