How to lessen the chances of prosecution following a self defense shooting.
- Thread starter Radny97
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Double Naught Spy
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Well, if they are mortally wounded, you aren't going to be of any help, are you? LOL. You are just going to put yourself in danger.
I will tell you what. Maybe you and Radny97 can come up with some actual statistics to verify his/her claims and actually validate his/her points. Maybe y'all can come up with a number of citable examples where not rendering aid to the bad guy swayed the jury's opinion and resulted in a conviction in a self defense shooting.
Teachable, documented examples are much more helpful than blustery opinion from a person who is only able to cite his/her purported occupation to justify credibility to the claims.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
We're not arguing semantics, we're arguing common sense. We don't think it's wise to approach within arms' length of someone who just attacked you, placing yourself within easy reach of someone who intended to do you serious bodily harm, and put away your gun so you can render first aid.shurshot said:
Now, what if you're not trained in trauma medicine? You administer what you think is first aid, and he dies. Maybe his family's lawyer then sues you and says that whatever you did to him after you shot him [without justification, of course] contributed to his death from what [the lawyer says] should have been a survivable wound.
As for free legal advice on the Internet: I'm old enough to remember that, before Gary Slider started up www.handgunlaw.us, there was a web site called packing.org. In fact, I think Gary might have been involved in maintaining that site, but it wasn't his site. One day on that site a lawyer (he said) posted up a legal opinion that it's perfectly legal to carry on U.S. Postal Service property. He backed it up with quotes from sections of federal law.
Within 24 hours, probably a dozen people had chimed in to point out that he totally ignored 39 CFR § 232.1 - Conduct on postal property. 39 CFR § 232.1 clearly states that "Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law, rule or regulation, no person while on postal property may carry firearms, other dangerous or deadly weapons, or explosives, either openly or concealed, or store the same on postal property, except for official purposes."
A couple of days later the attorney retracted his opinion.
Radny97 has given us his opinion. Several people have explained exactly why they think his advice is poor advice. You are free to follow whichever advice you think makes more sense.
Pretty much a given that if you are involved in a shooting, you WILL likely be sued in civil court. Common knowledge among LEO's and knowledgeable CCW permit holders. That's the nature of the beast. Knowing that, If people still don't feel a moral or legal obligation to safely attempt to render first aid to someone they just shot, so be it.
The OP gave some sound advice, based upon his training and experience in Court to lessen the chances of possible prosecution in Criminal court. If people chose to disregard it and come up with "What if" scenarios and various BS excuses to dispute, disagree and dismiss his advice and render help, again... so be it.
I seriously hope none of you guys ever have to find out the hard way that he was right when you end up talking to a Public Defender through plexiglas.
The OP gave some sound advice, based upon his training and experience in Court to lessen the chances of possible prosecution in Criminal court. If people chose to disregard it and come up with "What if" scenarios and various BS excuses to dispute, disagree and dismiss his advice and render help, again... so be it.
I seriously hope none of you guys ever have to find out the hard way that he was right when you end up talking to a Public Defender through plexiglas.
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Haha classic logical fallacy = “you must prove the negative”
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As has been mentioned previously, Good Samaritan’s statutes, which almost all states have, provide liability protection for just that scenario. So you can’t be sued if you screw something up when trying to help.
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If you really are an attorney, you should know better than that. Good Samaritan laws don't apply in this scenario. In the parable, the Samaritan was a passerby, not one of the robbers that beat the poor victim and left him to die. The laws are typically (always?) written the same way.
Aguila Blanca
Staff
Here's the good Samaritan law for Pennsylvania. In a scenario in which the actor (which is language PA seems to like in its statutes) has just shot the person being treated, I see plenty of exceptions to allow an attorney for the person tthe actor shot (or the shootee's heirs) to get the case into court, or to append it to a case being filed as a negligence suit or some other pretext.Radny97 said:
http://pehsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/THE-GOOD-SAMARITAN-AND-RELATED-ACTS.pdf
Are you a lawyer? Are you qualified to say what constitutes good or bad legal advice?
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***sigh***
No, no they’re not. And yes, I am a practicing attorney. I just filed a new lawsuit in Federal court today in fact.
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Aguila Blanca
Staff
Radny97 said:
No they aren't all written exactly the same. Some are little more than one paragraph, and some meander along for multiple pages. Some have laundry lists of exceptions. One thing most of them seem to have in common, though, is that the relief from liability is premised on the provided first aid being rendered in good faith.Radny97 said:
First off, as an attorney you must know that it's incorrect to say that "you can't be sued." Of course you can be sued. A good Samaritan law, if applicable to your case, might enable you to have the case dismissed, or decided in your favor, but it's unlikely that it would prevent you from being sued.
In the case of a self-defense shooting, the "good faith" premise of the good Samaritan laws leaves a hole big enough to drive an aircraft carrier through. All the plaintiff has to do is allege that, since you shot the guy, your [totally inadequate and fumbling] attempt to render first aid was not done in good faith, and was only done for show. PRESTO! Your motion to dismiss just got denied, and now you move on to the trial phase, in which the plaintiff attempts to convince a judge or a jury that your [fumbling] attempts either weren't in good faith, and/or were so fumbling as to constitute negligence (which most good Samaritan laws don't protect against).
I think at this point all states have their statutes available on-line. I would encourage anyone who has stayed with this discussion up to now to Google up their state's Good Samaritan statute and read it -- carefully. Read it from the perspective of an attorney who is representing the family of a scumbag who was just shot and killed by someone who alleges that he was attacked and that he shot in self-defense. The shooter claims he tried to render first aid but he couldn't save the scumbag, so he's protected by the law you are now reading.
You need to get past that law in order to get the case to trial. How many arguments can you come up with to do that? (I respectfully submit that if you can't find at least three, you're probably not looking hard enough.)
Double Naught Spy
New member
So, then the answer is NO. You cannot provide any actual court cases or other real world example to support your claims that rendering first aid will somehow gain you favor with the prosecution or the courts. Instead, you are just going to keep making your reflective appeal to authority and base all of your justification on "I am a lawyer."
As for being a lawyer, your claims like this one are just downright worthless and as much as I hate to correct a lawyer on the law, it needs to be done.
What I have put in bold is an outright fallacy. You can be sued "for trying to help."
I am sure you studied the case of Lisa Torti. She tried to help.
https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=6498405&page=1
https://law.justia.com/cases/california/supreme-court/2008/s152360/
You see, many or most Good Sam laws do not cover gross negligence. So if you try to help and it is decided that you were, or possibly were grossly negligent, guess what? You can be sued. Funny how you left that out. Now why would you leave that out? Would that because it would weaken your argument for rendering aid or because you don't understand the law? This is a fair question because you, the lawyer, stated an absolute that isn't an absolute.
Shane Tuttle
Staff
Semantics is what separates poor advice and sound legal advice...
I believe you. And I think you're trying to be helpful. But this must not be your field of specialty, because some of your advice is not very good.
I assume if I ever have to shoot someone in self-defense, I am screwed. Anything I do will be used against me, and if I don't do that same thing *that* will be used. We've seen too many cases recently where the law was obviously on the side of the shooter (in one case, the governor even weighed in and said so) and the prosecutor didn't care; she had political points to make with her criminal-class constituents.
I'll still try to do things right in the aftermath, mainly don't say anything stupid (say very little, in fact), and try to be the first one to call 911 if at all possible to establish myself as the default good guy. But criminals have learned the call 911 trick too, and they choose the time and place of their attack so they can be ready for it with their buddies watching the whole thing with their cell phones on speed dial.
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