Claiming That Somebody Was Suicidal as a Defense to Battery or Unlawful Restraint

My question involves criminal law for the state of: MI

A friend of mine was involved kidnapping/battery case that involved an out of control suicidal girlfriend trying to cut herself with knives. After she initially successfully slashed her wrist, he feared for her life as well as his own and attempted to disarm and restrain her several times. At one point she attempted to leave the apartment with a knife in her hand, and he pulled her back into apartment out of fear that she would run away and hurt/kill herself, or hurt someone else in the apartment complex. The police were called by neighbors, and he was encountered restraining the girl by the wrists on the sofa, with a bloodied knife he had just confiscated from her shoved out of reach beneath the sofa. Witnesses saw the girl get pulled back into the apartment, but did not see the knife she had in her hand. Witnesses also heard the girl threaten to kill herself during the argument. The girl was sent to the psychiatric ER for the slashed wrist, the male was sent to jail.

My question is, is it an affirmative defense to a kidnapping/battery charge to restrain and disarm an unwilling individual who is armed and poses a threat to either themselves or others? Is it a better defense for him to say he feared for his OWN life, OTHERS lives, or that he feared for HER life if she was the person who was armed and communicating suicidal threats. Would an affirmative defense win a not-guilty verdict alone, or would it require a conviction with a mitigated sentence?

The most bizarre part about this case is that the girl was the one who was armed and acting disorderly, and even menacingly I'd say. But the boyfriend was the one who was charged... for restraining a person with a weapon. Doesn't seem right.

This would be something he can discuss with his attorney.

Unless you were present, by the way, you cannot say how she was acting. At all. Even if.

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Quoting Dogmatique

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Unless you were present, by the way, you cannot say how she was acting. At all. Even if.

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Do you say this in a legalistic capacity, like what I would be able to communicate to a court or a police officer (i.e. hearsay)? Or do you mean just in general I can't say that, because I feel like I'm entitled to communicate how someone was acting based on others testimony to me and the facts of the police report here. I guess I'm missing your point here.

Michigan allows for a defense if the boyfriend reasonably thought that “that the use of that force is necessary to defend himself or herself or another individual from the imminent unlawful use of force by another individual.” MCL § 780.972.

The problem is that your story indicates that he was not acting in self-defense; i.e., neither he nor any other person was at risk of imminent harm. She was walking out of the apartment and he pulled her back inside. He’d not have been in any danger once she left. Thus clearly he was not at any risk of imminent harm at that time. Nor was anyone else, since no one else was in the immediate area and she certainly wasn’t attacking anyone at that point. She might have been a risk to herself, but the statute as written only allows for the use of force if she was going to hurt someone else. Thus, from what you have said, your friend appears to have a very weak case that the use of force against her was justified. Obviously, though, facing these serious charges he needs to discuss with his lawyer what possible options he has for a defense in this case. There might be some other more promising way to attack it than relying on a self-defense argument.

What he should have done was called 911 and have experts deal with her. Unless he was trained to deal with that, fighting with her over the knife could easily have resulted in very serious harm to her or to himself. I realize that he was likely in a pretty emotional state seeing her in that condition, but he needed to keep his head and make the call rather than jumping in and trying to disarm her himself.

Call me naive, I guess what I'm most shocked about is that such serious charges can result from a completely non-malicious, and quite possibly even altruistic intentions. Sure, maybe he was in an argument with the girl to begin with, but what goes through your head when someone starts telling you they are going to kill themselves, and then cuts their own wrist? He definitely should have called the police, and he definitely should have known his and her own rights a little better so he could have avoided this predicament. It's just a sad case all around. He loved her and he was trying to help her, not hurt her.

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Quoting Question4law

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Call me naive, I guess what I'm most shocked about is that such serious charges can result from a completely non-malicious, and quite possibly even altruistic intentions.

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You’ve heard the old saying, I’m sure, that “no good deed goes unpunished.” This is a situation that would seem to fit that saying. His heart was, if what you say is true, in the right place. But the police and prosecutor, with the information they have, may not believe that to be the case. Only he knows for sure what his true intentions were. It may be that he can come up with a workable defense to this. That will depend on exactly what the charges are, what evidence the state plans to present, and what evidence the defense has available. I think self-defense, based on what you said, is pretty weak but there might be something else that his lawyer comes up with that may be more promising. It is unfortunate that people sometimes end up on the wrong side of the law even though their intentions were honorable. But it does happen, particularly when people act on impulse or strong emotion, which can cloud otherwise clear thinking.

Thanks for the insight TM. Just for clarification though, his 'intentions' good or bad, will have no legal bearing on the defense of his case, right? The facts are that he willfully DID something illegal in the effort of doing something (he perceived) morally good. I guess this shows how morals and laws do not always coincide. Perhaps he'll get lucky through a jury nullification.

On the other hand, perhaps his story is not as clear or benevolent as you believe it was.

He should speak with his attorney and ONLY his attorney. Anything he tells YOU is not protected and you could be called as a witness for the state against him.

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Quoting Question4law

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Do you say this in a legalistic capacity, like what I would be able to communicate to a court or a police officer (i.e. hearsay)? Or do you mean just in general I can't say that, because I feel like I'm entitled to communicate how someone was acting based on others testimony to me and the facts of the police report here. I guess I'm missing your point here.

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My point is quite simple: unless you were actually present, you really have no idea whether or not she appeared "menacing". You're relying on hearsay.

Then as a legal argument, I suppose you are correct. I could not stand before a jury and tell them what I just told you. On the other hand, he could.

I guess the bigger question I have, is if this all was the actual truth of the story. And she was the out of control person wielding a deadly weapon and using it violently just in general... Why wasn't she the one charged with any crime? At least disorderly conduct. And even if she did communicate a direct threat to him during this situation, would the police even have believed him? Could that have done anything to get him out of trouble?

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Quoting Question4law

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I don't have a problem believing that someone wielding a knife who had just slashed her own wrist and was heard verbally threatening to kill themselves to appear or act menacingly. Maybe it wasn't intentional menacing, but given the evidebce I just provided, I wouldn't think that conclusion any more illogical than say she was warding his aggression off In self defense with the knife, and was trying to 'cut her way' out of a conflict.

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Given that she was only self-harming and you have no evidence she ever threatened anyone else, I don't see where she was menacing anybody.

I can understand how it sounds distasteful to try to present the alleged assailant as some sort of victim in a suicide attack, but some people are pretty manipulative. One other thing I forgot to mention is that she was screaming at him to get off her and that he was hurting her, every time he tried to take a knife away from her. it was almost like she was setting him up, and trying to make it sound like an attack, so he would get in trouble. I don't have difficulty seeing this as a situation where she was setting him up.

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Quoting Question4law

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I can understand how it sounds distasteful to try to present the alleged assailant as some sort of victim in a suicide attack, but some people are pretty manipulative.

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Suicide attack? Really?

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Quoting Question4law

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One other thing I forgot to mention is that she was screaming at him to get off her and that he was hurting her, every time he tried to take a knife away from her. it was almost like she was setting him up, and trying to make it sound like an attack, so he would get in trouble. I don't have difficulty seeing this as a situation where she was setting him up.

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You weren't there. Your "friend" could be lying his caboose off to you. It is entirely possible he was hurting her while pinning her down.

You just keep adding more and more details trying to paint your "friend" in the best possible light whenever we point out an issue with your previous s

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Quoting Question4law

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I can understand how it sounds distasteful to try to present the alleged assailant as some sort of victim in a suicide attack, but some people are pretty manipulative. One other thing I forgot to mention is that she was screaming at him to get off her and that he was hurting her, every time he tried to take a knife away from her. it was almost like she was setting him up, and trying to make it sound like an attack, so he would get in trouble. I don't have difficulty seeing this as a situation where she was setting him up.

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Were you there? If not then you have zero clue as to what happened. None. You did not witness any of it. You can believe him all you want but you were not there. He could be telling the truth but you do not know and none of us know.

He can talk to his attorney whose job it is to argue in his defense.

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Quoting Question4law

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One other thing I forgot to mention is that she was screaming at him to get off her and that he was hurting her, every time he tried to take a knife away from her. it was almost like she was setting him up, and trying to make it sound like an attack, so he would get in trouble. I don't have difficulty seeing this as a situation where she was setting him up.

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Kind of like the police scream "stop resisting" when they're beating up someone who is not resisting? Maybe she did set him up, and maybe the police didn't charge her because they like her style? :)

I'm just trying to figure out if he has any viable defenses here. Based on the skepticism I've heard here, it sounds like he's going to have to prove his innocence to any jury if he was witnessed cursing and yelling in an argument, pinning a girl to the sofa and seem pulling a distressed person back into his apartnent. I was just surprised the fact that they found her with a slashed wrist and found knives all over the apartment didn't cooberate his story more than what they were able to come up with. It's almost like they were LOOKING for something to charge home with when they didn't even have to, and there were so many other obvious countervailing facts.

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Quoting TechWorker

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Kind of like the police scream "stop resisting" when they're beating up someone who is not resisting? Maybe she did set him up, and maybe the police didn't charge her because they like her style? :)

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Oh, brother ... :rolleyes:

He needs to be discussing any potential defense strategy with his criminal defense attorney.

Anyways, I just talked to him and the entire premise of the charge is based on prosecutirs being able to establish that she DID NOT have a knife in her hand when she was pulled back in. And also that any intent to pull her back in was not one of the requirements of kidnapping listed in the statutes. The defense lawyer states that for him to be found guilty, the use of force has to proven to be malicious, to embarass, to intimidate, or threaten, or to harm. Aparantly the prosecutors think the difference of her having a knife in her hand at the door is what will establish that.

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Quoting Question4law

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It's almost like they were LOOKING for something to charge home with when they didn't even have to, and there were so many other obvious countervailing facts.

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Really? And exactly what “obvious” facts would the cops have seen that would make him innocent of a crime here? So far in your story (and you keep subtly changing it to favor your friend) I see little that is obvious that would let him off the hook from their perspective. I suspect your bias in favor of your friend is coloring your view of things and not letting you see it objectively. Heck, your friend may not be telling you the truth here, or at least not all of it. He certainly isn’t going to paint himself as a bad guy to his friends, after all, is he? The central fact here is that she was leaving the apartment and he pulled her back in, and that was seen by one or more independent witnesses who called police. Those witnesses, according you to, also did not see her with knife. While walking out of the apartment she was posing no risk of imminent danger to your friend or anyone else, yet he committed a battery in the act of pulling her back into the house. That’s what the state’s evidence is going to show. And, now, according you, neighbors or the police heard her screaming for him to get off her and that he was hurting her and yet he continued to struggle with her. That’s apparently what the cops had to go with. Can’t you see how bad that looks? Against that, what exactly is this “obvious” evidence that will show him not to be guilty, apart from his own claim of his good intentions to stop her from committing suicide? The claim that she set him is far fetched, and if that is what he relies on for a defense to this, I think he’ll likely face a very skeptical jury on that one, absent a confession from her to that effect. Even that, though, doesn’t explain why he pulled her back into the apartment. When she was leaving, any immediate threat to anyone was over. The only thing he should have done at that point was call 911 and report what was happening. Grabbing her and pulling her back into the apartment — particularly in view of neighbors, was the wrong thing to do.

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Quoting Taxing Matters

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When she was leaving, any immediate threat to anyone was over.

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Maybe the threat to the OP was over. But the woman would still have been a threat to herself and to people outside of the apartment.

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Quoting Question4law

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I'm just trying to figure out if he has any viable defenses here. Based on the skepticism I've heard here, it sounds like he's going to have to prove his innocence to any jury if he was witnessed cursing and yelling in an argument, pinning a girl to the sofa and seem pulling a distressed person back into his apartnent. I was just surprised the fact that they found her with a slashed wrist and found knives all over the apartment didn't cooberate his story more than what they were able to come up with. It's almost like they were LOOKING for something to charge home with when they didn't even have to, and there were so many other obvious countervailing facts.

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That is not up to you to find out. That is up to his lawyer to figure out and defend him. You cannot do anything to help. In fact you will likely do more harm than good. Yes if it goes to trial if he pleads not guilty, then he and his lawyer will have to convince a jury of his innocence.

Again you were not there. So you cannot accurately judge the situation. Yes I am sure it is a big conspiracy against your friend by the police.

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Quoting TechWorker

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Maybe the threat to the OP was over. But the woman would still have been a threat to herself and to people outside of the apartment.

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How? No one else was outside the apartment based on the OP's story. If they heard the fighting they were not going to answer their doors if she knocked. The only person she may have been harmful to is herself. IF the story is true.

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Quoting TechWorker

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Maybe the threat to the OP was over. But the woman would still have been a threat to herself and to people outside of the apartment.

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She was not an imminent threat to anyone else. Sure, it’s possible that after she walked outside she might encounter someone and attack them, but she wasn’t threatening to attack someone right outside the apartment door. Indeed, nothing in the OP's story suggests she threatened to harm anyone but herself. The statute only protects him if he had to act to prevent the imminent threat of harm to another. That she might attack someone at some future time (which might be hours away) isn’t good enough to justify his attack on her as she left the apartment. In that situation the thing to do is call 911 and let the authorities intervene to deal with her suicidal issues.

I’m not saying that the state will necessarily succeed with the particular charges it has brought against the friend — a simple charge of battery might be more appropriate — but I do not see him as completely innocent under the facts the OP has stated either.

Not trying to change the story. Was just remembering some additional details I didn't include in the original story, and was wondering if they are even viable defenses, for my own curiosity about his chances here.

I do see a situation where this would look very bad to any witness. Obviously bad to them. But I also see a situation where the victims wrist was badly lacerated from a self inflicted wound, I see that and witness testimony of her verbal threats to kill herself as proof that she was using the weapons in some maleficient and dangerous way, I see the fact that she was sent to the psych ER as proof that this was not a competent person during the hysteria, and I see how if a person is in fear of their immediate personal or immediate general safety of the community they wouldn't be concerned about how and what kind of force they had to use to contain the threat or prevent it spreading by allowing her to leave with a knife in her hand.

Put simply, if she had a knife in her hand at the door, and she was acting hysterically, I don't see any moral quandaries with him doing what he did. I think it was ultimately an ignorance of the law issue for him, and I also think there are several case law precedents for situations where an uncontrolled and unsafe person had to be physically restrained to eliminate a threat.

I would consider any individual who had just cut their wrist with a giant knive to be an immediate threat to others, BTW. That person is not in their right mind, and they could do ANYTHING spontaneously. I don't see why she has to verbally communicate a threat for it to actually be a threat. I'd rather someone else stayed safe than worry about 5 fleeting minutes of their liberty during a state of psychosis.

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Quoting Question4law

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Not trying to change the story. Was just remembering some additional details I didn't include in the original story, and was wondering if they are even viable defenses, for my own curiosity about his chances here.

I do see a situation where this would look very bad to any witness. Obviously bad to them. But I also see a situation where the victims wrist was badly lacerated from a self inflicted wound, I see that and witness testimony of her verbal threats to kill herself as proof that she was using the weapons in some maleficient and dangerous way, I see the fact that she was sent to the psych ER as proof that this was not a competent person during the hysteria, and I see how if a person is in fear of their immediate personal or immediate general safety of the community they wouldn't be concerned about how and what kind of force they had to use to contain the threat or prevent it spreading by allowing her to leave with a knife in her hand.

Put simply, if she had a knife in her hand at the door, and she was acting hysterically, I don't see any moral quandaries with him doing what he did. I think it was ultimately an ignorance of the law issue for him, and I also think there are several case law precedents for situations where an uncontrolled and unsafe person had to be physically restrained to eliminate a threat.

I would consider any individual who had just cut their wrist with a giant knive to be an immediate threat to others, BTW. That person is not in their right mind, and they could do ANYTHING spontaneously. I don't see why she has to verbally communicate a threat for it to actually be a threat. I'd rather someone else stayed safe than worry about 5 fleeting minutes of their liberty during a state of psychosis.

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Your thoughts on the subject are utterly irrelevant and for the umpteenth time, you were not there. You do not know what happened. And your friend needs to be discussing this with his attorney.

Now are you really going to force the horse to go to the glue factory?

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Quoting Question4law

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I would consider any individual who had just cut their wrist with a giant knive to be an immediate threat to others, BTW. That person is not in their right mind, and they could do ANYTHING spontaneously. I don't see why she has to verbally communicate a threat for it to actually be a threat. I'd rather someone else stayed safe than worry about 5 fleeting minutes of their liberty during a state of psychosis.

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Understand that the vast majority of persons who are suicidal are no threat to anyone but themselves; they do not intend to hurt anyone else and in fact do not end up hurting anyone other than themselves. It is an error in logic to assume that because a person wishes to hurt herself that she also wishes to hurt others. It is relevant that she never apparently communicated, verbally or otherwise, any threat of imminent harm to anyone else because it is only in the circumstance that she poses an imminent threat of harm to another person that his use of force would be legally justified. She did not pose such a threat while walking out of the apartment. And whether she had a knife while she walked out is even apparently a contested factual issue. The neighbors evidently didn’t see her with a knife, and one would think they would if she had, as you put it, “a giant knife” in her hand, wouldn’t they?

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Quoting Taxing Matters

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Understand that the vast majority of persons who are suicidal are no threat to anyone but themselves; they do not intend to hurt anyone else and in fact do not end up hurting anyone other than themselves. It is an error in logic to assume that because a person wishes to hurt herself that she also wishes to hurt others. It is relevant that she never apparently communicated, verbally or otherwise, any threat of imminent harm to anyone else because it is only in the circumstance that she poses an imminent threat of harm to another person that his use of force would be legally justified. She did not pose such a threat while walking out of the apartment. And whether she had a knife while she walked out is even apparently a contested factual issue. The neighbors evidently didn’t see her with a knife, and one would think they would if she had, as you put it, “a giant knife” in her hand, wouldn’t they?

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While I totally understand that intellectually, I do not think that I could stop myself from trying to stop someone who was a danger to themselves, if that person was someone I cared about.

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Quoting Dogmatique

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Your thoughts on the subject are utterly irrelevant

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I guess the part I'm struggling with is WHY those points are utterly irrelevant. To me they all seemed like common sense defenses, but all the volunteers here are saying they count for nothing or they are just flat out lies. Is it irrelevant purely because because of the fact that I wasn't there, or because they have no mitigating factor on the facts that a person was unwillingly restrained, regardless of circumstances.

Not trying to beat a dead horse here. Just trying to figure out why what seems to me like a common sense situation isn't so common sense at all, and why my points if true, don't actually count for anything. This is more instructive to me than I am trying to use advice to to help him. I'm just trykng to wrap my mind about why the heck a good guy like him is facing up to life in prison for something that could happen to almost anyone.

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Quoting llworking

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While I totally understand that intellectually, I do not think that I could stop myself from trying to stop someone who was a danger to themselves, if that person was someone I cared about.

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I understand first hand the emotions behind it, but I also know from having seen it that the impulse to intervene in the manner the boyfriend did not only risks ending up being on the wrong side of the law but also risks actually making the outcome potentially much worse. He was presumably not an expert in dealing with suicidal persons and did not know how to handle the situation. Getting involved in a physical fight with someone who has a “giant knife” runs the very real risk of severely injuring or killing either her or himself. This is a situation in which one has to keep control of their emotions and try to think clearly about the best way to deal with it. I’m not saying it’s easy to do. I was once in a similar situation with a friend who was trying to commit suicide, in his case by trying to leap out a window six stories up. The immediate impulse of my other friends and I was to grab him and pull him from the window, but had we done that and he fell out the window in a struggle with us, he could have taken others with him as well. Instead, we kept him talking while one of us called campus security and we got expert help for him to ensure everyone was safe. It wasn’t easy, waiting for the police and rescue folks to arrive, as they did about 5 minutes later, but it was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, that friend succeeded later in another suicide attempt when there was no one around to help him. There is only so much that one can to stop someone intent on killing himself. But whatever you do ought not risk even more harm to that person, yourself, or others.

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Quoting Taxing Matters

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Understand that the vast majority of persons who are suicidal are no threat to anyone but themselves; they do not intend to hurt anyone else and in fact do not end up hurting anyone other than themselves. It is an error in logic to assume that because a person wishes to hurt herself that she also wishes to hurt others. It is relevant that she never apparently communicated, verbally or otherwise, any threat of imminent harm to anyone else because it is only in the circumstance that she poses an imminent threat of harm to another person that his use of force would be legally justified. She did not pose such a threat while walking out of the apartment. And whether she had a knife while she walked out is even apparently a contested factual issue. The neighbors evidently didn’t see her with a knife, and one would think they would if she had, as you put it, “a giant knife” in her hand, wouldn’t they?

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Great, so for my friend to have handled this situation legally, he would have first had to know from psychological research that crazed suicidal people wielding weapons do not statistically pose a risk to others, he would have had to know the criteria for constituting a threat to others had to be immanent and explicitly communicated, he would have had to know the threat could not be to herself, and he would have to let the girl leave far enough out the door to for witnesses to see the weapon in her trailing hand.

He would have also had to take a break from restraining the suicidal person who is actively harming herself to call the police. Then he'd have to either ask for the weapon or sit around and watch her hurt/possibly kill herself and hope she didn't turn the knife on him. And if she successfully kills herself, well you just watch your girlfriend die and that's perfectly fine because you followed the law.

I know ignorance of the law is no excuse at all, but honestly how many people in society actually KNOW these things. I don't find it so common sense like you all do. And how many nuances like this are there in our laws? That's frankly terrifying.

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Quoting Question4law

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Great, so for my friend to have handled this situation legally, he would have first had to know from psychological research that crazed suicidal people wielding weapons do not statistically pose a risk to others, he would have had to know the criteria for constituting a threat to others had to be immanent and explicitly communicated, he would have had to know the threat could not be to herself, and he would have to let the girl leave far enough out the door to for witnesses to see the weapon in her trailing hand.

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No, for him to handle it right all he would have had to understand is that getting into a fight with a person armed with a giant knife is actually a very stupid thing to do and risks even greater harm to himself and/or her, and understand that the sooner that help is summoned the better chance there is of getting her help before she kills herself. He did not have to know anything about the law. Had he really thought about it instead of just reacting on his emotions he’d likely have understood that grabbing her when she is not at the time doing anything other than walking out of the apartment and engaging in a struggle with her while she was armed with a giant knife (if in fact she did have that knife) was a risky and, frankly stupid, thing to do.

I understand that your sympathies lie with your friend and you want to paint the picture as best as possible in his favor. If I was his friend I might do the same. But to me, looking at this from the outside, what he did was at the very least foolish.

I have a sense based on your prior comment that you do not believe the girl was armed when she left the apartment.

Would you still believe his decision was foolish if she was in fact factually armed? Do you have any sort of reservation for what he did if in fact she was armed and hysterical? Let's be honest the threshold for what constitutes threatening behavior is completely subjective and circumstantial. There is no golden standard for what represents an IMMENENT theat to any particular person. You are arguing that a demonstratably violent person who is armed with a weapon that can kill, does not imminently threaten anyone beyond the legal threshold. Therefore this guy deserves a class A felony for trying to quash that threat until the police arrived.

Really cold legal system. Really really cold.

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Quoting Question4law

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I guess the part I'm struggling with is WHY those points are utterly irrelevant. To me they all seemed like common sense defenses, but all the volunteers here are saying they count for nothing or they are just flat out lies. Is it irrelevant purely because because of the fact that I wasn't there, or because they have no mitigating factor on the facts that a person was unwillingly restrained, regardless of circumstances.

Not trying to beat a dead horse here. Just trying to figure out why what seems to me like a common sense situation isn't so common sense at all, and why my points if true, don't actually count for anything. This is more instructive to me than I am trying to use advice to to help him. I'm just trykng to wrap my mind about why the heck a good guy like him is facing up to life in prison for something that could happen to almost anyone.

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I said, "Your thoughts ... are utterly irrelevant".

Your thoughts. YOUR thoughts.

Understand?

And I'm ASKING, say perhaps I wanted to be a defense lawyer someday.... Do MY thoughts constitute any sort of legal validity. I know I'm an uneducated plebian outsider here, I don't know nearly as much about the law as you all do. But as a spectator and someone who wishes to understand the law better so I don't make mistakes that destroy the rest of my life, like my friendly likely did.... Does my logic/ postulations for a defense constitute any real realevancy to a hypothetical case such as this. If you dont wish to answer that, because it is abuse of this forum or out of the scope of realm of this case, then I understand and respect that. But when you straight up dismiss my points as being utterly irrelevant with no explanation at all... I guess that makes me extremely fearful of my ignorance of the law. I guess I have no real grasp of the law, as I should by this age. And I could very well inadvertently end up in a similar predicament some day. That's what's scary about your response.

Any ways sounds like my friend and his medical future are toast based on some sort of technical fault to how he handled an attempted suicide. And he may be going to prison for that too.

Sounds like the evidence and testimony regarding the circumstances behind why he even resteained her are completely irrelevant. Sounds like what he did was actually quite immoral and evil. Jesus. I fear this countries legal system.

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Quoting Question4law

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I have a sense based on your prior comment that you do not believe the girl was armed when she left the apartment.

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No. I am simply not taking it for granted that she did have a knife. He says she did. The neighbors though didn’t see any knife. You described it as a “giant knife” which, if true, would make one wonder why the neighbors didn’t see this giant knife in her hand if in fact she had it. So I see it as a open issue as to whether she really had that knife. I won’t simply take his word on that.

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Quoting Question4law

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Would you still believe his decision was foolish if she was in fact factually armed?

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Absolutely! Did you not read what I said before? It is very foolish to get into a physical fight with someone armed with a knife, and here the knife was “giant” and thus capable of inflicting great injury. Do you not have any idea of what kind of harm can occur to two people fighting when one has a large knife in hand? That can lead to serious injury or death. Far from saving her from harm he was more likely to do more harm than good struggling with her over that knife. This has nothing to do with the legal aspect of it but just plain common sense.

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Quoting Question4law

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Do you have any sort of reservation for what he did if in fact she was armed and hysterical?

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I understand his likely emotional state. But I still think what he did was not the right thing to do.

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Quoting Question4law

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Let's be honest the threshold for what constitutes threatening behavior is completely subjective and circumstantial. There is no golden standard for what represents an IMMENENT theat to any particular person.

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Yes there is a standard. Imminent means there was an immediate threat of harm, in that moment. Not a threat that she might do something 5 minutes or an hour later. Rather, she must present a threat right at the time he uses the force against her. She posed no such threat to him walking out the door — she was eliminating the threat to him by doing that. Nor was there anyone right outside the door to whom she was posing an immediate threat at the time he used force against her. It is not good enough that he thought she might attack someone else at some future point in time, be it 5 minutes or an hour. If there is not an imminent (i.e. immediate) threat presented, he did not have the right to use force against her. That is the standard set by the state statute.

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Quoting Question4law

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You are arguing that a demonstratably violent person who is armed with a weapon that can kill, does not imminently threaten anyone beyond the legal threshold. Therefore this guy deserves a class A felony for trying to quash that threat until the police arrived.

Really cold legal system. Really really cold.

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I have said that perhaps there is a defense against the particular charges the state has brought and have also said that perhaps a simple battery charge would be more appropriate in this case. But given the facts as you have presented them, I do not see him as totally innocent here, either. Use of force should always be a last resort when there is no other option. Here, he had the option to call 911 when she walked out the door. There was no imminent threat against anyone and no indication she would harm anyone but herself. Getting her professional help ASAP was the best thing he could have, and should have, done.

Sounds like we have differing views on what factually represents an immanent threat, and ultimately my friends fate will depend on what a reasonable jury decides. Unfortunately I think much of this will depend on gender differentials, and what kind of threat an armed woman and irratic woman actually poses to society.

I don't care what anyone has to say, an armed erratic and suicidal woman IS an eminent threat to society... No matter when it happens. Any unsuspecting person could randomly encounter her however soon. We just had a suicidal guy out here in oregon shoot and carjack a random bystander in Medford. Any police officer encountering an armed and dangerous person will immediately consider them a threat to society, and take them down.

The girl was in the wrong to walk out into public Space with a weapon in hand. She should have been charged for that threat. My friend should not be facing a class A ffelony for eliminating that threat.

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Quoting Question4law

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Sounds like we have differing views on what factually represents an immanent threat, and ultimately my friends fate will depend on what a reasonable jury decides. Unfortunately I think much of this will depend on gender differentials, and what kind of threat an armed woman and irratic woman actually poses to society.

I don't care what anyone has to say, an armed erratic and suicidal woman IS an eminent threat to society... No matter when it happens. Any unsuspecting person could randomly encounter her however soon. We just had a suicidal guy out here in oregon shoot and carjack a random bystander in Medford. Any police officer encountering an armed and dangerous person will immediately consider them a threat to society, and take them down.

The girl was in the wrong to walk out into public Space with a weapon in hand. She should have been charged for that threat. My friend should not be facing a class A ffelony for eliminating that threat.

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IMMINENT. The word is "imminent".

Once more, with feeling, you were NOT present and you cannot say with anything even loosely resembling certainty what did or did not happen and what your friend should or should not be facing in terms of criminal charges.

You're so far off base here it's not even funny.

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Quoting Question4law

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And I'm ASKING, say perhaps I wanted to be a defense lawyer someday.... Do MY thoughts constitute any sort of legal validity. I know I'm an uneducated plebian outsider here, I don't know nearly as much about the law as you all do. But as a spectator and someone who wishes to understand the law better so I don't make mistakes that destroy the rest of my life, like my friendly likely did.... Does my logic/ postulations for a defense constitute any real realevancy to a hypothetical case such as this. If you dont wish to answer that, because it is abuse of this forum or out of the scope of realm of this case, then I understand and respect that. But when you straight up dismiss my points as being utterly irrelevant with no explanation at all... I guess that makes me extremely fearful of my ignorance of the law. I guess I have no real grasp of the law, as I should by this age. And I could very well inadvertently end up in a similar predicament some day. That's what's scary about your response.

Any ways sounds like my friend and his medical future are toast based on some sort of technical fault to how he handled an attempted suicide. And he may be going to prison for that too.

Sounds like the evidence and testimony regarding the circumstances behind why he even resteained her are completely irrelevant. Sounds like what he did was actually quite immoral and evil. Jesus. I fear this countries legal system.

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Hon, I'm going to say this as kindly as I can. What you're doing is actually telling me that you have a problem with basic reading comprehension. You don't seem to be able to grasp what you're being told. In very - almost painfully - simplistic terms, the reason why your thoughts on this don't matter is because you're hypothesizing based upon facts not in evidence.

It's a never-ending circle of "but what if ... " s and continuing is pointless and, worse, fruitless. The points are not being dismissed - your personal thoughts and feelings are being dismissed. Do you understand the difference?

I'm curious what the woman had to say about all this to the police. Did she admit to being psychotic and thankful he restrained her from hurting herself further? Or, did she tell the police that he attacked her without cause? Or, something in between.

See how things can get muddied? Your friend tells you one thing, the woman may have told the POLICE something else. Heck, maybe you FRIEND old the police something different.

In any event, this is a matter for your friend and his attorney. You, we, and the police are not mind readers. They can only act on the information presented to them by witnesses and their own senses. The story as related to them may have stunk to high Heaven. Maybe the officers made the arrest as a CYA measure. We don't know. Maybe next time your friend will know to yell for someone to call the police when he is trying to restrain her and she is screaming. Better yet, hopefully they are far apart by now.

The first thing the woman did when the police entered was exclaim "no, no, no who called the police?" The police said "what do you mean, the whole building called." She told them he had not hit her, but he had a pattern of abuse in the past and he convinced her not to call police at that time out of fear that a criminal record would destroy his career ambitions. He, of course, denied this. She then called Her police lieutenant uncle in the NYPD, and he allegedly ripped the kid in half to the police. He had just come down a few weeks earlier to move him out of her apartment, because the dwindling relationship was causing her distress. She stated she DID NOT have a knife in hand when leaving the apartment. She did admit to cutting herself, but only at the end of the situation where they found her on the sofa. Several other knives and bloody paper towels were found by the sink, though. She claimed he was cursing at her while restraining her at different areas throughout the apartmemt and told her "you can't get me in trouble for this". She did not claim she was psychotic but had a history of cutting. Witnesses heard her claim she was going to kill herself.

The report was written in a way that implicitly communicagsd that the girl was essentially terrorized into cutting herself, and that she was kidnapped to further that cause. It was never explicitly stated though.

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Quoting cdwjava

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Maybe next time your friend will know to yell for someone to call the police when he is trying to restrain her and she is screaming. Better yet, hopefully they are far apart by now.

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Are you insane? Do you know how many times police came to a situation involving a suicidal person and proceeded to kill the person themselves?

The LAST people you want in this situation are the police.