Can there be a scenario where the use of an IED against an enemy is legally justifiable? (It&#39;s for a book, I swear...) Before I go any further, let me be clear that this is for a work of fiction. Doing some research for a story where a military protagonist becomes trapped behind enemy lines, with a plan to have her hold out until rescue against superior forces by adopting asymmetric warfare tactics, including the use of improvised explosive devices. This is an urban environment, but it's a situation where most of the civilians formerly in the area are already gone (either dead, fled, or captured), and she's actively trying to keep the enemy away from a pocket of survivors. Under standard Western rules of war, is it legal for her to use IEDs in this context? I did a little research already but that article mostly just deals with IEDs being used partially or fully for ideological reasons with no care to collateral damage (and often deliberately targeting civilians).
The fact that an explosive device is improvised is irrelevant to any law of war with which I am familiar. "Legal in war" is more a matter of deciding which treaty, convention, or custom you care to respect.
The powers given to law enforcement professionals will be detailed in the relevant law that establishes them. I would suspect that the decision to cordon off an area would fall within the purview of the officer on the scene; the idea that a police officer would need to seek permission before cordoning off a motor vehicle accident or chemical spill is unworkable. I would also suspect that other emergency personnel (e.g. ambulance and fire-fighters) would have similar powers. However, such cordoning off would be a temporary measure and if it was maintained for an unreasonable period it would be open to challenge through an administrative or judicial process. If the police decided that a feature was a permanent hazard then they could seek a court order on the owner of the property to provide some measure to adequately protect the public, by either removing the hazard or providing some permanent barrier, under whatever laws seemed most appropriate.
I think it would depend on how a jury viewed the "challenge" to her audience. The general rule for self-defense in Texas is that the person needs to reasonably believe that force is immediately necessary to protect herself from someone else's use of force. I think a jury would find it reasonable to believe that someone forcefully attempting to steal your gun was planning to use it against you. More importantly, the law generally presumes that that belief is reasonable if the person is being robbed, assuming that she isn't otherwise engaged in criminal activity. Since openly carrying an AR-15 is -- as far as I know -- legal in Texas, I think she'd probably be fine. But: The law also says that the use of force is not justified when a person consents to the other person's use of force, or if the person has provoked the other person. So now you have the question of whether the student's challenge constitutes a provocation or consent to the use of force. I think you can make a decent argument for provocation, which means that "the defendant did some act or used some words intended to and calculated to bring on the difficulty in order to have a pretext for inflicting injury." Neal v. State, No. 12-14-00158-CR, 2016 WL 1446138, at *11 (Tex. App. Apr. 13, 2016). You might also make out a decent argument for consent, which doesn't necessarily seem to require that the parties exactly spell out the rules of engagement, just that there is some kind of agreement between the two parties. In one case, for instance, a defendant tried to argue that a fight had gone beyond the rules because one party used a chokehold and knocked the other out. But the court said that the only actual rule agreed to was that there would be no weapons used. Padilla v. State, No. 03-07-00513-CR, 2008 WL 5423139, at *2 (Tex. App. Dec. 31, 2008). That makes me think that as long as there's consent to some kind of fight, you don't necessarily need rules, though you do need to abide by them if you agree to them. So what's the scope of consent in this case? If we say that she's agreed to the use of force by challenging people to take something from her, and she hasn't said how you can do it, can you do it by any means you choose? I don't think a court would let someone shoot her to get it, but maybe they would be allowed to pry it out of her hands. So all of that is a long way of saying that this is a tricky question, and that any decision would probably depend a lot on the specific facts of who she was talking to, what exactly she was saying, how she was carrying the gun, and so on.
The simple answer to the question you asked is that they are not mutually exclusive. Self-defense and “castle doctrine” are defenses. A person can be charged and tried for murder, and one or both of those can be their defense. But shooting someone in self defense does not guarantee immunity from a charge or trial. In the first place, you need to show that it was indeed justifiable self-defense. As a source for this answer, see Texas state law library. https://guides.sll.texas.gov/gun-laws/stand-your-ground That site itself says that the laws are complicated and refers readers to “plain English” from which I selected https://www.bhwlawfirm.com/deadly-force-self-defense-in-texas/ For self defense, the site says: Texas law provides for a justifiable defense at trial when using deadly force if the person claiming self defense: Reasonably believed the deadly force was immediately necessary; Had a legal right to be on the property; Did not provoke the person against whom deadly force was used; and Was not engaged in criminal activity at the time the deadly force was used. For protection of property, it says Under Texas Penal Code §9.42, a person may use deadly force against another to protect land or property if: He is the owner of the land; He reasonably believes using the force is immediately necessary to prevent arson, burglary, or robbery; and He reasonably believes that the land or property cannot be protected or recovered by any other means. OK! To summarize the story linked by the OP, homeowner hears and then finds a man outside breaking into homeowner’s shed. He confronts intruder who then moves toward homeowner with a pickaxe. Homeowner shoots and intruder runs off. let us agree that the first shot was allowed under Texas law, preventing a robbery and perhaps an attack with a pickaxe. The homeowner says that he then shot again “into the night.” At this point he is shooting a fleeing person. We can even leave out all of the irregularities once he calls 911 two hours later to report an invasion in progress even though the intruder was dead. In any case, there is also the questions are: Is the homeowner’s version of events true in the first place? If we accept everything he said, was the shot the killed the man justifiable under Texas law? These are for the prosecutor to decide if it is worth trying and the jury to decide. Back to your question of how can they charge him if he had a right to stand his ground? Further, even if a person has a justification for using force, he may still be arrested and face trial. Self defense is a defense against a murder charge, not a get out of jail free card.
Sure: No Constitutional rights are totally unencumbered. Even natural rights like the "right to life" are legally "infringed" through various theories (e.g., self-defense, capital punishment, warfare). The Second Amendment has been interpreted as a right to keep and bear weapons that would reasonably be used in self-defense or in military service. You don't have to go to strategic weapons like nukes to find "reasonable infringement" of that right. For example, even though the military and even police routinely use explosives, individuals are absolutely subject to the whims of a federal regulatory agency (the BATFE) as well as state restrictions if they want to keep and bear detonators. Also, I'm not aware of an absolute prohibition on the possession of nuclear devices by non-government entities. E.g., various government regulators oversee private entities that operate commercial and research nuclear reactors and other activities that put them all-but in possession of nuclear arms. If an individual really wanted to legally keep and bear a nuclear weapon it could probably be done with enough money and oversight. (Amendment: Except, as cpast points out in the comments, that there is a law against private possession of nuclear weapons in the U.S. Which just goes back to the broad answer to your general question: In practice there are no unencumbered rights. Constitutional "rights" might better be called things that require "strict scrutiny" and "narrow tailoring" of government infringement.)
I can't comment on what the legal situation would be in your home country, but as a matter of U.S. law, the hypothetical scenario you've described is not illegal. First, because you aren't a U.S. citizen and because you aren't operating in the United States, the U.S. government probably has no jurisdiction over you, your website, or your conduct. Even if it did, the most relevant statute, 18 U.S. Code § 1017, would not apply. The statute prohibits the &quot;fraudulent or wrongful&quot; use of the FBI's seal. But &quot;fraudulent&quot; and &quot;wrongful&quot; generally refer only to conduct where one uses deception or other means to obtain money, property, etc. to which they have no lawful entitlement. United States v. Enmons, 410 U.S. 396, 399 (1973). Because you aren't using the seal to obtain anyone's property through deception, this use would not fall within the statute's proscriptions. Even if the government sought to prosecute you, you would have a valid First Amendment defense. The First Amendment protects the right to free speech, and it does not allow statements to be criminalized merely because they are false. United States v. Alvarez, 132 S. Ct. 2537 (2012). This outcome should be unsurprising to most U.S. observers. I think most people would agree that the U.S. obviously cannot prosecute a Hollywood producer for making a movie dramatizing the FBI's efforts to shut down the Pirate Bay, even if it displayed the FBI's seizure message on a monitor in the course of the movie, and even if it showed the seal being used on a completely fictional website. The hypothetical you're describing is not materially different. In both cases, the seal is being used to falsely create the impression -- for entertainment purposes -- that the FBI has shut down a website. Saying false things for entertainment purposes is not a crime in the United States.
You have misread the DMLP page. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to record a conversation if you are a party and if the other party does not consent. The fact that federal law doesn't ban something doesn't mean that states can't ban it. There is generally a presumption that when both the feds and the states can legitimately regulate something, the feds weren't trying to preempt all state laws on the topic. While people often say "federal law takes precedence over state law," the normal rule is that both laws apply; the federal law only blocks the state law if the feds wanted to block said state laws. So far as I can tell, the federal law has never been held to preempt two-party consent laws; the point of the federal law was to restrict recording, not extend it. It's like how federal law doesn't prohibit taking hostages inside the US to coerce a private company into doing what you want (anti-terrorism laws might, I guess, but the federal hostage-taking law doesn't); while the federal law excludes most hostage-taking in the US, that doesn't mean that it's legal to take hostages. Congress sometimes wants to establish nationwide standards for something, but the presumption is that they didn't.
This is controlled by state law (there is also a federal murder statutes but the federal government doesn't dictate defenses for state law). Here is Washington's. RCW 9A.16.020 says when use of force is lawful, and there are different &quot;public officer&quot; vs. &quot;person&quot; related provisions. Generally, public officers may use force (1) Whenever necessarily used by a public officer in the performance of a legal duty, or a person assisting the officer and acting under the officer's direction; but persons (other than those assisting an officer) may only use force (3) Whenever used by a party about to be injured, or by another lawfully aiding him or her, in preventing or attempting to prevent an offense against his or her person, or a malicious trespass, or other malicious interference with real or personal property lawfully in his or her possession, in case the force is not more than is necessary; Additionally, RCW 9A.16.040 is a long section specifically about officers, the most germane parts of which are that use of deadly force is justifiable (a) When a public officer applies deadly force in obedience to the judgment of a competent court; or (b) When necessarily used by a peace officer meeting the good faith standard of this section to overcome actual resistance to the execution of the legal process, mandate, or order of a court or officer, or in the discharge of a legal duty; or (c) When necessarily used by a peace officer meeting the good faith standard of this section or person acting under the officer's command and in the officer's aid: (i) To arrest or apprehend a person who the officer reasonably believes has committed, has attempted to commit, is committing, or is attempting to commit a felony; RCW 9A.16.050 has more limited circumstances when homicide is justifiable by others (not in self-defense): (1) In the lawful defense of the slayer, or his or her husband, wife, parent, child, brother, or sister, or of any other person in his or her presence or company, when there is reasonable ground to apprehend a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer or to any such person, and there is imminent danger of such design being accomplished; or (2) In the actual resistance of an attempt to commit a felony upon the slayer, in his or her presence, or upon or in a dwelling, or other place of abode, in which he or she is In other words, the box for police officers is bigger: they can use deadly force to do their job, your plumber cannot. RCW 9A.16.040 is not a general license to kill: the rest of the section details the conditions under which one can consider such use of force to be lawful. The officer must have &quot;probable cause to believe that the suspect, if not apprehended, poses a threat of serious physical harm to the officer or a threat of serious physical harm to others&quot;. If that is so, &quot;deadly force may also be used if necessary to prevent escape from the officer&quot;. Also, as usual, the fact-finders do not make that judgment post hoc, the officer at the scene does and he &quot;shall not be held criminally liable for using deadly force without malice and with a good faith belief that such act is justifiable pursuant to this section&quot;. In enacting this law (in case the courts wondered, years later, the legislature declared The legislature recognizes that RCW 9A.16.040 establishes a dual standard with respect to the use of deadly force by peace officers and private citizens, and further recognizes that private citizens' permissible use of deadly force under the authority of RCW 9.01.200 [since recodified], 9A.16.020, or 9A.16.050 is not restricted and remains broader than the limitations imposed on peace officers There do not appear to be statutory defenses for federal murder statutes, instead this results from common law interpretation, implemented in federal rules of criminal procedure (discussed here w.r.t. defenses) and jury instructions in the various circuits.