Is mutual self defense a thing? Given very similar facts to the Rittenhouse case, but where the other guy shoots first, could that guy as a defendant claim self defense and win? Imagine two sides in a conflict which hasn’t resulted in much gunfire or death, in which a guy on each side carries a gun for protection. They encounter each other when each is leaning or reaching or tripping, or whatever it would take for them to unintentionally point their gun at your head. One of them reacts and raises their gun in defense, and the other one spots their move and points their gun at them. They both fire. They shoot each other and both are gravely injured (in fact, paralyzed). It seems like both guys claim and win on self defense in the USA. But if guns were illegal at that event, does then the violation of that open up the possibility of a different standard, or compounding crimes, which would find a conviction? EDIT: edited to change the question because in my first hypothetical, both people died.
You asked, &quot;could that guy as defendant claim self defense and win?&quot; First let's try to make it clear what is meant by &quot;win&quot;. In the Rittenhouse trial, the defendant was charged of the following crimes: First-degree reckless homicide First-degree recklessly endangering safety (x2) First-degree intentional homicide Attempted first-degree intentional homicide Possession of a dangerous weapon by a person under 18 (dismissed) Failure to comply with an emergency order from state or local government (dismissed) Rather than thinking of the defendant as a &quot;winner&quot;, it might be more appropriate to say that he was &quot;acquitted&quot; of these charges. If someone that was involved in the conflict fired first, as you described here: &quot;They encounter each other when each is leaning or reaching or tripping, or whatever it would take for them to unintentionally point their gun at your head. You react and you raise your gun in defense, he spots your move and points his at you. You both fire. You shoot each other and you both are gravely injured. Like, paralyzed&quot;, then would they also be acquitted of all of the non-dismissed charges listed above? If everything was as you described (&quot;unintentional&quot;, &quot;reactionary&quot;, and &quot;in defense&quot;), then likely they would also not be found guilty of those crimes. It's not like they would &quot;win&quot;, it's more like they will not be found guilty of committing one of those crimes. The precise outcome will depend on all the facts involved in the case, and the jury's decision based on those facts. So there is no single answer that always applies to every situation, but it sounds like you're wondering about some hypothetical situation that appears to be paradoxical because in this case only one person was charged with crimes: if someone else was the first shooter, the sequence of following events would first of all depend on whether or not they got charged with a crime, and I wouldn't characterize the outcome as a &quot;win&quot; or &quot;lose&quot; but as an &quot;acquittal&quot; or &quot;conviction&quot;, and yes it is possible to be acquitted if everything is &quot;accidental&quot; as you described, and presumably not &quot;reckless&quot; (often meaning that a reasonable person in the same situation would have done the same thing). About your more broad question: &quot;Is mutual self defense a thing?&quot; It depends on what crime is being charged against the defendant. In the Rittenhouse case there was only one person that was charged. If you're asking about a hypothetical situation in which two people involved in a 1-on-1 conflict both claim self-defense, I hope I can assume that they were both charged with a crime against which to defend themselves in court in the first place. It is indeed possible for a State to prosecute both parties of a 1-on-1 physical conflict, and for both of them to successfully claim self-defense in order to eventually be both acquitted. It wouldn't be called &quot;mutual self-defense&quot;, but each defendant would make their own self-defense case individually.
This is a good question, which I am going to answer from a practical perspective, rather than a theoretical one, which would probably justify a law review article (applications of the takings clause to criminal justice fact patterns is actually one of my pet areas of legal scholarship, but a lot of it calls for dramatic changes in established practice and precedents reached from other perspectives, making it impractical to pursue in real life). I recently had a case along these lines in my office where my client's property was seized as evidence in a criminal case against a third-party. The crime involved a gun shop where all of the guns that were in the possession of the shop owner for repairs at the time of the bust (i.e. as bailments), including ours worth several thousand dollars in addition to having some sentimental value, were seized as evidence of charges against a shop owner who was fencing stolen goods, making sales to felons off the books, falsifying excise tax returns, etc. He seemed legitimate and had been in business for many years in what was not a fly by night operation. He had all of the proper licenses. Who knew we were dealing with a crook? In that case, we intervened on behalf of our client in the primary case to seek the physical return of the property (basically a replevin claim), as have others affected by the bust. It took a few months and some legal fees, but we prevailed without too much effort, as have the other intervenors. Generally speaking, to make a 5th Amendment claim, you would have to show a total taking and move into some legal gray areas in this context, while it is usually hard for authorities to show a continuing need for possession of third-party property in the face of a demand for its return, especially when photography and other scientific tools can document the evidence in great detail these days. In that case, showing that our client's particular gun was not involved in any illegitimate transaction also simultaneously made it less important as evidence, although that would not necessarily be true in general in these kinds of situations. There is a pending case in Colorado posing similar issues, where a suburban police department essentially destroyed a guy's home in order to catch a felon with no relation to the homeowner whatsoever, who had fled into it and taken refuge there. But, that case, as far as I know, has not yet been resolved on the merits.
It seems generally uncontroversial that in examining a witness at trial, a lawyer may not ask questions implying that the witness has engaged in some wrongdoing, unless the lawyer has some basis for asking those questions. This is not true. A lawyer is allowed to guess and ask such a question, although if it assumes a fact not in evidence it could be objected to for lack of foundation. For example, the opposing counsel could object if the lawyer asked, "After you drank twelve beers at BigTown Sports Bar, isn't it true that you got into a car and drove away?", because there would be no evidence in the record at that point that he drank twelve beers at BigTown Sports Bar. For instance, in the absence of any evidence indicating that alcohol was involved, I would imagine that a plaintiff's lawyer in an accident case could not cross-examine a defendant with leading questions suggesting that he had been drunk at the time of the crash. Sure he could. He could ask, "Isn't it true that you were drunk at the time of the crash?" There is nothing objectionable about that question. If the answer was "no", however, and the lawyer had nothing else to back up that suggestion, the question might not help the case, but the question is proper. Sometimes a lawyer just has a hunch and goes with it, and sometimes the hunch is right. Is this rule codified in a rule of evidence or is it just rooted in the courts' ideas of decorum and propriety? I can see how it might implicate the Rules of Professional Conduct, but that wouldn't seem to provide a remedy to a party who was prejudiced by such behavior. I'm more interested here with civil cases than criminal, where a defendant's Sixth Amendment rights might be complicate the question. It isn't codified because such a rule does not exist. There are some special rules that apply to prosecutors, who are ethically required to bring criminal cases only when they believe that the cases are supported by probable cause. But, that rule applies at the case level and not at the question by question level. Lawyers are also prohibited, especially in criminal cases, from making statements asserting personal knowledge of the credibility of a defendant or witness. This is because this transforms the lawyer from an advocate to a credibility witness. But, the lawyer can ask a judge or jury to find that someone is not credible in closing argument based upon X, Y and Z evidence presented at trial.
Under U.S. law, double jeopardy prevents you from being charged with the same charge twice, and also from being charged with any offense which is a lesser included offense of the charged offense, or a charge so substantially similar that for constitutional purposes it amounts to the same crime. Basically, the test is whether a prior acquittal would be inconsistent with a new criminal charge. For example, even though there is an additional element of the crime of murdering a postal officer to the crime of murdering someone on federal property, double jeopardy would probably bar a retrial of a murder on federal property case simply because the victim happened to be a postal worker and that element wasn't charged in the original indictment. This is because the acquittal of the first murder charge would almost always imply a jury determination that a murder didn't take place which would be inconsistent with a murder of a postal worker charge. On the other hand, a trial on a murder charge would probably not bar, for example, a trial on a burglary charge (which at common law involved trespassing with an intent to commit a crime), even if the burglary charge arose from the same conduct. This is because an acquittal on a murder charge isn't necessarily inconsistent with the existence of a trespass, or with the intent to commit some crime other than the murder for which the defendant was acquitted. But the exact way that the line gets draw is tricky and while what I have described is a good general summary of the cases interpreting the double jeopardy clause, it isn't a perfect one. This issue has been litigated many, many tines over the years, so there are a lot of cases that are squarely on point addressing specific fact patterns in precedents that are binding case law that are not always a perfect fit to the general principles. In these circumstances, the binding case law is going to control, at least until a court with appellate authority over the court whose case established the precedent in question decided to overrule a prior precedent from the lower court, or in the case of U.S. Supreme Court precedents, until the U.S. Supreme Court revisits one of its own prior precedents as wrong decided or wrongly interpreted, which happens now and then, although it is a rare event.
A problem with the question is that it uses the loaded term "victim". If you change the question to "Are there actions that you can perform involving another person, which are crimes even if the other person consents to participating in the action", then there are very many. Selling alcohol to a minor; selling heroin to anyone; selling sex in most US jurisdictions; selling firearms to a convicted felon. Also, for a physician to assist a person in suicide, in most states. Formerly in the US, various forms of sexual intercourse were acts that consent did not make legal. Whether or not the person is a "victim" in these cases is open to debate. In the case of physician-assisted suicide in Washington, the doctor is allowed to prescribe (oral) drugs that the person ingests: only a doctor is permitted to do this, both under the DWD Act and as a consequence that only a doctor can prescribe the drugs. There seems to be a belief that it is a crime to assist a person in committing suicide, which is probably correct if the assistance is shooting the person in the head, or in general directly causing the death (thus, "I give you permission to shoot me in the head" doesn't cut it). But from what I can tell, it is not generally against the law in Washington to help a person who commits suicide (e.g. supplying the means of self-dispatching). In some countries, suicide and helping with suicide is illegal, e.g. in Kenya Penal Code 225 says Any person who (a) procures another to kill himself; or (b) counsels another to kill himself and thereby induces him to do so; or (c) aids another in killing himself, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for life. No exception is created if the person consents to being aided to kill himself.
You may legally ask someone to shoot you, or do all sorts of other things to you. There are no laws against asking or various kinds of speech: laws restrict the doing. If you ask a person to shoot you and they do it, that person will probably be arrested for assault (or murder, depending on how it works out) – shooting a person is assault. A possible defense against an assault charge is consent, but that defense isn't freely available whenever a person says "I give my consent for you to assault me". You cannot consent to foreseeable serious bodily injury (more accurately, the law does not recognize such consent as valid consent). You can agree to be struck (in a boxing match) because such force is not serious bodily harm; and if unforeseeably serious bodily harm results, the consent defense is available. But if you ask a person to shoot you in the liver, they will be prosecuted for assault, because the resulting serious bodily harm is foreseeable.
Theoretically, yes it can, but it is highly fact specific The Court of Appeal explicitly answered this question in the case of R v Bown [2003] EWCA Crim 1989; [2004] 1 Cr App R 13. The Court held per Keene LJ that self-harm was capable of being a good reason within the meaning of subsection 4 of s 139 (para 20). While refraining from any abstract holding as to self-harm (which required a fact-based analysis), Keene LJ held (at para 24–5) that this would depend on evidence as to how and in what manner the bladed article was intended to be used and the time and place relating to said use. The burden of demonstrating this fell on the defence and it would require detailed evidence to be a presentable defence. In the case at bar, the absence of any evidence directly linking the possession of the knife to the tendency of the defendant to self-harm meant that there was nothing which could establish the defence to be put to the jury; a high 'degree of particularity was requisite' (para 27). NB: yes, the name of the defendant in this case is actually 'Bown', not 'Brown'—I know it looks like a typo!
The laws on this will vary somewhat from state to state in the US. But in general, a person who convinces another to commit a murder might be convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, or accessory to murder. Being an accessory often carries the same penalties as being in principal, and in some jurisdictions there is no legal difference. In addition such a person might be charged with a violation of Federal law, specifically 18 USC 373 - Solicitation to commit a crime of violence. Subsection (a) provides that: (a) Whoever, with intent that another person engage in conduct constituting a felony that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against property or against the person of another in violation of the laws of the United States, and under circumstances strongly corroborative of that intent, solicits, commands, induces, or otherwise endeavors to persuade such other person to engage in such conduct, shall be imprisoned not more than one-half the maximum term of imprisonment or (notwithstanding section 3571) fined not more than one-half of the maximum fine prescribed for the punishment of the crime solicited, or both; or if the crime solicited is punishable by life imprisonment or death, shall be imprisoned for not more than twenty years. In US law charges of &quot;incitement&quot; are limited by the &quot;imminent lawless action&quot; test laid down in Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) The court opion in that case states: the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. This case held that a person may not be convicted of crime for speech advocating violence unless the advocacy is for immediate, present violence, or at least violence in the very near future, and there there must be significant likelihood of the violence actually occurring. This test has mostly been used in cases of public advocacy of violence to groups or crowds, but nothing prevents it from begin used in cases of one-on-one advocacy. See also the Wikipedia article &quot;Incitement&quot;. I have not researched the specific charges in the Manson case.