There are so many fallacies in the self-defense world I can’t even keep up. “Dead men tell no tales” is one that lingers on. The simple thinking is, if there is only one side of the story to tell, then there will be no problems.
Truthfully, I thought this way for a long time. It would just be easier in a court of law and for law enforcement to investigate if there was only one side of the story to check out. I never wanted to kill anyone or tried to kill anyone because of this, but was not going to worry about it if it did happened.
Then, I took a Massad Ayoob MAG 40 class a couple years ago and he changed my mind on this point, showing me the flaw in my thinking.
Let me explain:
Legal Risks
Before an attack happens, anything you say can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. That includes, but is not limited to, emails, texts, forum posts, blog posts, blog comments, YouTube comments, journal writings, anything on your computer, and even conversations you have with other individuals. That’s a lot to bring against you. It only takes one accusation and it could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back in court.
Watch what you say out there, and watch what you think, because your thoughts become your words. If you think killing someone might possibly be better than not killing someone, that could come out in your words or writing somewhere.
During the attack, if you truly think it would be better for the other person to not survive, you may take your self-defense one step too far. That extra round, the extra punch, the extra anything becomes excessive force in cop language, but becomes a heinous crime during self-defense. There has been more than one self-defense case that started out as legitimate then the defender went too far and was tried and convicted of murder. This Oklahoma Pharmacist comes to mind.
More Charges
If you defend yourself with deadly force, there is a good chance that you will be arrested and booked. Then, it is up to the District Attorney to file charges in court against you or not. You can only be charged for Murder or Man Slaughter if someone is actually dead. If you didn’t kill anyone then you can’t be tried for the highest crimes of the land.
When someone is killed, the District Attorney will have pressure politically and by the populace to file charges against someone.
If no one is dead, charges like Assault with a Deadly Weapon, or Aggravated Assault get dismissed or thrown out all the time.
All this to say (and some legal and moral disclaimer here also): Do what you need to do to survive and no more. If the person dies it wasn’t your choice for that person to attack you. This information is in no way intended to be used to commit a crime and get around the justice system. This is information only and intentioned as a thought exercise and reasons not to use more force then is necessary.
Moral
Killing another person is hard. We as human beings are almost hard wired against it. Military and Law Enforcement actually have programs they use to remove or basic programing, so that they can kill another human.
Killing another person is hard on the person that does it. If you kill someone that you don’t absolutely have to, it will haunt you for the rest of your life. Even if you have to kill that person because you had no other choice, it may haunt you forever.
Just because you think that person may deserve to die, doesn’t mean you deserve to live with that killing forever. You are a good person, and good people don’t kill others when there is any other choice.
Civil
A wrongful death law suit could be exponentially higher than an assault. Even if you don’t get convicted of Murder or Man Slaughter you could still lose in a wrongful death civil case (remember OJ Simpson?). In wrongful death you could be sued for every penny that person could have potentially made in their life time plus everything else they could ask for from a felonious assault.
Wrongful death law suits are big bucks, and the bigger the dollar amount the more the attorneys will fight, spend, and be corrupt to go after. It’s a horrible injustice in our law system that we haven’t figured out a way around. Lawyers generally have immunity from almost all consequences from filing a wrongful or malicious law suit. Heck, there are even times when they lose they can recoup their time and expenses.
My favorite, or worse, scam of this are lawyers that make a living suing law enforcement (yes, I know there are good ones that do this, but are drug through the mud by the next example). The lawyer goes through police records, and now video, to find someone that had force used against them and may be questionable. Once the lawyer finds one they go in and talk to the, normally multiple time, criminal and sell their services to them for free, just split what they will win from suing the cop that arrested them. Not a very hard sell. Every criminal given the chance to get back at the cop that arrested them and make easy money doing it will not take much convincing.
The lawyer files a suit for excessive force and presents a case. What happens in court happens (which may or may not have the criminal turned defendant lie). At closing the lawyer tells the jury, yes his defendant is a criminal and doesn’t deserve any money, but the police officer was wrong on this account and should be made an example of so that this doesn’t happen to an innocent person. Then asks the jury to award his client $1, that’s it. Just to make sure the police know they did something wrong.
What the lawyer doesn’t say, is once they win any judgment in a use of force or civil rights case the department pays for all the lawyers’ expenses and time. In the end, the lawyer hands the criminal a dollar and bills the police department for all the time and money spent to complete the case. And the department, by law, has to pay. That doesn’t sound much like justice to me, how about you?
Bad Guys Lie
This the problem with the one-story thinking most of us have bought into. Bad guys lie. It’s part of the job description. Law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and juries hate being lied to. There really are only a couple boxes to check when it comes to people involved in a self defense use of force; bad guy or good guy. Good guys don’t lie, bad guys do. When that guy that attacked you gets on the stand or talks to law enforcement and is caught in a lie, that person becomes the bad guy and by default you become the good guy.
The bad guy lying about what happened will actually help your case and make you look like the good guy you are. Also, people by default think there is the truth and a lie. Once one person is lying, the other must be telling the truth. Again, that helps you look like the good guy you are.
If there is only one story, and you get caught in a mistake of fact, or say something wrong, it will look like a lie and you will be seen as the bad guy, simply because the other guy can’t lie, he’s dead.
Conclusion
In the end we do what we do to survive a violent encounter. I don’t want the bad guy to die, I want him/her to stop their violent crime, so no one gets hurt.
There are a lot of fallacies out there in the self-defense community. If any advice is given to you to contaminate the situation or the scene, that’s probably bad advice. That act will come out in the end and you will have to answer for what you did. The person giving you the advice will not be there to help you.
Stay Safe,
Ben