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

[Question4law]

That’s not quite right. The Michigan model jury instructions explain the requirements in plain English pretty well:

(1)
The defendant is charged with the crime of assault and battery. To prove this charge, the prosecutor must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:
(2)
First, that the defendant committed a battery on [name complainant]. A battery is a forceful, violent, or offensive touching of the person or something closely connected with the person of another. The touching must have been intended by the defendant, that is, not accidental, and it must have been against [name complainant]’s will. It does not matter whether the touching caused an injury.
(3)
Second, that the defendant intended either to commit a battery upon [name complainant] or to make [name complainant] reasonably fear an immediate battery.

Yup, sounds like basically if you touch someone and they don't like it/want it its a crime in MI. No exceptions made for people who lack faculty of control. I've read through some other states statutes, however, and they do make exceptions for youth and mentally ill people who are out of control. So, irrelevant to this situation, but basically any civilian take down/ arrest of a criminal individual is also a crime in MI. Unless you are a police officer, you have no legal protection for touching another person.

[cdwjava]

Yup, sounds like basically if you touch someone and they don't like it/want it its a crime in MI. No exceptions made for people who lack faculty of control. I've read through some other states statutes, however, and they do make exceptions for youth and mentally ill people who are out of control. So, irrelevant to this situation, but basically any civilian take down/ arrest of a criminal individual is also a crime in MI. Unless you are a police officer, you have no legal protection for touching another person.

Michigan law does appear to allow for force to be used in a private person's arrest, at least for felonies committed in their presence. This situation would not seem to be a felony, and he did not make a private person's arrest.

[qwaspolk69]

Not asking what will happen, just whether they were viable defenses. I know I'm not defending him, I'm just worried about him and I just wondered if anyone on this board could answer whether my 'hypotheticals' were viable legal defenses or not. Understandingly, none of the volunteers here want to waste their time with hypotheticals or my curiosities about the law, if it has no fruitful bearing on the case at hand. That's where I went wrong in attempting to use this forum for educational purposes over actual pragmatic purposes.



Wasn't asking for any volunteers here to prove anything. Was referring to the defendant in the case, and what he has to be able to prove to win his case.



Are you saying that if the boyfriend just sat there, watching his girlfriend cut longitudinally into a wrist artery and bleed to death, he isn't legally responsible for allowing her to do that? Are you kidding me? Society EXPECTS a man to intervene in a situation like that. People are going to be happier with him for allowing her to kill herself than him intervening? That's the RIGHT thing to do?

You know, Thomas Jefferson has a good quote about this sort of situation "if a law is unjust, man is not only right to disobey, he is obligated to do so."

So is this hypothetical or did it really happen? Now you are just being confusing.

[Dogmatique]

OP, why are you still wasting the time of the very kind volunteers here?

Allow me to summarize:

This is not your problem.
Your feelings are irrelevant.
Your friend should be discussing this with his attorney, and ONLY with his attorney.

The end.

[Question4law]

OP, why are you still wasting the time of the very kind volunteers here?

Allow me to summarize:

This is not your problem.
Your feelings are irrelevant.
Your friend should be discussing this with his attorney, and ONLY with his attorney.

The end.

Because you aren't the only one I've been talking to, Dogmatiques. Unlike your initial and persistent downcry of my questions irrelevancy, others have taken the time to answer my 'frivolous' questions. I have gained from that, they didn't seem to have a problem answering, and even seemingly engaged by the topic, and so I don't see the issue, nor that I'm breaking any forum rules.

[eerelations]

OP if you cared at all about your friend, you'd have taken our repeated advice and told him he must not talk to anyone about this except his lawyer. Him talking to you about this (not to mention you then broadcasting it all over the internet) can - and probably will - get him into more trouble than he's already in.

[Dogmatique]

OP if you cared at all about your friend, you'd have taken our repeated advice and told him he must not talk to anyone about this except his lawyer. Him talking to you about this (not to mention you then broadcasting it all over the internet) can - and probably will - get him into more trouble than he's already in.

This. So much.

[TechWorker]

So, irrelevant to this situation, but basically any civilian take down/ arrest of a criminal individual is also a crime in MI. Unless you are a police officer, you have no legal protection for touching another person.

Police officers sometimes say, "If you don't like cops, then call a crackhead to solve your problems." The problem is that the state has a monopoly on *any* use of force. So, a crackhead (or any other non-police officer) can get into trouble for using any amount of force to solve a problem, even the benign amount of force required to simply restrain someone. Meanwhile, the police can come in and use *any* amount of force (even deadly), and no one can touch the police.

[cdwjava]

Police officers sometimes say, "If you don't like cops, then call a crackhead to solve your problems." The problem is that the state has a monopoly on *any* use of force. So, a crackhead (or any other non-police officer) can get into trouble for using any amount of force to solve a problem, even the benign amount of force required to simply restrain someone. Meanwhile, the police can come in and use *any* amount of force (even deadly), and no one can touch the police.

Wow ... this is SO erroneous! Really!

As for the use of force by a private person, there are numerous exceptions under the law in all states that permit the use of force to protect one's self and others, sometimes even their property, and almost always in the detention of someone who committed a crime (or at least a felony) in their presence. So to say that only the police can use force is wrong. And to say they can do so improperly and unlawfully with impunity is certainly also wrong.

[Question4law]

I was walking down the road once and a crazy man came walking by me with what looked like a rifle by his side. Several people pulled over to call the police. Two marked vehicles approached from behind while three unmarked black vehicles drove up onto the sidewalk to cut him off from the front and sides. I don't know if the gun was real or not, but the man was ultimately arrested.

This is a situation where I think people felt an IMMENENT enough of a threat to call police and get them involved. Police would not have covertly approached the man and remove his weapon if they didn't feel the same way.

This situation is really no different than the one with the suicidal girl. The problem is that police are the only ones who get to decide arbitrarily if a threat is IMMENENT. Any one else has to wait around and see what happens.