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

[Taxing Matters]

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.

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.

[Question4law]

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.

[Dogmatique]

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.

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

Your thoughts. YOUR thoughts.

Understand?

[Question4law]

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.

[Taxing Matters]

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Question4law]

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.

[Dogmatique]

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.

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.

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.

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?

[cdwjava]

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.

[Question4law]

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.

[TechWorker]

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.

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.