Can players and coaches be held criminally liable for actions that they take beyond the scope of their game? Back in 2012, the NFL charged the New Orleans Saints with running a bounty system from 2009 to 2011 with the stated goal of knocking out opposing players via injury thereby improving their odds of winning their games. Ultimately, Bountygate, resulted in the league handing down some of its most stringent punishments and fines upon some of the guilty parties. Based on the investigation completed, it appears that there was substantial evidence to support charging blame towards members of the coaching staff, general management, as well as several defensive players (estimates are between 22-27 players) whom had contributed towards a fund to provide payouts for injuries dealt to opposing teams. This article indicates that criminal charges in the US are unlikely given courts preference to defer to leagues to be self-regulating, however, the article notes that conduct far outside of what the player can expect might see prosecution. Does the opposing team running a bounty system rise to that level, especially given that the NFL Constitution specifically prohibits payment bonuses based on performance against an individual player or team? The rules of football do promote a physical, high-contact sport that has a high probability of injury, however, the league has made rule changes to reduce the risk of injuries in a lot of scenarios. Given that opposing players are presumably playing with those rule changes in mind and presumably not trying to deliberately tear another player's ACL and furthermore there being video and audio recordings of coaches promoting tactics to deliberately violate those rules (deliberate targeting of opponents' heads), could a prosecutor file criminal charges against these players and coaches with assault or conspiracy? Furthermore, what court would have jurisdiction if charges were filed?
Generally, yes Can players and coaches be held criminally liable for actions that they take beyond the scope of their game? Yes. For example, Todd Bertuzzi was convicted with assault causing bodily harm for punching Steve Moore. Since that event happened in British Columbia, it was a British Columbia court that had jurisdiction. In 2000, Marty McSorley was found guilty of assault for slashing another player in the head with his stick. This also happened in British Columbia: R. v. McSorley, 2000 BCPC 116. The judge quoted an older case, saying: Patently, when one engages in a hockey game, one accepts that some assaults, which would otherwise be criminal, will occur and consents to such assaults. It is equally patent, however, that to engage in a game of hockey is not to enter a forum to which the criminal law does not extend. To hold otherwise would be to create the hockey arena a sanctuary for unbridled violence to which the law of Parliament and the Queen's justice could not apply. The judge recognized that there is an &quot;unwritten code of conduct agreed to by the players and officials&quot; including norms of fighting, but that McSorley's actions were outside of those norms. Even a slash directed at the upper shoulder area was too risky (that it might miss, and instead hit the head) to be covered under any consent. A rugby player was convicted of manslaughter when he aimed to &quot;Pile drive [an opponent] hardest I could into ground&quot; and ended up causing his death: R. v. C.(C.), 2009 ONCJ 249. The judge noted that consent will be implied &quot;with respect to force that is outside the rules but within the scope of the accepted standards by which the game is played.&quot; He also found that &quot;[t]he defendant intentionally applied force that was outside the rules of the game or any standard by which the game is played. [The deceased] did not explicitly consent to that force and I am satisfied beyond any doubt that no such consent can be implied.&quot; The issue will be what degree of contact and force was consented to. The factors often cited come from R. v. Cey, 1989 SKCA: the game of hockey involves a continuous series of assaults. Obviously, most of the body contact is consented to merely by the decision to participate in the sport. To determine at what point this consent disappears is not an easy task, but it must be identified in order to determine when a player moves from conduct calling for the imposition of a penalty into conduct which involves a criminal assault calling for a criminal conviction and sentence The conditions under which the game in question is played, the nature of the act which forms the subject-matter of the charge, the extent of the force employed, the degree of risk of injury, and the probabilities of serious harm are, of course, all matters of fact to be determined with reference to the whole of the circumstances. In large part, they form the ingredients which ought to be looked to in determining whether in all of the circumstances the ambit of the consent at issue in any given case was exceeded. Bountygate seems trickier The rest of this is opinion and is less well researched. I do not believe the above theory of liability (assault vitiating implied consent) is easily applicable to the circumstances of of Bountygate. First, I am not sure this theory of assault is applied in the United States. Second, it seems to me that there would be near insurmountable evidentiary hurdles in establishing that any particular tackle was motivated by an intent to injure (normally, ulterior intent is irrelevant for assault, but it seems to be a factor in considering whether implied consent has been vitiated in the sports context). However, there may be some kind of conspiracy-based offence available. Given that the offence would have happened entirely in the United States, it would be state or U.S. federal law that would apply and I will need to leave it to another answer to fill in the details of this theory, if it would indeed be viable.
An "inquisitorial" system is one where the Judge or Magistrate actively questions the accused and witnesses to attempt to determine the facts. The Judge may also determine, at least in part, what witnesses to call in what order. An "adversarial" system is one in which each side presents its case, and the judge acts as an umpire deciding on procedure, and possibly makes the final ruling (or directs a jury to do so) but is not actively involved in questioning witnesses or deciding what witnesses to call. I don't see anything which would prevent a common-law jurisdiction from establishing an "inquisitorial" system by statute except longstanding tradition, but as far as i know no such jurisdiction has ever had such a system in place for dealing with criminal matters. The informal procedures in some small claims courts do have judges more actively involved than in other courts. I think this is also true in some family courts as well. I think I have heard of some civil-law jurisdictions which use something like an adversary system, but i am not sure of that. Certainly a civil-law country could pass a law setting up such a system if it chose to.
Private prosecution is allowed in New Zealand, so one possibility would be to conduct the prosecution yourself. You could either do that as a case of destruction of property, or under the Animal Welfare Act. It is not guaranteed that your charging document will be accepted (for example, if your document lacks the required content). An alternative would be to apply political pressure to the Crown Law Office, to persuade them to pursue the matter.
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. There is no need for physical contact in an assault, all that is needed is the threat and the apparent, present ability. The drill sergeant was behaving in a threatening manner and had an apparent, present ability to cause harm; he was guilty of assault. Consensually engaging in a legal contact sport lacks the threat of bodily harm; that is to say that the bodily harm is a risk of the sport but it is not the object of it. Of course, an illegal sport where death or maiming is an inherent part would leave the participants open to assault (and battery) charges - you cannot agree to do illegal things. What is necessary to constitute the threat and the apparent means depends on the whole of the circumstances. A person throwing water when they had threatened the victim with acid is most certainly assault. Pointing a replica pistol at someone who doesn't know it is a replica constituted the threat and apparent means in one action.
There are only two arguments you can make: The match making website did something wrong. I don't see how you can make this argument unless you have some reason to suspect they actually did something wrong. Strict liability applies. I think this fails for two reasons. One is that no theory of strict liability that I know of would apply to this situation. The other is that this is precisely the kind of risk that a user of the site should be protecting themselves from because it is much easier to detect fraud when you have extensive contact with someone than when you just operate a matchmaking service. So absent some evidence they did something wrong, such as ignoring specific warning signs from this particular user, there is no way such a suit could succeed.
tl;dr Hitting the pedestrians is a separate crime, even if they shouldn't be there. Background On a highway, you might have a legal right of way and therefore a claim against the pedestrians for failing to yield. Since the states (and not the federal government) own and operate the interstate highway system, your specific answer depends on the state law. In North Carolina, for example, pedestrians walking along or upon a highway have a statutory duty to yield the right of way to all vehicles. So you could probably videotape and press misdemeanor charges against them individually. That said, contacting the police and waiting (or taking an alternate route) is the best recourse. Having the right of way (or feeling ethically justified) doesn't allow you to commit an offense like hitting a pedestrian. The fact that the pedestrians aren't supposed to be in your way is of little consolation in the charges you'll face if you injure or kill one. The court will see this as a legal/ethical problem, but one that won't go in your favor. In particular, you deliberately directed your vehicle into the crowd with the knowledge that the action might cause harm. One doesn't have to imagine the Austin Powers steamroller scenario to know that injuries are possible when cars go through crowds. That will pull all of the "involuntary"-flavored mitigations off the table. In particular, driving a car into a crowd might be considered "an inherently dangerous act or omission, done in such a reckless and wanton manner as to manifest a mind utterly without regard for human life and social duty." In the worst case scenario, where someone died as a result, a North Carolina prosecutor might push for second-degree murder (which operates on a "recklessness-plus" standard and might not be as crazy as it sounds since driving into the crowd is likely reckless, and driving in slowly with them yelling at you to stop could push a jury over the top). In that case, as a defendant, you'd hope your charge could be mitigated down to something like death by vehicle (which is similar to "vehicular manslaughter" in other states), and you'd shoot for the misdemeanor version of death by vehicle since you weren't driving under the influence. However, a key element of proving death by vehicle is that you unintentionally caused the death---and the fact that you deliberately drove into the crowd might ruin your defense. In the case where you just hurt someone, you'd likewise hope to mitigate intentional charges to unintentional ones. A claim for false imprisonment is unlikely to succeed. False imprisonment is called a variety of things---like felonious/misdemeanor restraint, unlawful detainment, etc.---depending on where you live. To prove it (and generalizing a bit since this varies by state), you typically have to show (1) detention or restraint against your will, and (2) unlawfulness of the detention or restraint. A big challenge here is that courts often interpret this to mean detention or restraint by exercise of force or threat of force, as in Harris v. Stanioch, 150 Wash. 380 (1928) for example. The protesters are just in the way, so it's unlikely this would hold up. Self defense almost surely won't be a viable excuse. The idea of driving the car slowly through the crowd relies on the notion that you should be able to escape the alleged detention. The escape you're considering in driving through the crowd likely comes at the expense of making contact with members of the crowd. Making unprivileged contacts might be allowable in self defense. However, self defense probably hold up either. Setting aside notions of proportional defense, you have to be defending yourself against something: force or threats of it by the protesters. So if they don't use force, or threaten it, against you, then your defense is going to be really shaky.
Yes. It is a crime almost everywhere to throw something at someone, even if it causes little or no injury. Usually it would be classified as "assault and battery" although if it damages clothing or other property, it could also be called, for example, "criminal mischief" which is intentional damage to property. It would also be a tort that could be enforced with civil damages in most places, although only nominal damages would be awarded and there would be no award for attorneys' fees. In practice, however, few people would press charges or turn to the police in such an incident, few police would take action based on the complaint because it is so trivial, and few people would sue in such a case. For what it is worth, the "living law" in Japan recognizes that someone has a duty to pay to clean your clothes or replace them if they can't be cleaned in such circumstances and most people appear to comply with that obligation without court involvement if the victim insists. Also, pie throwing as a political protest in Europe is also almost surely illegal under European law, although, again, this is rarely enforced by common political culture and tradition.
Specifically, the threatened action is about stalking and implicit threats to his family. I'm not suggesting that there is a lot of merit to the claim, but that is how he is presenting the argument. The question would be where there is an intentional, repeated following of a person for the purpose of harassing the person with express or implied threats of violence or death. The jury would have to decide whether the implicit threat is credible (somebody plans to blow him or his family out of the sky), a decision would probably turn on the number of death threats he receives.