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Hot take: anyone who hospitalizes someone else with life threatening injuries should be required to defend that action in court. "I was defending myself" is a valid argument, but one that should be heard by a judge at trial. Nobody should be allowed to skip trial entirely just by claiming self defence.
That's literally how the law works. Reasonable force means you can hurt them (pretty badly) but once they stop being a threat you have stop hurting them.
Nobody gets a free pass.
Reasonable force means you can hurt them (pretty badly) but once they stop being a threat you have stop hurting them.
So, dead?
It's almost unreasonable for the courts to believe that someone experiencing a home invasion would be in anything but survival mode, and would have the capacity to simply "calm down" once the threat has been stopped. Because to them, they don't know if the threat is over, or if someone else is going to bust in to kill them, or if the original attacker will fight back, or if they have a weapon, etc.
Courts should be very lenient towards homeowners deafening their life, family, and property. And if the jackass who decided to commit this crime is still alive, they should have severe consequences laid on them, with additional compensation to the homeowner for the trauma they caused.
So, dead?
In some contexts, yes. However you'll still likely have to defend charges of manslaughter. You'd have to demonstrate that the actions you took could reasonable be expected to not result in the death of the subject; and that those actions were necessary to prevent receiving grievous bodily injury or death.
and would have the capacity to simply "calm down" once the threat has been stopped.
Lots of people defend themselves without turning their unconscious assailants into pin cushions. You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding how reasonable force is determined. I suggest you read my other comments.
they don't know if the threat is over,
If you can remove yourself from the situation the threat is over. It's factually wrong to suggest that people can't tell when they've won a fight.
or if someone else is going to bust in to kill them,
Continuing to inflict damage on an incapacitated assailant logically does nothing to prevent another potential unknown assailant from attacking you.
or if the original attacker will fight back, or if they have a weapon, etc.
Those factors will determine what level of force is reasonable. Unreasonable force generally comes into play after the assailant has been incapacitated.
Courts should be very lenient
You should be thankful you have right to defend yourself at all. Not all countries grant that to their citizens. The logical limitation of that right is that defending yourself does not permit you to "counter-assault" others.
Assault in Canada doesn't require them to hit you first. It includes threats with the ability to follow through. So you may preemptively strike to end an altercation without being charged for assault. HOWEVER, the average male is 28,000% less effective in combat than they think they are. So it's generally a poor option for untrained individuals... as shit gets out of hand. Pre-emptively striking to end the fight early only works if you can actully do that.
Damn as an American whose frame of reference is, "if someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night and I shoot them dead it's likely going to be called justifiable - period" it's wild to see this.
Like, I'm not saying it's good that we basically have a mentality of "yo if someone comes into your house you can blast em" as a people ... But it's interesting how divergent the views are.
I hear my back door kicked in at 3 in the morning, I put on my glasses and load my pistol. My bedroom door opens, there's a man with a knife. I fire one round. That round pierces his heart and he dies on the spot. Justifiable force.
Instead, I fired two or three rounds in quick succession, because one round might miss or fail to stop him. Very likely justifiable force. Like any person wouldn't pull the trigger a couple times in that scenario, right?
Instead, I fire one round. It hits him in the chest and does serious damage to one lung. He drops the knife, staggers into my living room and collapses. If I shoot him again to finish him in that state, that's murder.
I recommend against breaking into houses on this continent.
If I shoot him again to finish him in that state, that's murder.
That's how our laws work to, just you'd need a license to have that gun. You can beat someone's ass in self defense but if you lay the boots in after they're out cold that's its own crime.
Guarantee that's the situation here. The fact that the RCMP are withholding details indicates they have a serious case against the guy.
We actually had an octogenarian here in the States just get charged for doing something almost exactly like this. Two people, guy and woman, and the woman was pregnant. He waited in the garage, where they broke in last time, waited in the dark, shot them while they were running away and the pregnant woman was so alive pleading for her and her unborn's life when he shot her again. He freely admitted this and was not arrested at first until public outcry, which should have been completely unnecessary given the confession. Cops in America are a special breed of stupid.
Edit: we are so fucked. This actually happened in LA California, and he was never arrested. Happened in 2015
Yea in Canada we'd just prefer if nobody was shot dead. /s
IMO an important fact is the intruder was charged with possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
That raises the threshold of reasonable force quite a bit in my eyes, including "life threatening injuries"
Now he shouldn't keep beating him when he's down and out but I'm sympathetic to the invadee so far.
That's what judges are for, I'm curious how it comes out.
Exactly. Canadian laws are design to incentivize de-escalating the level of violence. Unlike American laws which incentivize jumping straight to lethal force.
We just don't know enough yet. Like, did he cut off his fingers after knocking him out? Did the invader and invaded know each other? I hope more details are shared soon because I imagine most of us are going to side with the invaded here.
Give homeowners the same benefit of the doubt cops get when they kill someone that threatens them. Probably more because they aren't trained to deal with immediate threats and evaluate the options like a cop would.
Asking some poor bastard whose never had an altercation and that's scared of being killed or their family being harmed to evaluate a proportional response in seconds is pretty unrealistic. And then making them go through months of legal hassle and cost to prove that what they did in that moment was correct is cruel and unreasonable.
Give homeowners the same benefit of the doubt
Plenty of people defend themselves without getting charged. Guarantee this guy could have stopped but didn't. That's 99% of what constitutes unreasonable force.
Everyone who thinks he was automatically charged for fighting back and winning is misinformed.
Canadians have a legal right to defend themselves. But logically that doesn't grant you the right to counter-assault or murder others.
The fact that the RCMP are not releasing any details indicates they have a real case against this guy. For all we know he punched him out than laid the boots on his unconscious body.
Hypothetical of the day, if you’re forced into sudden fight or flight situation and you decide to fight can you determine reasonable use of force on the fly without hesitation?
What would you do?
What would you do?
Well first off I live in a province where our Trespass Act permits me to physically remove trespassers. If that person assaults me during that removal, I will defend myself. But I used to do that for a job so I'm much more adept at navigating confrontation and responding to violence than the avg person.
Ultimately in a home invasion situation, I just want to avoid my house getting trashed. I do have "whacking sticks" staged throughout my house. I also have flashlights with strobe function (GOAT self defense tool fyi).
De-escalation. "Hey man. You Okay?" "This ain't your house" "Can you please leave"
Assertive that I will not victimized. "There's the door. Leave now or else tonight is going to end very badly for you.
Attempt to remove them while creating a tactical advantage such that I can preemptively strike as to end the altercation with minimal damage to all parties.
TKO them. People with concussions cannot provide reliable testimonies.
Call an ambulance/police. 50/50 They wake up and assault the police officers. Makes things suuuuper easy for you.
I've been assaulted and defended myself multiple times. Our laws are specifically designed to account for the unique the context of every situation.
Forced into sudden fight or flight situation and you decide to fight can you determine reasonable use of force on the fly without hesitation.
If you were forced to defend yourself than you had no choice. So regardless of the damage you inflict, the first bar to reasonable self defense is to prove that you were deprived the ability to alternative choices.
Determining reasonable force is as simple as proving that you once the assailant stopped being a threat, you stopped inflicting damage on them.
Does a store owner get to cut off the hand of a person who just steals a single candy from a bulk food bin?
The law is clear - in Canada, the courts determine the punishment, not the individual citizen. That is what 'Common Law' is all about - one common law for all, uniformly and consistently applied.
It appears that the general public has gotten 'punishment' confused with 'defending property'.
Thankfully, this is Canada and we have a history of not taking the law into our own hands. It is, in our country, still up to the court and a judge to determine guilt and administer judgement and punishment.
If someone breaks into my house, that’s locked up and secured in the evening, and while I’m asleep starts ransacking my house, scaring or terrorizing my kids and wife, or causing harm, if their face happens to meet the end of a baseball bat, so be it. Reasonable force or not, I’m protecting.
The fact is, if that person wasn’t breaking into my house, there’d be no need for me to introduce a bat to their face, and they wouldn’t be injured.
This protecting perpetrators is nonsense especially when it’s on my own property. They’re the ones doing illegal activities.
We really don't know the details here, and I think that's key. There are scenarios where charging a homeowner make sense. Like you see an intruder with a knife. You whack them with a bat. And you knock them to the ground. And then you just...keep doing it. The guy is literally on the ground, skull half caved in, just begging you to call a fucking ambulance, completely at your mercy...and you're still whacking him. Force can easily escalate well past what is needed for any reasonable level of self defense. Just because someone breaks into your home does not give you legal permission to torture them or murder them in cold blood. Maybe the homeowner tied the intruder up and literally tortured him.
A prosecutor knows how unpopular prosecuting a homeowner for attacking a break-in victim would be. It would be an obvious political lightning rod. I'm inclined to believe that if they're willing to go to all that trouble, the homeowner likely did something that went well beyond what any jury would consider reasonable self defense. This is the kind of case you do not as a prosecutor make unless you can be damn sure you're getting a conviction.
I have learned very little about this because it's extremely obvious we are learning a politically spun version of the story to drum up a hysteria. Not interested in being involved in that.
It is also completely true and well-known that in Canada you do not have unlimited rights to take a life as soon as someone crosses an imaginary border, as you might in the States. I think that's fine, and the fantasy of "defending yourself" is an American invention of hyperindividualism. The very same that has been absolutely ripping apart their society at the seams. Not really interested in following in their footsteps there.
I despise Doug Ford in general, but I agree with him on this issue. Someone fighting for their lives does not have the time or expertise to have to be considering what is an "appropriate" response, and should not be required to. Also ACAB.
