Are underage people allowed to defend themselves in court? Bob is underage, yet commits a severe criminal act that's worthy of going to trial. Normally, one is allowed to represent themselves in court, however ill-advised that may be. But is Bob, underage as he is, allowed that same right? Feel free to set the age/crime to be whatever such that Bob would appear in court underage.
united-states The Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional right to self-representation in Faretta v California, but in Godinez v. Moran, the court injected the logically prior question of competence, rejecting a mixed-bag approach to competence. The court held that when a defendant seeks to waive his right to counsel, a determination that he is competent to stand trial is not enough; the waiver must also be intelligent and voluntary before it can be accepted. While States are free to adopt competency standards that are more elaborate than the Dusky formulation, the Due Process Clause does not impose them. The specific issue in this case is competence to plead guilty. In Indiana v. Edwards, the court stated that there is no absolute right to self-representation if one is competent to stand trial. It is held that The Constitution does not forbid States from insisting upon representation by counsel for those competent enough to stand trial but who suffer from severe mental illness to the point where they are not competent to conduct trial proceedings by themselves. One conclusion to be drawn from this is that states may but are not required to insist on a specific competence to self-represent, so there can be multiple standards of competence. Second, the Edwards court put the issue more in the realm of questions of insanity, where the limit imposed on a technical minor would have to be a substantial finding of incompetence, and not just a statutory declaration that anyone below the age of 18 is ipso facto incompetent to legally defend themselves but they can be competent to stand trial. In Martinez v. Court of Appeal of California, the court further held that nothing &quot;requires a State to recognize a constitutional right to self-representation on direct appeal from a criminal conviction&quot;. This study indicates that individual states have not eagerly cleared the path to minor self-representation, noting that &quot;Many states permit waiver by a juvenile after cursory inquiry by the court&quot;, but &quot;Others require that the juvenile consult with a parent, lawyer or other adult&quot;. Nevertheless, &quot;waiver of counsel is, almost without exception, connected to an 'admission,' or guilty plea&quot;, simply asserting that &quot;Juveniles do not represent themselves at trial&quot;, and what minors waive is the right to trial. There is a lack of relevant case law citations in this study, in that no ruling is cited where the court affirms that minors are automatically incompetent to represent themselves in a criminal trial. The specifics of the qualifier &quot;almost without exception&quot; would be very relevant to this question.
In the US, a person is "within their rights" to invoke the Fifth Amendment, i.e. refuse to self-incriminate. However, the government can give a person immunity from prosecution for offenses having to do with the testimony, in which case he can be compelled to testify. A person is not required to guess about whether they could actually be convicted based on their testimony. It is the privilege of the court (judge) to determine whether a witness has "a reasonable cause to apprehend danger from a direct answer" (Ohio v. Reiner, 532 U.S. 17).
So, in England and Wales your son assaulted Mario. (From Wikipedia: "Assault is committed if one intentionally or recklessly causes another person to apprehend immediate and unlawful personal violence". I expect Mario expected your son was going to thump him, and that would certainly be unlawful.) You were both trespassers on the property; however it sounds like there was nobody there who could require you to leave, so that probably doesn't matter. Both of these would be true whatever the age of your daughter. Finally, in England and Wales, if you had forced your 16-year old daughter to come with you against her will, you would both have been guilty of kidnapping. (16 is the age at which children become independent in terms of deciding where to go.) She can choose to leave home and live with her boyfriend, and there is nothing you can do to stop her. Edit: The question did not originally mention a jurisdiction. This is an area where the legal situation is likely to be very jurisdiction dependent.
british-columbia I am not aware of any judicial consideration of this issue. The Liquor Control and Licensing Act, s. 78(1) says: A minor must not, except as provided under this Act or unless the minor does so with other lawful excuse, ... consume liquor. (One of those exceptions are when the alcohol is supplied by the minor's parents, spouse or guardian in a residence for consumption in the residence. There are other exceptions, too. But I'll assume you're asking about a circumstance where no exception applies.) The Liquor Control and Licensing Act defines a &quot;minor&quot; to be a person under the age of majority established by the Age of Majority Act, which is age 19 today. The Liquor Control and Licensing Act, s. 57 makes it an offence to contravene s. 78(1). The Interpretation Act, s. 25.1 states that &quot;A person reaches a particular age expressed in years at the beginning of the relevant anniversary of the person's birth date.&quot; The Interpretation Act also clarifies that the reference to time &quot;is a reference to Pacific Standard Time&quot; (or Pacific Daylight Saving Time, when it is in effect). Thus, a person is a minor until &quot;the beginning [in Pacific time] of the relevant anniversary of the person's birth date.&quot; It is most clear in relation to the identification requirements when selling to a minor, but the Regulations (s. 158) refer to the date of birth as displayed on the person's identification card. This all suggests that when consuming alcohol in the greater Vancouver area, a person just about to reach the age of majority must wait until the date in the Pacific time zone is that which is displayed on their identification. Or barring any identification, until the date in the Pacific time zone is the date that is the person's birth date.
The Testimony Of Children Under Oath Do Children As Young As Seven Years Old Testify In U.S. Courts? Could it actually happen in American courts? Yes. It can and does happen on a regular basis, although a seven year old is at the very lower end of the range at which children are called to testify as witnesses with any regularity. Any witness which a court determines is competent to testify, which includes many, but not all, minors, testifies under oath. Some jurisdictions have a hard and fast minimum age at which someone can be competent to testify (often age seven is the minimum), while other states make it a rule of reason for the court to evaluate on a case by case basis. Child testimony can be used in any kind of case, not just sex offenses against children or child abuse and neglect cases, although those cases are the kind of cases where child testimony is most common. Special Arrangements Sometimes Made For Child Testimony While special arrangements for the form and circumstances of that testimony can sometimes be ordered by a court (sometimes raising constitutional issues regarding whether the &quot;confrontation clause&quot; right of a criminal defendant is violated in a criminal case under U.S. Constitutional law), the default rule is that a minor testifies in the same manner as anyone else. Often the exact wording of the oath is changed when a child can't reasonable be expected to understand the normal wording. Perjury In Cases Of Child Testimony Under Oath If the person testifying under oath is a minor, a perjury offense would be presumptively tried in juvenile court rather than an adult criminal court. Also, it is possible that even if a child is sworn and testifying under oath, that a child will not be old enough to prosecute for the crime of perjury, even in juvenile court, if the child intentionally commits perjury. An oath has symbolic value and is believed by many people to have an effect, even when there is no credible threat of a perjury prosecution for lying under oath. In practice, perjury prosecutions, even for adults, for court testimony, are vanishingly rare even in pretty clear cases, even though the crime is committed basically every day that courts are open for business. For example, there are dozens of such prosecutions a year in Colorado including both in court and out of court sworn statements, and there are tens of thousands of evidentiary hearings and evidentiary trials each year in Colorado, or which perjury is actually committed in perhaps 5%-10% of such hearings and trials. Alternatives To Child Testimony Under Oath Evidence Of Unsworn Out Of Court Statements Made By Children It is also possible for things that a minor says to be recounted by someone who heard them said or a transcript of a conversation with someone that was not under oath (in which case it is hearsay, but may come within an exception to the hearsay rule), or via a videotape of a child saying something (which is a record to be authenticated prior to its admission). But, in both of those cases, what the child says that the court considers as evidence is not testimony. Interviews In Chambers Of Children Another process by which courts obtain information from children, often in child custody cases, is for the judge to personally interview the children, not under oath and not with testimony taken down by a court reporter, either in or outside the presence of counsel for the parties (and almost always not in the presence of parents or any audience present at a hearing) in the judges chambers. This is primarily done not to elicit evidence of facts, per se, so much as to discern the preferences, desires and concerns of the children themselves as expressed directly. Statements of preferences, desires and opinions of children, because they are not statements of fact and are instead statements of opinion, are by definition not capable of being prosecuted for perjury, since their truth or falsity is not objectively determinable. These interviews are given more weight in the case of older children than in the case of younger children and this process would not be used at all for infants or pre-schoolers.
A POA (power of attorney) does not allow one to represent someone in court. The name is confusing, it dates from a period when &quot;attorney&quot; meant one who acted for another, not just in court. That hasn't been a current meaning for hundreds of years except in this one expression. A POA might now be better called a &quot;power of agency&quot; but the inertia of terminology applies. According to Section Section 2C:21-22 of the NJ code: a. A person is guilty of a crime of the fourth degree if the person knowingly engages in the unauthorized practice of law. b. A person is guilty of a crime of the third degree if the person knowingly engages in the unauthorized practice of law and: (1) Creates or reinforces, by any means, a false impression that the person is licensed to engage in the practice of law. As used in this paragraph, &quot;by any means&quot; includes but is not limited to using or advertising the title of lawyer or attorney-at-law, or equivalent terms, in the English language or any other language, which mean or imply that the person is licensed as an attorney-at-law in the State of New Jersey or in any other jurisdiction of the United States; or (2) Derives a benefit; or (3) In fact causes injury to another. c. For the purposes of this section, the phrase &quot;in fact&quot; indicates strict liability. Accoding to the NJ courts: A person is considered to be practicing law when that person's conduct whenever and wherever it takes place is of such a nature that legal knowledge, training, skill and ability are required. This definition of the practice of law is not limited to the conduct of cases in court. (Source: www.njcourts.gov › assets › criminalcharges › unprlaw) This rule is, if anything, more strictly enforced in criminal cases than in civil cases. In some states non-lawyers may assist a party in small-claims courts, I believe, but not in NJ.
Just below the section you quoted it says: (3) The victim’s prior sexual conduct is not a relevant issue in a prosecution under this section. There is no stated provision for the case you mention. I suspect that the law would apply. Whether the authorities would choose to prosecute in such a case is a very different question. There might be caselaw of this subject. I wouldn't know. If this is more than hypothetical, i would urge consulting a lawyer with local knowledge of criminal practice.
The General Rule In practice, the only time when self-defense against a police officer is legal is when you do not know and have no reasonable way that you could have known that the person attacking you is a police officer. (And arguably, a police officer acting in an official capacity in furtherance of his or her duties, rather than in a personal capacity as an individual.) For example, if the police do a no knock raid in the dark of night, and don't announce themselves, and you shoot police officers reasonably believing them to be home invasion burglars, you would not have criminal or civil liability for doing so. A similar valid self-defense claim might arise when someone has an objectively reasonable reason to think that someone claiming to be a police officer is really just a criminal impersonating a police officer, even if that belief is, in fact, mistaken. In almost all other circumstances, you need to submit to the officers, and you are pretty much required by law to bear the risk that excessive force by the officer will harm you. If you don't, you will probably be guilty of the crime of resisting arrest and will not be entitled to a self-defense defense. The fact that you are not actually guilty of a crime is irrelevant. This is often the case and police officers are not omniscient. If the officer lacked probable cause for an arrest (which there is often no way that the person being arrested or attacked can know at the time), the remedy is a civil rights suit after the fact, not self-defense. In theory, there might be other isolated circumstances where self-defense against a police officer is legal, but they involve fact patterns so quirky that they would almost never happen in real life, or would almost never be possible to prove in a manner that the courts would believe. Officer Liability For Harming Someone Legitimately Acting In Self Defense Whether the officers had civil liability to you if you were harmed by the officers while exercising your right to self-defense would depend upon their state of mind, even if you were rightfully using self-defense. For example, a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in January of 2017 (White v. Pauly) involved this fact pattern. In White v. Pauly an officer arrived late on the scene and had no reason to believe that the officers who arrived there before him and were being shot at by citizens in a house that they were approaching, lacked probable cause, or had not announced themselves. The court held that as a result, he had no civil liability to a citizen he shot, even if the person who the late arriving officer shot while that citizen was shooting back at the police officers on the scene was actually engaging in good faith self-defense. The citizen's self-defense in the case had a valid defense to criminal or civil liability for firing on the officers, because the citizen shooting back didn't actually know that the people approaching his house were police officers. But, because the late arriving officer reasonably believed under the circumstances that the citizen had no right to engage in self-defense, because he thought that the early arriving officers had probable cause and had announced themselves, the late arriving officer had no civil liability to the citizens he shot.