Self Defence - EOT

So, you get attacked by two criminals with clenched fists. You retaliate with the only weapon you have - a knife - and you face MURDER charges?

What was he supposed to do, exactly?

What was he supposed to do, exactly?

Tagger Pihema Cameron and a friend were today accused of "ambushing" murder accused Bruce Emery moments before he allegedly stabbed the teenager to death.

Emery's lawyer Chris Comesky told Cameron's friend, a 16 year-old who has name suppression, they both "lured" Emery into a dark street.

Mr Comeskey said the teenagers were acting aggressively and sprayed Emery with paint that choked and blinded him.

Bruce Emery is on trial at the High Court at Auckland for the murder of a 15-year-old tagger, Pihema Cameron.

He is accused of stabbing Cameron in the heart on January 26 after he had been tagging several properties along Mahia Rd, the Manurewa street where they both lived.

Emery denies the murder charge and says he was defending himself.

Mr Comeskey put it to the witness Cameron moved onto the knife Emery was holding but the witness said that wasn't true.

"He moved onto the knife and then he moved backwards," he said.

Advertisement
Advertisement

The witness: "That's not what I saw."

Mr Comeskey said he couldn't be sure what he saw, or remembered, because he was so affected by cannabis and alcohol.

The witness said that wasn't true, that he "saw the knife go in".

Mr Comeskey said Emery couldn't see because he was choking and blinded by spraypaint.

The trial continues.

Are you saying that 2 street kids cant kill a 50 year old?

ITS RACISM!

Fuck give me a break.

Gareth - It is irrelevant that he had chased them and taken a knife this doesnt mean mean intent to kill by any stretch. I also cant believe youre ignoring evidence of a witness saying they moved on him, sprayed him in the face while he was backing up.
??

conviction rather

virgo, you clearly believe a man should be able to kill someone because someone painted on his fence. I won't engage you any further on this.

Even the stuff headline is absurd: Stabbed tagger moved on to knife, court told.
"Told" that by a defence lawyer suggesting it - a suggestion that was said to be rubbish by the witness.

they saw the knife and acted in Self defence by spraying him in the face is another way to look at it bob

unless more specific details come to hand I doubt we'll ever be any more wise as to the events that took place

It's not at all irrelevant that the accused chased the youths with a knife whilst they were unarmed - I expect the crown prosecutor will have much to say about that

G-dub, crimes are not merely damaging in the specific; they are damaging in the general in that they indicate a lack of discipline and a refusal to obey.

That's irrelevant to this issue, though. The man went out to defend his property. It was smart of him to take a weapon. The criminals then assaulted him.

after that point, there was no property to defend

remember too, that the right to defend property in NZ is very limited

What the fuck do property rights have to do with my point?

Every crime is an act of "petit treason" and as such deserves punishment.

In this case, he had the choice of doing nothing, or arming himself and going outside. He couldn't chase them unarmed, as that would put him in serious danger.

it's not for us to dole out punishment for crimes committed against us - that's not our system here in NZ

the jury will be asked to consider his intentions when he confronted them - see above

Punishment was the wrong word. Prevention would be better; it wasn't a punitive act, it was preventive (stopping them from continuing to disobey the law)

oh dear. go back and read the original post of mine which you quoted from.

there was no property to defend. nothing illegal to prevent. they had stopped doing the prohibited act.

they were not defiantly standing in front of him and continuing to tag his property. they fled. he ran after them.

They INTERRUPTED their illegal act when he appeared. They didn't cease it. What do you think they were going to do next, make a nice cup of tea and chat with mum?

irrelevant from a legal perspective.

yes, they were interrupted, and they ran away.

yes, they may have come back later again that night (perhaps not likely).

or they may have moved on to other locations to continue tagging, where they would be less likely to be detected.

or maybe, they would have gone home, called it a night, and drank some more beer, and smoked some more dak.

who knows? it doesn't matter, legally.

if a dude is breaking into my car outside and I run out and say stop scum, he sees me, and runs, and I make a decision to chase after him, I need to be clear in my head what I am doing and why I am doing it.

yes I can say I am pursuing him to catch him and maybe try a citizens arrest (that's legal)

however I can't say I am acting in self-defence of my property at that point

Even if we go with your 'continuing act' argument vadinho, it's still comes down to the proportionality of the response is. Stabbing to prevent a continuation of If shoplifting would be out of question; raping - it's a different story.

Even if we go with your 'continuing act' argument vadinho, it's still comes down to the proportionality of the response is.

The disobedience element that you speak of is a commonality of all criminal conduct yes........That is really no different to calling for vigilantism.

why do you not take account of the fact that the defendant did actually try to doing the right thing by reporting these taggers to the authorities before?

if the authorities are basically washing their hands of the matter completely - then exactly how many options does the man have?

The blame for this whole thing can be laid at the feet of the authorities for not doing anything about it when they had the chance, and the taggers for committing the crime in the first place.

You cannot blame the man who did the right thing by reporting the crime, and then realised that his tax money was going down the toilet because the authorities didn't give a shit so decided to stand up for himself. You cannot ask him to just chill out, forgive and forget while he constantly forks out money to get his fence repainted, that's not how normal people work.

The stabbing was - in this case - an act of self defence when the two thugs attacked him when he interrupted their illegal act.

Timeline:
X - they began their crime
X+2 - he noticed it. Seeing there were 2 of them, armed with metal cylinders, he armed himself with a small knife.
X+3 - he confronted them.
X+4 - shocked at being confronted, the two criminals retreated to briefly reconsider their options
X+5 - as stated by the criminal himself, the two criminals decided to attack the victim
X+6 - in response to this assault, the victim defended himself by brandishing his knife
X+7 - the drunk criminal impaled himself on the knife

Game, set, match VAD_D

If proportionality is the key principle, then a person who steals X dollars should get half the sentence as someone who steals 2X, and 1/10th of someone who steals 10X.

You can see that's absolutely ridiculous, so again, it comes down to the _general_ aspect - the petit treason. In that regard, spraypainting a house is as damaging as anything. I could trace for you how it affects the area, resulting in more serious crimes, but like all lawyers you don't care about society - only your tiny little corner of it called "the law" - forgetting that people and societies make law, NOT the other way arounhd

If I argue they didn't cease their act, but merely paused during it - that the pre- and post- pause acts are still the same action - your argument loses its validity.

If I am raping someone and then take a few minutes to have a breather, and you in that time assault me to get away (and stab me), I don't think anybody would suggest that the crime was "over.'

Game, set, match VAD_D

If proportionality is the key principle, then a person who steals X dollars should get half the sentence as someone who steals 2X, and 1/10th of someone who steals 10X./quote]

So you are using the proportionality principle as applied in punishment to challenge my argument which was about the proportionality principle as the reason for criminalisation? Context much vadinho?

Obviously you don't understand my argument. I'll explain. I don't know nor care what the facts of this case are. I am challenging your proposition that the use of potentially fatal force in order to prevent what the citizen has subjectively assessed is a crime about to be committed or to be continued, regardless of how minor that crime might be, should be permitted. Is that your argument - in a nutshell - or not? If that is your argument then you are arguing for vigilantism, for citizens to take justice into their own hands and distribute it how they choose, use fatal force to prevent tagging or shop-lifting if that is their choosing with the only fetter on their blood-thirst being their subjective assessment of whether a crime is about to be committed or continued. That my dear vadinho is a ridiculous argument. What you advocate is a state of lawlessness.

Is there an alternative charge of manslaughter?

To convict him of murder the Crown had to have proven Emery meant to cause Pihema "bodily injury" and that he was likely to have caused his death and injury.

They also needed to have proven that Emery was reckless - that death could have happened as a consequence of his actions.

For the jury to believe Emery - who maintains he was defending himself - they had to be satisfied he felt there was an "imminent force to be resisted".

"Did he believe he was in danger of bodily harm or death and was defending himself... of that imminent threat," Justice Williams said.

But if they felt he was acting for other reasons, such as revenge, then self defence could not be considered reasonable for Emery to have used his knife.

He then advised jurors on points of law relating to murder and manslaughter. Under New Zealand law, anyone charged with murder is automatically charged with manslaughter as well.

not only did the accused not give evidence, the defence did not call ANY witnesses - they did not call ANY evidence to back up the face-spraying allegation


wtf

unbelievable

no character evidence either.

and the answer to your question codpiece is no. i won't say anything more...

heh I was looking at legal aid paid to firms/lawyers last year and he seemed to do alright.

i just figured he must be reasonably well respected if he is involved in relatively high profile work, ie return of waiouru medals etc.

its almost like he wants to be done.

I have little sympathy if hes not willing to take the stand. Either his lawyer thinks he will shaft himself or he cant hide his guilt/anger.

I wonder - would there be anything in his past that the prosecution wouldnt bring up unless he was cross examined?

he is pretty well respected in criminal law circles ain't he?

they did not call ANY evidence to back up the face-spraying allegation
wtf

why would they need to? the prosecution witness verified it

It's NOT an independent defence witness

it's simply the defence lawyer putting the defence case to the main prosecution witness - the teenager who was with the victim at the time of the murder

(just going by the article reproduced)

as a lawyer the inference I make from the failure to call the accused is simply that the defence does not have confidence in him as a witness - he would not be a good witness, he would not withstand cross-examination. as BG points out it is usual for the accused to give evidence in self-defence cases.

" After Pihema tried to spray the man's face he looked angry. That's when I saw the knife and he started waving it at us.

"Pihema sprayed the can at him, then kept backing away . I tried to spray the man too then he lunged at me with the knife towards my abdomen.

The businessman accused of fatally stabbing a 15-year-old he suspected of tagging his house has been found guilty of manslaughter but not of murder by a jury at the High Court in Auckland.

so was the lawyer really running a provocation defence as opposed to self defence?

i forget the legal intricacies, crim law was 10 years ago...

reading some of the posts on here, that seems to perhaps be the implication.

Ridiculous. Yet more injustice.

Will the taggers face ANY censure for their illegal acts?

We should bring back the British tradition of sentencing corpses.

is provocation still available as a defence JH? i remember reading something about that.

yeah I feel sorry for him. 50yrs old with 2 kids, and he's expected to just sit there and let criminals shit all over him or face some serious prison time.

Go New Zealand.

a sense of proportion dude

yeh that's right, serious jail time when you kill someone, just like every other country

Their act was the initial act. Even the law agrees that an act in response is less severe.

And, even if tagging is somehow less important than self defence, they should still face SOME time

that would be 'collective' defence wouldn't it?

well in some other countries, the police force actually works. perhaps find the prick who goes around vandalising other people's property, and beat the fear of god into them......just to be different.

that way the teenage criminal grows up to be a decent citizen and the law abiding family man doesn't have to take the law into his own hands to protect his property....

funny that, sounds too simple.