The
Ultimate Guide
To Fighting and Winning
By Dr. Russ Horine, President, Fight-Fast Direct, Inc.
Part 28
Self
Defense and the Law
First of all I want to be clear --
I’m no lawyer. I can’t give you specific legal advice
and this section is not meant to back you up in court
or anything like that (“but
Dr. Horine said I could cut his throat…”). It is incumbent
upon you (and every citizen) to learn the laws in your
state as it pertains to self defense.
But I do want to take this chance to try and
clarify some legal aspects. Take it for what it’s worth.
First of all, many of the principles
that we teach you in this book have the potential to
land you in legal hot water. I’m not trying to back away from one word of
what I’ve written -- the purpose of this book is to
teach you the principles and tactics that’ll give you
the highest probability of surviving a violent confrontation.
But it does not
give you the best strategies of winning a potential
legal battle.
Every state in the
U.S.
has its own specific laws relating to self defense.
This is my own non-professional opinion on what the
general intent is:
Use of force is justified when you reasonably believe that it is necessary
for the defense of yourself or others against the immediate
or imminent use of unlawful force, and there is no reasonable
and apparent avenue of exit. The force used to defend
yourself must be no more than reasonably required (proportionate)
and necessary to stop the immediate threat.
Individual state
laws differ from this, but I think in general it’s I’m
giving you a reasonable opinion. Here are some points
that’ll clarify the above statement:
--
“Unlawful Force” means that the attacker is someone
other than a police officer or anyone who is legally
authorized to give you a beating …
-- “Reasonably Believe” is rather dicey
as it leaves you wide open to the interpretation of
the police… prosecution… and the jury. What appears
to be a “no-brainer” to you may be twisted beyond all
recognition by ambitious lawyers and prosecutors looking
for fresh notches on their belt.
-- “Proportionate” means your response
should be similar to the threat. In other words if someone
slaps you, you slap back. Shooting him in the head would
be considered to be a “disproportionate use of force”.
-- “Immediate Threat” means that the threat
of harm is not something that’ll happen at some future
time. This also means that once the attacker is no longer
a threat to you, the fight should end. Any final kick
to the ribs or parting head stomps will be seen as acting
outside the category of immediate threat.
I’ve got a lot of
friends who are lawyers and -- speaking off the record
(of course) --they’ve given me their own ideas on how
best to avoid a criminal or civil lawsuit from fighting:
- Never hit first. Allow your attacker
to get the first strike…
- Always give clear warning to your attacker
before you defend yourself…
- Always
match your attackers force with less
or equal force…
- Never stand your ground, retreat
to safety regardless if others may be in danger…
- Your attacker’s life is more important
than yours. Show a greater concern for your attacker’s
safety than your own…
- If
your attacker falls to the ground, or is temporarily
unable to continue his assault, do
not continue the counter-attack, stop and assess
maybe he will decide to leave or stop the attack…
- After
successfully defending yourself from an attack, do not leave! Stay in the area and wait for authorities to arrive…
- Use just enough force to do the absolute
minimal damage to your attacker and remain “calm
and cool” so that you can weigh every action you take
with careful deliberation, ( this is the state of mind the jury will be in when
they second guess your actions).
This is not a joke. Follow these steps as spelled out by legal experts
and you may just stay out of jail – although you’ll
lose any fight and probably won’t be able to avoid the
hospital or perhaps the morgue.
You can
see why I advise guys like you to take responsibility
for your own protection and that of your family and
let the legal chips fall where they may. Because,
despite what anyone says, the legal system is not set
up to protect you. Nope. Its function is to put
people in jail and -- when it’s your turn on the legal
hot seat -- the prosecutor’s job is to do everything
he can to get you there.
As
I’ve pointed out numerous times, hitting first give
you a huge advantage. As you remember, the pre-emptive
attack is a core component of winning a fight. If
you can, always strike first -- and if possible 2nd,
3rd, and, 4th.
Yet a pre-emptive
attack is the riskiest of all categories in terms of
legal consequences. The more pro-active you become in
defending yourself or others from harm, the more you
expose yourself to legal action. The earlier you make
your personal triggers, the more vulnerable you become
to litigation.
Every state
has laws giving individuals the right to defend themselves
and others from the threat of harm, however some give
broader rights than others. And to complicate it more,
civil law (take your money) has a different set of standards
than criminal law (go to jail). And all of them are
open to the interpretation of the local DA’s office
(“do we want to prosecute or not?”), presiding judges,
and juries.
We’ve all
heard horror stories of people reasonably and successfully
defending themselves against hostile attacks only to
be sued later, or having to defend themselves against
criminal charges. There is no winning in these situations.
Win or lose you will be out time, money, and expend
a large amount of psychic energy.
As unfair
as that may seem, it’s the reality of what you’re dealing
with.
Reminds
me of the story of the armed Good Samaritan who chased
off a man trying to rape his neighbor. As was chased off into the night, he screamed
to the man that “next time I’ll be back for YOUR wife!”
What he didn’t anticipate was that the man chasing him
was also an expert marksman who didn’t hesitate to shoot
him through the spine. He was permanently paralyzed
and a jury convicted the Good Samaritan of using excessive
force. The man later said he didn’t regret shooting
the attempted rapist because he’d rather spend time
in prison than wonder when and if the rapist would return
for his wife.
Welcome
to life on planet earth. So you have to ask yourself,
do you protect yourself from criminals or do you protect
yourself from the legal system? Well when it comes to
fighting I have some suggestions that may just help
you have it both ways.
Now
to the average bystander a “pre-emptive attack” looks
like you are the attacker and
your adversary is the victim. A witness may never see
that a suspicious individual approached you… that you
firmly requested him to stop and stay back… that he
simply ignored your commands and continued toward you
anyway… and that you felt threatened. All this may go
completely unnoticed and unreported by a witness.
On
the other hand, what the witness does
see -- and what he later reports to the police and
testifies to in court -- is you that blew out your opponent’s
knee with a vicious kick… shattered his collar bone
with a “very scary” hammer blow… then knocked him unconscious
with a chop to that “poor man’s” neck. Bystanders will
often not understand how the events unfolded, so you
need to help everyone around you to become good witnesses
for you.
Here
are some ideas to getting witnesses on your side:
We
are all susceptible to “false memories” because the
human memory is not a video recorder that accurately
captures a stream of event. Nope. Instead we store certain
“cues” in “memory nodes” which are associated with other
memory nodes of the same approximate time.
When
recalling a past event we simply retrieve cues from
the various nodes and reconstruct or “fill in the blanks”
as best we can. And there are more blanks than cues
– so there’s an awful lot of filling in the blanks.
Think of it like one of those children’s “follow the
dots” pictures. You can construct a rather detailed
picture with relatively few dots.
But
there are a few problems. First, (as the well respected
professor and psychologist Dr. Lotus points out), this
follow-the-dots kind of memory is extremely prone to
error – especially under stressful conditions. Second,
the manner in which a person is questioned after an
emotional event can (and does) alter memory – explaining
why different witnesses to the same crime can have wildly
different accounts (“police
are on the lookout for a tall blond woman… or a short
black man…). And third, people are simply not aware that they
are filling in blanks – meaning that they’ll firmly
believe a memory is accurate even when it’s just plain
wrong. Even suspects who are 100% cleared by police
with irrefutable DNA evidence and a rock-solid alibi
are still hauled into court because someone swears “that’s
the guy”.
Anyway,
you can use this all to your advantage. Here’s how.
Many instructors teach students to use a “battle cry”
when initiating a pre-emptive or counter attack. This
is a good idea since it can startle your adversary,
help focus your attention to the task at hand, and keep
you from holding your breath. But instead of howling
out the rebel-yell, simple yell “Get
Back” or “Leave
Me Along”, as you initiate an attack.
What
this does is immediately announce to bystanders that
YOU are the victim. You are implanting verbal cues suggesting
that you are defending yourself. Keep it going for as long as necessary by shouting other
suggestive comments like “Why
are you attacking me… I told you I didn’t want trouble…
Why are you making me defend
myself…” and so on. You’ll stand a much better chance
of having friendly witnesses.
Another
thing… it’s usually not a good idea to hang around after
a fight, but “fleeing the scene” can be easily misinterpreted.
A good compromise is to call the authorities (police
and or ambulance) immediately after an attack on a cell
phone while exiting the scene or call from a nearby
public phone. Explain that you did not feel safe staying
at the scene but will meet them wherever they request.
Til next time…
Dr. Russ Horine
Prez, Fight-Fast.com
“The more you sweat in training,
the less you bleed in battle.”
– Motto of Navy Seals
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