How drunk is too drunk? How does the law reconcile being drunk in sexual assault vs other crimes? One thing that concerns me about sexual assault court cases is the following: In sexual assault cases: an intoxicated person is said to be unable to give legal consent to intercourse. In other criminal cases: an intoxicated person cannot use drunkenness as a defense against their actions. I find it contradictory that a person who is unable to make decisions about their own sexual behavior due to intoxication may still be held accountable for criminal acts committed during that time. Surely, if a person cannot make decisions about their own body while intoxicated, they should also not be held responsible for crimes committed during that same time period? How do prosecutors typically handle cases involving alcohol? Is there a specific threshold for determining when someone is too drunk to be held responsible for their actions? Do prosecutors rely on blood alcohol level tests to determine a person's level of intoxication, or do they make a judgment based on the circumstances of the case?
I will use Washington law to lay the landscape for a rape charge. First degree rape is sexual intercourse with another person by forcible compulsion, either with kidnapping, (apparent) threat of a deadly weapon, beating the victim, or feloniously entering the building of vehicle where the victim is. This is not the case under discussion. What does potentially apply is second degree rape, which is sexual intercourse by other types of forcible compulsion, or (b) When the victim is incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless or mentally incapacitated, or various similar descriptions of diminished capacity (a developmental disability plus perpetrator supervisory authority, etc). Subparagraph (b) is crucial here, and we turn to the definitionL &quot;Mental incapacity&quot; is that condition existing at the time of the offense which prevents a person from understanding the nature or consequences of the act of sexual intercourse whether that condition is produced by illness, defect, the influence of a substance or from some other cause. Also to be clear on &quot;forcible compulsion&quot;, &quot;Forcible compulsion&quot; means physical force which overcomes resistance, or a threat, express or implied, that places a person in fear of death or physical injury to herself or himself or another person, or in fear that she or he or another person will be kidnapped In the case of intercourse with an intoxicated person, the government must prove that the victim's condition prevented them from understanding the nature or consequences of intercourse. Now compare the law in Minnesota, otherwise analogous, but with a different definition of &quot;mentally incapacitated&quot; (subd. 7): &quot;Mentally incapacitated&quot; means: (1) that a person under the influence of alcohol, a narcotic, anesthetic, or any other substance, administered to that person without the person's agreement, lacks the judgment to give a reasoned consent to sexual contact or sexual penetration; or (2) that a person is under the influence of any substance or substances to a degree that renders them incapable of consenting or incapable of appreciating, understanding, or controlling the person's conduct. (italics indicate the differences of interest). The second clause in the Minnesota definition states the same idea as the Washington definition, but also adds &quot;inability to control&quot; as a form of incapacity. The first clause states a different standard of inability, lowered from &quot;incapable of deciding&quot; to &quot;lacking judgment&quot;, but only when the condition arises without the person's consent. The point here is that prosecution and conviction do not just depend on a generic and universal concept of &quot;consent&quot;, it very much depends on the exact words selected by the legislature in establishing these laws. Minnesota's legislature made one set of choices, Washington's made another. The Washington legislature made another choice when it came to intoxication: per RCW 9a.16.090, No act committed by a person while in a state of voluntary intoxication shall be deemed less criminal by reason of his or her condition, but whenever the actual existence of any particular mental state is a necessary element to constitute a particular species or degree of crime, the fact of his or her intoxication may be taken into consideration in determining such mental state. So an voluntarily drunk person cannot defend themselves saying &quot;I was drunk, I didn't know what I was doing&quot;, but intoxication can be relevant to the important question of &quot;knowledge&quot; as an element of culpability. This is a principle of law specifically set by the legislature. Prosecutors don't decide based on a hypothetical &quot;how drunk&quot; scale, instead they compare the facts with what the applicable law says. There is no &quot;knowingly&quot; requirement for prosecution for rape, therefore one cannot argue that because of intoxication the accused &quot;lacked knowledge&quot; of their act owing to intoxication. Being intoxicated according to the .08 driving standard does not (generally) render a person incapable of understanding &quot;intercourse&quot;.
If the question asks, "did you do X" where X is or includes a crime that you could be criminally prosecuted for, you can invoke the 5th amendment in refusing to answer that. I have seen that done and seen that objection to the question sustained in court. However, if admitting to X would provide only civil liability, then the 5th would not apply. At trial, you may also have to take care not to give direct testimony on things that are so closely related that you "open the door" to being required to answer that question. For example, you can't say "I don't owe because I did X" and then expect to not have to answer "So just to be clear, did you do X?" Also, depending on context, invoking the 5th might cause a jury to view your testimony more skeptically (cpast points out that "For civil cases, adverse inferences based on pleading the fifth are totally okay"), and if that's going to come up you should ask your attorney about whether or not it'd be a good idea strategically.
There are no small sexual assaults Indecent assault/sexual assault/sexual touching Different jurisdictions have different definitions but, wherever you are, the behavior you describe is a criminal offense and the appropriate course of action is to report it to both your employer and the police. The fact that the perpetrator is under the professional care of the victim does not change this although, if the positions were reversed, this would be an aggravating factor. That is, assuming you are willing to make a statement to the police and, ultimately, testify before a court. It may not come to that - the police may not press charges. You can also civilly sue for the damage you have suffered. Work Health and Safety Your employer has an obligation to provide a reasonably safe workplace. If this is a not uncommon occurrence then they should have analyzed the risk and determined appropriate mitigation strategies and trained you in these. Have they?
united-states This answer is based upon general principles of criminal procedure in the United States which are quite similar in most states, although not necessarily exactly identical. The answer is likely to be different in other jurisdictions. If inadmissible evidence is offered by the prosecution and admitted at trial, this is a ground upon which the defense can move for a mistrial (which due to double jeopardy amounts to an acquittal), or upon which the defendant can appeal the conviction of the jury, if convicted. Acquittals of a defendant at trial cannot be appealed by the prosecution. But, to appeal, the error in admitting inadmissible evidence must be contemporaneously objected to by the defendant's lawyer (or the defendant if the defendant is not represented by counsel), or the admission of the evidence must be &quot;plain error&quot; (which is very rarely met on evidentiary issues). If the defendant's lawyer doesn't promptly say &quot;I object&quot; that ground for contesting a conviction is usually lost. Even then, the standard of review on appeal is whether the judge abused the judge's discretion in admitting the evidence, not whether the appellate court would have ruled the same way if presented with that evidentiary question. Also, even if there is an error, a conviction on a particular count will not be overruled if the error was &quot;harmless&quot;, which is to say that there is a reasonable possibility that admitting the inadmissible evidence caused the defendant to be convicted of that count. Often, if the evidence is overwhelming, or the inadmissible evidence wasn't that prejudicial, a conviction will be affirmed notwithstanding the admission of inadmissible evidence. Sometimes harmless error is evaluated considering all of the errors at trial as a whole, rather than individually, in addition to all of the other evidence admitted at trial. If an evidence issue can be foreseen and is central to the case (e.g. suppression of evidence of possession of drugs in a drug possession case), the issue of the admissibility of the evidence will often be resolved in a pre-trial hearing and subject to appeal then, prior to trial, rather than being resolved in the trial itself where the prosecution has no right to appeal, and the defendant risks conviction if the ruling goes against the defendant. If the conviction is overturned on appeal, the usual remedy is to remand the case to the same judge to conduct a new trial with a new jury, in a manner consistent with the appellate court's rulings.
I assume you mean to ask whether the guilt of the victim affects the validity of a crime-of-passion defence. canada In Canada, the only crime-of-passion type defence is provocation, today codified at s. 232 of the Criminal Code. Provocation is only relevant to a count of murder. If the person who committed what would otherwise be murder &quot;did so in the heat of passion caused by sudden provocation,&quot; then the conviction is reduced to manslaughter. Current codified defence: victim must have done something that would be an indictable offence punishable by five or more years of imprisonment One of the statutory requirements for a successful provocation defence is that the victim must have conducted themselves in a way that &quot;would constitute an indictable offence under this Act that is punishable by five or more years of imprisonment.&quot; This is an objective element of the defence, not dependent on the perception of the accused. One court has found this limitation to the defence to be unconstitutional (R. v Simard, 2019 BCSC 531). However that court would still require that the &quot;conduct of the victim [to be] of such a nature as to be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control...&quot; The common law and the previous codified defence also required provocative conduct by the victim Both the common law and the pre-2015 codification of the provcation defence required that the victim's provocative conduct be &quot;of such a nature as to be sufficient to deprive an ordinary person of the power of self-control&quot; (R. v. Cairney, 2013 SCC 55 at paragraphs 24-35). Burdens for establishing this defence The provocation defence is an &quot;air of reality&quot; defence (R. v. Cinous, 2002 SCC 29, paragraph 57). This means that there is an initial evidential burden on the accused. There must be evidence on the record that, if believed, could lead a reasonable properly instructed jury to acquit (or, in the case of provocation, to convict of manslaughter instead of murder). Once the accused meets this burden, then the defence is properly in play and will be successful unless the Crown disproves any element of the defence beyond a reasonable doubt.
I'm not sure a case of harassment could be made out (it would depend on the circumstances in which you purportedly did those things or threatened her, except for touching her. Sexual assault The Sexual Offences Act 2003 defines sexual assault as: (1) A person (A) commits an offence if— (a) he intentionally touches another person (B), (b) the touching is sexual, (c) B does not consent to the touching, and (d) A does not reasonably believe that B consents. (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has taken to ascertain whether B consents. To your questions: What is the law on a 16 year-old doing the things listed above with a 14 year-old? Same as the above, except what would happen if it was made out that there was not consent? For sexual assault, it is presumed that if the person is between the ages of 13 and 16, they do not have the capacity to consent. That is - if there is no proof of consent, you are guilty of the offence, if the requisite mens rea - intent - to touch them can be proved. For everything else - it might amount to harassment but that is probably a stretch, I don't see the elements being made out. However, there are certain limits to what people can consent to - you can't consent to someone murdering you in most jurisdictions, for example. ... what would be the best way to go about disproving (in a court scenario) that I did all of these things? You do not have to disprove that you did these acts - it is the job of the prosecution to adduce evidence beyond reasonable doubt that you have done so. You can present evidence that satisfies an evidentiary burden that you did not do these acts, such as not being able to do so (by being in another place), or not intending to do the act. However, you would need to prove that you had consent and believed she was 16 or over to stand a reasonable chance of escaping conviction for the above crime, if prosecuted. As Martin has said - you need to get a lawyer for the right answer here.
No. It means the existence of reasonable doubt is in doubt... One cannot conclude the question of guilt in either direction, so one must try again to see if a different jury can answer the meta-question, to then answer the legal question of guilt. ... or is not being addressed If only one person is voting against the consensus, or as many as are allowed by the jurisdiction, they are overruled. That's the allowance made for bias that has somehow reached the jury despite the filtering done beforehand. If more people are voting against the majority so that consensus is not possible, it is potentially because someone has made up their mind on the question of guilt regardless of what (some significant part or the weight of) the evidence indicates, defeating the purpose of the trial and providing all the evidence. A person not accounting for all the evidence can't be said to have reasonable doubt of guilt, since the doubt may be excluded by the remaining evidence. Similarly, guilt beyond reasonable doubt cannot be supported by only partial evidence, as exculpatory evidence may be among the part not accounted for. ... or cannot be addressed by that jury at all. Finally, a jury split on the decision of how to weigh the evidence cannot claim either to have or to have dismissed reasonable doubt, because they cannot agree on what a reasonable doubt is, in the first place.
Rules about self-defense in the US vary from state to state, but generally a person can raise a defense that they legally used deadly self-defense if they had a reasonable fear of death or grievous bodily harm, with some exceptions (exactly how these are worded changes from state to state): A person often cannot claim self defense if they are already committing a forcible felony (but it depends on the circumstances) A person cannot claim self defense if they are the aggressor in a fight or took aggressive actions toward another person who then attacked them. So, with that in mind, let's assume that Person A has a valid deadly self-defense claim against Person B. When considering self defense, the question is whether a reasonable person in the defendant's position would have feared death or grievous bodily harm. So, the exact sequence of events matters. Consider the following four scenarios: C watches B attack A and then A shoots B, C pulls out his gun and points it at A before A turns to him and points his gun in response C watches B attack A and then A shoots B, A then points his gun at C and C pulls out his gun in response C doesn't see B attack A and only sees A shoot B, C pulls out his gun and they stand off C doesn't see B attack A and only sees A shoot B, A then points his gun at C and C pulls his in response In some of these situations, A may be considered the aggressor against C even though he had a valid self-defense claim against B. In others, a jury may find that a reasonable person in C's position would not expect A to shoot them just because they shot an attacker, and therefore C is the aggressor by drawing on A. This all assumes a hypothetical where these people exist in a void, things like their relationship, the situation around the three subjects, and any other relevant facts could be introduced and considered in the analysis. In theory, a situation could exist where both sides have a valid self-defense claim against each other, the third example possibly being that situation.