Self Defence - EOT

wow virgo1, why don't you fuck off to Botswana then and try their cops for a size? or Congo perhaps?

NZ does have an effective police force. It has an effective justice system too. Neither are without their problems, but maybe you know so little of how other countries distribute justice to really understand just how good we have it in good old NZ!

Do you think what the defendant did was worse than:

"Wanganui residents this week spoke of their shock at seeing two teenage boys on bikes deliberately run over a small ginger cat in the city's St John's Hill.

They boys reportedly yelled "yahoo" as the cat flew in the air and landed on the roadside."

Even if we assume that a cat's life is slightly less valuable than a human's - and some Utilitarians would disagree - we can definitely say that the motives of pure evil and malice that made these thugs kill an innocent cat are a million times worse than Emery's.

Yet what will they face? Nothing. Because the justice system is too oriented on the specific outcome of the case - a dead human - rather than the broader context.

The justice system looks at outcome and intent/malice. But yes,it assumes that human life is worth more than a cat's. I'm sure you could argue that a cabbage leaf is worth more than human life vadinho, but I honestly see little utility in that debate.

Surely the malice in torturing a cat is far worse than accidentally stabbing a thug in self defence?

PS Peter Singer - professor at Melbourne - would disagree with the justice system. He's more qualified as well.

hah!! and you criticise me for always using extremes when I'm arguing my point! Congo.....nice.

somehow I doubt that a 50yr old man with 2 kids would go around stabbing 15yr old boys if the police had actually done their job, exactly what part of that are you refuting??

"Wanganui residents this week spoke of their shock at seeing two teenage boys on bikes deliberately run over a small ginger cat in the city's St John's Hill.

They boys reportedly yelled "yahoo" as the cat flew in the air and landed on the roadside."


Sounds like another couple of liam read's in the making.

The callousness and bullying in nz society at the moment, after reading this morning paper, makes me wonder where nz is going.

its going slowly but surely to a nicer place than where we came

bullying today is nothing on what it once was - thankfully

but never let the media let you think that some things are actually getter better - slowly but surely

you're right bob. nowadays, kids can go home and still get bullied, through bebo, the internet and cell phones. there is no escape for some.

much worse these days.

I'd happily go through some bebo bashing compared to the very real bashings of my youth and the verbal and sometimes physical abuse at some workplaces - all of which was considered 'just a bit of fun'

yep things are not quite as bad as they were once - which is still a long way from the cotton wool lined world many wowsers envisage

and the same kids still get bashed on school, maybe have it videoed, then posted on youtube for the world to see.

psychological abuse can be pretty devastating.

Yes it can and I am not trying to do the things were worse in my day line for nothing

the tools that can be utilised in bullying are more numerious but the behaviour patterns are the same

though saying that I wonder if the molly coddling of some kids by their parents (middle class and higher) has added to the suffering of some/many - ie they have no defence mechanisms

his name was suppressed so I'd say there is a good chance of it

I'm refuting EVERY part of that. The police cannot prevent each and every crime from being committed, the fact that police fail to do so does not give a licence to kill to the likes of Emery and it most certainly does not mean that the police are 'not doing their job'.

For you to advocate beatings and violence against suspected youth offenders as an example of 'effective policing' is not only uninformed but disturbing. If that is your line of thinking then Botswana and Congo are not at all extreme examples - they are precisely where you belong!

You would be right if it was self defence - because a killing in self defence is not a crime at all, it is behaviour that is legally justified, therefore of course torturing a cat would be worse than a killing in self defence. But, absent your factual manipaulation to suit your argument, you are left not with self defence but manslaughter. And manslaughter is a crime of unlawful killing without murderous intent. That crime is far more serious than torturing a cat.

That aside and much more importantly, I would like to know why you are not up in arms about Emery's civil disobedience? You were so heavy handed with the taggers but why have you not attacked Emery for his vigilantism? For taking it upon himself to be the judge jury and executioner? Usurping the right of the State to capture, try and sentence offenders! Where is your outrage vadinho for Emery's utter disregard for the laws of this country, the role, powers and duties of the police? His petit treason!

not only that but his upholding of the rights of private property

I'm not expecting the police to PREVENT crime. I'm expecting the police to catch criminals. You're telling me that a police force that doesn't catch criminals is still considered to be doing their job? Sorry I must be confused about what the police's job is.....see I thought that was EXACTLY what their job was,

but apparently their job is just to stand there while you make a complaint, waste an hour of your time while you fill out a form giving them every personal detail about your life and your complaint - and then they just shelve it.....

Thanks for clarifying that, here I was thinking the police were actually meant to do something when the public report a crime to them. Silly me.

And what on earth is all this talk of SUSPECTED youth offenders.....the guy walked out and SAW them tagging his fence. One of the kids even ADMITTED to committing the crime, what's with all the "suspected" talk?? There is no suspicion here, it's a fact, the kid that died WAS a criminal, not just a suspect.

Your blatant bias in favour of criminals is a lot more disturbing than my advocation of a heavy handed police force.

He was not usurping their rights in any way, shape or form. He was acting in self defence, which as noted before, is allowed by the state.

Go read my old post on "extended self defence" which through careful logic indicates that self defence extends beyond the self.

He was found guilty of manslaughter - he was therefore not acting in self defence.

But that's by the by, what I'm trying to draw your attention to is the encroachment that your concept of 'extended self-defence' places on the State's right and responsibility to capture try and punish citizens for criminal wrong doing. For someone who professes such distaste for disobedience and 'petit treason', how can you tolerate not just a breach of the State's laws, but a usurpation of the State's role? The latter is surely much worse. How do you reconcile self defence writ large which you advocate and what is rightfully in the province of the State namely capture, trial and punishment of its citizens for criminal wrongdoing?

The effectiveness of a police force is not measured by a single case of an escaped tagger.



He was nothing more than a suspect at the time he was killed. I'm not going to get into terminological niceties with you, suffice to say that at the time of his death he was neither arrested let alone convicted of any offence relating to tagging. The fact that it was established post fact that he was tagging is beside the point, he was executed by a vigilante who took it upon himself to be the judge jury and executioner.

As for your bias comment, you can categorize my views how you want, but I stand for fairly simple concepts of fairness, proportionality, justice and so on. What you need to understand is that your views on criminal justice are not balanced, they are skewed in favour of only one side of the argument with little to no regard for countervailing considerations. What you exhibit is a one-sided approach to questions which have for centuries involved a balancing of competing interests. Criminal justice is widely understood as a multi-faceted topic which can be neither pro-victim, nor pro-police, nor pro-offender, nor pro-courts, nor pro-lawyers. It involves a process of balancing competing interests. If you continue to turn a blind eye to the need to consider and account for competing interests, your views will continue to be vulnerable to dismissal as being either marginal or extreme.

Because the citizen's actions are not "capture, trial, and punishment" at all.

If you can't make the logical progression to see that, don't blame me.

There is NOTHING punitive about extended self defence.

Or as being logically consistent.

This so-called "balance" merely leads to maddeningly inconsistent rules and actions because there is no central principle at all. The law is centuries of accretions with nobody going in there to tidy up.

Criminal law should be pro-society. Whatever enhances the safety of society must be done.

and to be pro society you need to balance the competing interests...

looks like jail time is heading his way alright

Because the citizen's actions are not "capture, trial, and punishment" at all.
[/quote]

But extended self defence CAN be 'capture trial and punishment', what Emery did CAN be described as capture trial and punishment. He chased down and then executed a person whom he deemed to be a criminal. Yes? You purport to excuse or justify that by saying there was some remote element of 'self-defence/defence of property' in all that. The law requires that the threat to self be imminent and the force used necessary and proportionate before the law will excuse the capture trial and punishment of one citizen by another. The way I see it your concept of self defence writ large has little to do with 'defence' and a lot more to do with vigilantism.

The rules make absolute sense, self-defence is a fairly clear cut doctrine. Sure there is always some controversy around certain areas, but overall the law has summarised self defence in a couple of lines. There is nothing overly complex about that at all. It's the application of the law to fact situations thrown up by human action and interaction that cause problems and difficulties. But the goal of the law in application has never been to please the demands of perfect logical consistency and coherency, rather it has been to achieve justice. I've made that point before but it has fallen on deaf ears.

he is meaning 'safety of society' which is different to being pro-society, though i can't see how it is any less elusive or abstract than any of the current concepts with which we grapple....

I just wanted to point out that the countries where the use of brutal police force is accepted with a blind eye... are the same countries where crime rates and the nature of the crimes themselves are even more brutal than that of NZ. So the point that the police are 'effective' in those situations actually eludes me...


Back on topic...

i see the two as being pretty much the same. the 'safety of society' should also include the right of its 'citizens' to be safe from 'capture trial and punishment' and to be safe from vigilantes taking the law into their own hands. those rights are 'pro society'.

you can expand on why they are different if you like.

how is uni going anyways? surrounded by megabrains?

BG,

is your room a mess?

Don't you LIKE order?

Citizens caught in the act of crime shouldn't be safe from other citizens preventing that act.

As an analogy, if Australia sent bombers to NZ, should we only be able to shoot them as they're releasing their bombs - once they turn for home it's not "self defence" anymore?

"extended self-defence" is a piece of rubbish as a "legal "concept

there is no principle and no boundary to it

ever heard the expression "you can't take the law into your own hands?"

that concept applies just as much today as it ever did

the actions used to 'prevent' that act need to be reasonable, proportional and justifiable.

vad...


the state would be the author of any action taken against bombers from australia. (would discuss law of war at this point if i could remember exact details - one of the best lectures i ever had at uni, given by a lawyer in the army)

just as the state should also be the entity responsible for the trial and punishment of criminal acts.

past a certain point though it gains critical mass and becomes a political objective, ill-defined as maybe, but no less potent for that

that concept applies just as much today as it ever did

Let me reiterate: it is not the trial and punishment we are talking about, it is the prevention.

There is NO usurpation of the right of the state to punish.

It is derived from first principles, which is a lot more than can be said for the barnacle-encrusted "law" we have today (at least a lot of it.)

Show a lawyer a first principle and they'll start spouting "precedent" and "common law." Corner them with "statutes" and they'll decry the evils of "black letter law." Ask them to define "justice" and they'll do it in legal language, forgetting

THE LAW SERVES THE STATE, NOT VICE VERSA.

well define "extended self-defence" then - what powers does it grant a citizen? in what circumstances? and what are its limits?

the law does not just serve the State, the law also serves the people - not necessarily the same thing

My room is immaculate. I LOVE order. I love order in legal doctrine too. And there is order in law, there are principles, it's just not "simple", it doesn't boil down to a "single principle", the law is about balance.

As for your constant but unsupported claims that there is no punitive element in preventive/extended self defence, you're just turning a blind eye. Of course there is a punitive element, you just choose not to recognize it. Disproportionate or excessive self defence can easily become punitive. If I shoot you in the head because you have purposely stood on my foot and are preparing to do so again and this pisses me off to no end, I am not just preventing your second assault on me, I am also punishing you. The moment you take out proportionality, reasonableness, and necessity of response as limits on what the actor can do in response to criminal wrong doing against themselves or their property, the act can easily become punitive. You have to have clear and defined limits on what people can do to defend themselves or their property. Otherwise you are justifying punitive vigilantism and aside from the usurpation of the role of the State, as JH has already said you are left with a rubbish concept.

i agree with that. it's probably only in vadinho's world that they are different.

as for uni, it's going ok. lots of reading, lots of work. i am surrounded by megabrains, everyone here is the next stephen hawking, it bothered me and i felt inadequate for the first month or so, but i'm over it now - there is only so many stephen hawkings this world can handle, right?

People are irrelevancies, as they are not abstracts. Only ideals matter.
People are a MEANS to an END that has value, such as heroism, but not an end in themselves.

If I have a binary solution set, because the only weapon I have is a gun, and I'm a cripple, then I can either
0 - let you assault me
1 - shoot you

As I've proved before, in this case 1 is not excessive.

that's a very warped and unbalanced view of things

why do ideals matter vad?

???

the scenario did not have you as a cripple.

do i take it then that shooting a man in the head after he stepped on your foot is in your view not excessive?

he is clutching at straws!

what if the cripple has no feeling in his feet vad? does that make a difference in your view?

how about this vad...

i'm a diabetic.

someone puts sugar in my diet coke because they think it may be funny cos it will make me 'hyper'.

they've also constantly been on my case about my diabetes, teasing and hassling me about it.

i've been in a fight with them before because of that. they wasted me.

they still persist.

putting the sugar in my diet coke causes my blood sugars to sky rocket, making me feel quite ill.

if i saw them putting sugar into my diet coke, and since i'm a useless fighter (just like a 'cripple', how much force do you think i could use in preventing them from doing that? if i had a weapon am i justified in using it?

No, but I am positing a situation where I have only two choices (a binary solutions set)
0 - do nothing
1 - do something that is regarded by you as disproportionate

As I've proved before in earlier threads, 1 is the correct answer.

If we do have a proportional response, then use it.

In this case the proportional response would be "not drink the diet coke."

If, however, they were going to force you to drink the diet coke, and they were bigger, stronger, and better fighters, it would be entirely proportional to use a weapon.

It's not rocket science.

ok...say i'm going hypoglycaemic, a dangerous situation. i need something sweet to eat fast. if i don't get something sweet, i could be in serious trouble. they take all of my lollies away from me. i have nothing else sweet near to me. i need those lollies.

how much force can i use?

I guess you can use reasonable force to get back the lollies - it's your property


"defence of property"

What if by not getting the lollies, you were in danger of dying?

ps i believe that if i attack him, i might have a defence for automatism (law may have changed since i studied crim law in 98 though)...insanity not applying despite my diabetes essentially still being 'responsible' for how i've maybe acted (external vs internal causes, 'disease of the mind'
- hypoglycaemia is caused by injection of insulin and not enough food, hyperglycaemia is caused by pancreas not creating any insulin).

when you are hypoglycaemic you tend not to think reasonably...(your brain is getting no sugar).

well if it's necessary to assault and use violence to get them back, and you were going to die any second, you could argue the doctrine of necessity

would be very hard to prove though

fanciful

would not satisfy definitions of automatism and insanity

in crim law in 98 hypoglycaemia could qualify as someone being an 'automaton', and hyperglycaemia did qualify as insanity.

i remember cos i did an essay on it in an exam. heh

Frank Gill

well hypoglycaemia is a spectrum - so I guess very acute hypoglycaemia could possibly result in automatism or a lack of mens rea

is there caselaw to support hypoglycaemia as a permanent "disease of the mind" - or is it something academics have argued fits the definition? remembering we don't have "temporary insanity" in the American sense

i recall that hyperglycaemia was insanity whereas hypoglycaemia wasn't?

In the case of being hypoglycaemic specifically?

Or is it 'difficult to argue' if it was a case where I badly needed my insulin and you forcefully withheld it from me?

if i was going hypoglycaemic and i needed something sweet to eat and you were teasing me about it and withholding from me the sweet thing...i'd likely lose the plot and try to beat you up at some point, assuming i go that low.

insulin not so bad, as going high is not as dangerous.

"well-respected counsel" ???

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10568594

above