Am I allowed to use lethal force against some one who is lawfully threatening my life? Following on this question: Am I allowed to kill a person threatening me? CA, USA What if you are the target of lethal force? In this case your own life is threatened, even though you created the situation that warranted the use of lethal force against you. So what if now the hostage-taker kills the guy who tried to stop him with lethal force. And after that the hostage-taker gives up. Would he be guilty "only" of the crime of hostage taking or would he be guilty of murder as well?
The "felony murder" doctrine, which applies in most of the U.S. (including California), holds criminals engaged in "dangerous felonies" responsible for any deaths that occur during the commission of such crimes. In the given example, the hostage taker and anyone who is an accessory to that aggravated assault would, if convicted, also be guilty of murder for deaths that occurred in connection with the incident, regardless of their intent.
“Never” is a very big word… If a burglar stabs someone in claimed self defense, then we have evidence that this was an armed burglary, so that won’t go down well for that burglar. And your rights to self defence are greatly diminished if you caused that situation illegally. So should you get into the situation, try to run away if at all possible. If you had any chance at all to escape your self defence argument will not be accepted. The only possible situation with self defence is if you are threatened with illegal violence that cannot be justified by the fact that you are a criminal. For example you enter a home, two people with guns inside catch you, bind you to a chair so you are no danger at all, and instead of calling the police they announce they will kill or maim you. This is of course very unlikely to happen.
Natural law does not prescribe particular punishments, that only comes from statutory law. Under Indian law, this would seem to be a violation of IPC 304a, &quot;causing death by negligence&quot;. There is no intent to cause great injury, indeed it is a complete mystery why the boy died. The penalty is up to two years imprisonment and a fine. There are more details in IPC 300, focusing on intent to kill under extreme provocation, but the required intent is lacking here. The courts may be lenient, having considered surrounding circumstances, and sentence her to less than the maximum punishment.
You acted illegally in assaulting your fellow student. When you are in public, a person can legally take your picture, and you are not allowed to assault a person because you do not like their legal actions. Any degree of force is excessive except in certain responses to illegal fource, and even the threat of force is excessive. You also have no right to demand that a person prove that they didn't take your picture, and certainly no right to enforce that demand with physical violence.
Yes to everything. Justified use of force is assault / battery / homicide (as appropriate). "Assault" means that a person has placed someone in fear of their life or person. "Battery" means that a person has physically struck someone in some way. "Homicide" means that a person has killed another human. None of these definitions speak to the legality of the action. You are right about the example being assault. Justified use of force is de facto legal. Assault, battery, and homicide are normally crimes, but the justifications for using force carve out exceptions. If the circumstances fit within the justification, the person using the justified force has not committed a crime. (Generally speaking, the person targeted by said force has.) If the situation you describe fits within the laws of justification within the state (and to be fair, it probably does), then your co-worker is right about the actions being perfectly legal. Police are picky about what they investigate, and prosecutors are picky about what they charge. If it's 100% clear from the evidence that you were justified in your use of force, prosecutors will (typically) not press charges, and so police will not bother with an arrest or further investigation. It's really not worth the time and effort for a case that has 0% chance of producing a conviction. However, if the police and prosecutors have some doubts (e.g., they think your force was excessive and therefor not justified), they can still press charges. Being charged with a crime does not mean you have committed a crime. And vice-versa. Justification is an affirmative defense against charges of assault / battery / homicide. An affirmative defense does not mean "I confess to the crime but have a really good excuse." It means that you admit to certain facts that would normally be beneficial to the prosecution, but claim additional facts that either mitigate or make you innocent of the given charges. In the case of justified force, you are admitting to the action of assault, but claiming innocence. When making your defense, your theory of defense must be internally consistent. You cannot admit to a fact when convenient and deny it when it is inconvenient. "I was in Santa Fe at the time, and anyway, Sam did it," is an example of a self-consistent theory that gives multiple reasons to acquit. That's good, because the jury only needs one reason that gives them pause, and now you've got two chances at that. "I was in Santa Fe at the time, and anyway, he was threatening my life," is not internally consistent. If you argue justification, you explicitly declaim any alibi. This situation is more dangerous, because your defense rests entirely on the credibility of the justification. But if you argue an alibi, you implicitly declaim any justification. So building your defense on things the prosecution can disprove is much worse than taking an affirmative defense of justification.
There is no absolute rule in such cases. It is often a matter of negotiation between the state and federal authorities, and failing agreement, a matter of which authority has the prisoner in custody. Often the question of which crime is more serious or carries a longer sentence is an issue in such negotiations.
The federal precedential case on using deadly force against a fleeing suspect is Tennessee v. Garner: The use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable. It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. This case does not generally prohibit using deadly force to arrest someone who is fleeing in a vehicle, as vehicles are deadly weapons. A person fleeing police in a car poses a threat to pursuing officers and the general public so it is up to local policy and the officers on scene to weigh the risk of public harm against the interest of taking suspects alive and the risk of attempting to use deadly force against them. However, most if not all police departments do not allow the use of deadly force merely because someone is fleeing in a vehicle and also prohibit using firearms against a vehicle in this way, and at least according to the LA Times this is true of the Long Beach Police Department as well: According to a use-of-force policy from Long Beach Unified’s school safety office, officers are not permitted to fire at a moving vehicle. Firearms may be discharged only when reasonably necessary and justified under the circumstances, such as self-defense and the protection of others, the policy states. The policy also bars shooting at fleeing suspects.
I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're referring to, but here are the state involuntary manslaughter laws. Broad brush, the elements tend to be: Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others. However, you're really backwards planning from a jail vs. army decision, so you might actually be after something like felony hit and run, which can most certainly result in incarceration. The elements of felony hit and run generally include leaving the scene of an accident regardless of fault (hit and run typically becomes a felony when someone was injured in the accident). Since the elements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it makes sense to look them up wherever the accident will take place in the book. If it takes place in the U.S. this is a state-by-state compendium. Then you can tweak the story to satisfy the applicable elements and induce the jail vs. army decision (even if army policy prohibits it, it's still pretty common fiction!).