the intent in the world does not matter if the threat couldn’t hurt you. Most people have some means at some level—fists and boots and size. Others have weapons or indicate that they have weapons.
A two-year-old throwing a temper tantrum has some of the purest intent in the world, but he or she lacks the size, strength, and coordination to do anything severe.
The means that the actions you articulate must also match the means that were presented. People who were poorly trained in self-defense mouth the words, “I was in fear for my life,” like it is a mantra or a get-out-of-jail-free card. It is a bullshit platitude. You will be expected and required to explain exactly what made you fear for your life—the intent, the means, and the opportunity. If you are claiming the threat was deadly, the means have to be deadly. A shoving match does not count.
You must be able to articulate exactly what led to your fear in a way that demonstrates it was legitimate.
Intent and means do not matter if the threat cannot reach you. If someone is screaming he is going to kick your ass from across the room, he may be a threat but he is not an immediate threat. You can’t shoot him. If he has a gun, being across a room does not matter as much. You have a pretty good argument that you were in danger. Similarly, someone waving a knife at you from inside a vehicle while you are walking on the sidewalk is not an immediate threat. If he slams the accelerator and the car lurches toward you, that situation has changed significantly.
Intent, means, and opportunity are the desire, the ability, and the access to hurt you. You must be able to show all three to justify using force for self-defense.
Even if intent, means, and opportunity are clear, there is one other requirement (for civilians and in most states*) to satisfy. You must be able to show that you had no safe alternatives other than physical force before engaging an opponent in combat. If you can retreat without further endangering yourself**, this criterion has not been met. After all, it is impossible for the other guy to hurt you if you are not there.
These are the questions any jury will be asked and you must be able to explain: Could you have left? Could you have run? Did you in any way contribute to the situation getting out of hand? Would a reasonable person have seen a way out or seen a way that used less force?
All of these are preclusions that would have stopped the situation from going to force. You must not only prove the threat was real and immediate, but that you had no other good options.
Clearly you should never let fear of legal repercussions keep you from defending yourself when your life is on the line, but an understanding of the law can help you make good decisions on “that day” should it ever arrive.
There are no absolutes in self-defense, but your ultimate goal is to apply sufficient force to effectively control the situation and keep yourself from harm. In general, you may legally use reasonable force in defending yourself. “Reasonable force” is considered only that force reasonably necessary to repel the attacker’s force.
Unfortunately, “reasonably necessary” is a vague term usually associated with what the “reasonable person” would think necessary. The so-called reasonable person is a fictitious composite of all the reasonably prudent people in a given cross section of life.
Whether the ordinary person acted reasonably will likely be judged against the reasonably prudent, similarly situated ordinary person in the appropriate geographic area. Everyone starts out at this level, but other personal attributes may heighten their required standard of care.
Whether a martial artist acted reasonably in a fight will likely be judged against the reasonably prudent practitioner of similar skill and training in that general geographic area. This test works the same way for other experts as well. For example, whether a doctor acted reasonably in medical care will be judged against the reasonably prudent doctor of similar skill, training, and specialty.
The reasonable person standard is not necessarily used in all criminal proceedings nor is it universally used in all civil proceedings. On the other hand, some standard of reasonable and right are embedded in the mind of every person, including those sitting in the jury box. The reasonable person standard will likely also be used in any civil suit (e.g., wrongful death) filed after a criminal decision.
A trained fighter is usually held to a higher standard of reasonableness than the average person in a court of law. The martial artist’s training is believed to give him or her better understanding of the application and consequences of using a certain amount of force. Thus, where a less-skilled individual might be able to shoot a club-wielding attacker, it may only be reasonable in the eyes of an undereducated jury for the martial artist to use his or her hands for defense. For non-practitioners, most folk’s understanding of martial arts is limited to unrealistic movie and television stunts. This is why expert witnesses are so important (and expensive).
Crimes generally revolve around the “intent” to do something bad, or the “reckless disregard” of the consequences of doing something that turned out bad in retrospect. Reasonableness also enters criminal proceedings to help resolve issues surrounding intent or reckless disregard. You can never know with certainty what someone intended yet the courts can infer what was intended from evidence and circumstances. This inference involves knowledge, skill, training, and state of mind of the participants as applied to the evidence and circumstances at hand.
Exceeding a reasonable level of force may well turn a victim into a perpetrator in the eyes of the court. Justifiable self-defense is a victim’s defense to a criminal/civil charge. If one’s intent were to defend his or her self, then a reasonable person would only do so using reasonable force. Using a higher level of force infers intent to needlessly harm the other. This allows the perpetrator turned “victim” to use your defensive actions against you, the victim turned perpetrator. Even if a criminal prosecutor dismisses your actions, a civil court may not do so.
Another important aspect of self-defense is disparity of force. While there is no such thing as a fair fight in most instances, legally there is often an expectation of one. Equal-force doctrines in some jurisdictions require law-abiding citizens to respond to an attack with little or no more force than that which he or she perceives is being used against him or her. In some places, the law clearly specifies that equal force must be exactly equal. The attacked can respond with no more force than that by which he or she is threatened—slap for slap, punch for punch, kick for kick, or deadly weapon for deadly weapon.
Disparity of force between unarmed combatants is measured in one of two ways. It exists if:
• The victim is being attacked by someone who is physically much stronger or younger.
• The victim is being attacked by two or more assailants of similar or equal size.
Where disparity of force exists, you may legitimately be able to exert potentially lethal force to defend yourself. However, a person
