Self defense damages Someone attacks me. I punch them in self defense. During the punch I dislocate my shoulder. Are there civil damages incurred when I injured myself in self defense and got a medical bill?
Yes Assuming you were assaulted (with or without battery) and you suffered injury (physical or otherwise) during that assault you are entitled to damages. The injury has to flow from the assault but not necessarily from the assaulter. For example, if you fled across the road and were struck by a car you could sue your attacker. Because assault is an intentional tort, it is not necessary for you to prove that actual financial loss was suffered - this is not negligence. The court can assess economic loss, non-economic loss and exemplary (punitive) damages.
“Never” is a very big word… If a burglar stabs someone in claimed self defense, then we have evidence that this was an armed burglary, so that won’t go down well for that burglar. And your rights to self defence are greatly diminished if you caused that situation illegally. So should you get into the situation, try to run away if at all possible. If you had any chance at all to escape your self defence argument will not be accepted. The only possible situation with self defence is if you are threatened with illegal violence that cannot be justified by the fact that you are a criminal. For example you enter a home, two people with guns inside catch you, bind you to a chair so you are no danger at all, and instead of calling the police they announce they will kill or maim you. This is of course very unlikely to happen.
Its worth actually reading through the law again - they're meant for different categories of drugs - and its worth looking up the relevant laws as a whole. You can't cherrypick which law you charge them under in this case. It depends on what the suspect has in posession, and if you have more serious charges, they're probably going to be preferred unless the prosecution decides to throw the entire library at the suspect and charge them with everything they can, or a larger subset. A quick search on the internet - which shouldn't be taken as legal advice, brings up this link. Category 1 drugs are addictive and seen as therapeutically useless - you shouldn't have any realistic reason to have quantities of it in your posession. Category 3 is drugs with therapeutic use - stuff like codine. You could get a prescription for that, but there's potential for abuse. They're aimed at different classes of drugs - and the confusion is over a misinterpretation of what the law is about. As an aside, this is why you need to usually read more than just a specific statute or law to get what its about.
When you have standing, a cause of action, and have suffered loss Standing means you have sufficient connection to the harm that the law will recognize your injury. A cause of action is the legal right you claim was transgressed. Broadly, there needs to be a remedy that lies within the jurisdiction of the court to grant. Monetary remedies are called damages and for most causes of action you need to prove your loss although some have statutory damages and others allow nominal damages.
Criminal charges are filed and prosecuted by the government, on behalf of the public, and there is no requirement for approval or cooperation by the victim. As a policy matter, a DA may decide to not charge a person in case the victim is unwilling (though less so in cases of domestic violence), perhaps because of the widespread impression that the victim has to "press charges" (which indeed they would have to do in the case of private prosecution, which is no longer allowed in the US). The alleged victim's reddit exchanges on the topic are here. An uncooperative victim does not make a good witness, even if they are compelled to testify. The police statement that they cannot pursue an investigation should not be interpreted as a statement of law, it's probably a statement of policy and practicality.
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 general rule is that using force in self-defense is justified if the person using the force reasonably believes it immediately is necessary to prevent the unlawful use of force against themselves or a third party. Deadly force is not generally justified except in response to a reasonable fear of deadly force, or to prevent certain violent crimes (like rape, kidnapping, robbery, etc.) Force is not justified in retaliation. In some states, if you're not at home (or maybe even then), you also have a duty to retreat before you can use deadly force in self-defense. So, for your specific questions: If they hit you once but aren't continuing to hit you, it's illegal to hit them back. You can only use force to defend yourself, not to get even. If someone gets in your face without touching you, you might be allowed to use force, but it depends on the circumstances. You don't have to wait for someone to hit you, but you can't sucker-punch someone because you want more space in a mosh pit. Your use of force needs to be something you reasonably believe to be necessary to stop/prevent their unlawful use of force. It also needs to be proportional to the force you're defending against; you can meet deadly force with deadly force, but shooting someone to stop them from slapping you is murder. Likewise, no one's going to believe that you really thought you had to beat the crap out of someone in order to stop them from slapping you, or that it's in any way proportionate to what they did. Deadly force is not allowed in defense of a person unless you reasonably think deadly force is needed to prevent the unlawful use of deadly force, or to prevent one of a few crimes being committed against them. Depending on the state, it might be presumptively justified if the person is trying to forcibly break into your occupied house, car, or place of business, but that's state-dependent.
There are both statutes and customs aimed at preventing "Malicious Prosecution" and "Abuse of Process." (In Pennsylvania, for example, the 1980 Dragonetti Act allows the victim of a frivolous lawsuit to counter-sue for compensatory damages.) One can also buy insurance against this type of risk: Umbrella liability policies will generally provide a defense against civil lawsuits and any damages awarded, as will many business insurance policies. Of course, none of this is to say that a skilled legal team can't avoid all of these countermeasures and, in practice, take up a significant amount of your time and trouble. We do not have a perfect system of justice.