Ethical & Moral Standards For The 21st Century #4

[Guest Ace309]

In keeping with JOTW's series, I thought I'd bring up something that's been niggling at me.

 

In law, there's something known as the "reasonable person standard." (I think it's technically the "reasonable man standard," but all the academic types I know use "person," and so will I.) This is the standard against which actions are judged to see if they were, well, reasonable.

 

Example: Hypothetical statute says that when acting in self-defense, you can only use a reasonable amount of force, no more. Attacker comes at you unarmed and threatens you physically for no apparent reason. In one case, you take him down with some sort of grappling or martial arts technique that disables him. In the second, you pull out a gun and shoot him. The reasonable person standard (as applied by juries) would likely find the first scenario reasonable, but not the second.

 

What suggestions do you have about the reasonable person standard? As vague as it is, it can be abused by juries. However, what would be a better choice? Can 'reasonability' be quantified in every situation? Any situation? If so, how?

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Crikey. If ever there were a scenario that epitomized the overused notion of the slippery slope, this is it.

 

My first instinct is to say that it's really not fitting to call it the reasonable person "standard," since there really isn't a standard. It's an entirely subjective reaction on a case-by-case basis. That said, I think it's important, because there are instances like pulling out that gun where resistance does step over a limit...but hell if I know a way to classify and stratify a principle that seems specifically designed to be highly variable.

 

...There are a lot of clauses in that last sentence. Wow.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

I'll sum up my opinion on it in just two sentences, not including this one.

 

If a person walks up and punches me, I'm punching them back. If they want to continue to attack, then I feel I have the right to go all-out on them, hand-to-hand only unless they bring a foreign object into the mix.

[Guest Vyce]

In keeping with JOTW's series, I thought I'd bring up something that's been niggling at me.

 

In law, there's something known as the "reasonable person standard." (I think it's technically the "reasonable man standard," but all the academic types I know use "person," and so will I.) This is the standard against which actions are judged to see if they were, well, reasonable.

 

Example: Hypothetical statute says that when acting in self-defense, you can only use a reasonable amount of force, no more. Attacker comes at you unarmed and threatens you physically for no apparent reason. In one case, you take him down with some sort of grappling or martial arts technique that disables him. In the second, you pull out a gun and shoot him. The reasonable person standard (as applied by juries) would likely find the first scenario reasonable, but not the second.

 

What suggestions do you have about the reasonable person standard? As vague as it is, it can be abused by juries. However, what would be a better choice? Can 'reasonability' be quantified in every situation? Any situation? If so, how?

I'm in law school (and perhaps you are too), so I've studied the reasonable person standard.

 

Edwin comes closest to defining it - loosely put, the standard is basically "how would a reasonable person, given these same circumstances, react in this situation?" Reasonableness is really more of an objective standard rather than subjective though.

 

Reasonable force is the level of force deemed reasonable in dealing with the threat presented.

 

You pose some interesting criminal law questions though. In your first fact pattern, the use of the martial arts hold would likely be fine - you're using force reasonable under the circumstances to protect yourself from a threat to your well-being.

 

In the second pattern, though, reasonable force becomes more complicated. Would a reasonable person in your situation believe that the attacker represents and immediate threat of serious bodily injury or death? If so, than the use of deadly or potentially lethal force against them may be justified. But you're not giving a lot of info to play with - if the attacker is unarmed, for example, that's a factor which may mitigate your ability to claim that the force you used was reasonable to the level of threat. Plus there are a whole host of other criminal law issues, such as the rule of retreat - many jurisdictions around the nation require you, unless you are present in your home (the Castle doctrine), to attempt to escape / retreat (if it is possible to do so without suffering substantial injury or death) before using lethal force.

[Guest The Metal Maniac]

My question: How open to interpretation are these things?

 

Like, say I'm walking down the street, when someone comes up to me, and threatens me with grave physical harm, so I shoot him (Not necessarily dead). I can easily see how one could consider that to be not a reasonable defense, when looked at like that.

 

BUT, what if the person who threatened me was, say, Mike Tyson? Tipping the scales at something like 125, I'd be unconcious in a matter of seconds, and if he so desired, dead shortly afterwards. I, realizing that I'm done for the second he swings a punch, determine that my only defense is to shoot him - otherwise, I'm as good as dead. Does the law allow for cases like this (as rare and improbable as they may be) to be considered a "reasonable" defense? After all, it's not reasonable for me to think I can beat Mike Tyson, or even last beyond a single swing, so I would consider it reasonable to just shoot him before he can touch me.

 

Wouldn't even have to be someone I KNEW to be a heavy hitter. Like, say it was just your average, run of the mill, 300-pound chunk of solid muscle. Would it be alright if I shot them? I mean, for all I know, the guy could have no idea how to defend himself, and could just be drunk and belligerent. But by the same token, he could wipe my face off with a single punch, for all I know.

 

Is it reasonable for a person to assume that their potential attacker, given a large mass, is capable of destroying them as easily as Mike Tyson could? Because if one CAN make that assumption, then I suppose I would be justified in shooting this guy as well.

 

But again, I know NOTHING about this guy, other then that he's really, really big. That doesn't mean he's a good fighter, but is the chance that he is good enough to destroy me sufficent reason for me to launch a pre-emptive bullet?

 

So basically, how much do the circumstances affect the reasonableness(?) of the chosen method of self-defense?

 

And I just now realized that Vyce put forth the same basic premise. But I won't allow my typing to be in vain, so I'm posting this anyway. Nyear.

[Guest WhenDanSaysJump]

That's quite the interesting conundrum, but I think I'd just turn round, hope I was faster than him, and sprint like fuck.

[Guest Vyce]

My question: How open to interpretation are these things?

 

Like, say I'm walking down the street, when someone comes up to me, and threatens me with grave physical harm, so I shoot him (Not necessarily dead). I can easily see how one could consider that to be not a reasonable defense, when looked at like that.

 

BUT, what if the person who threatened me was, say, Mike Tyson? Tipping the scales at something like 125, I'd be unconcious in a matter of seconds, and if he so desired, dead shortly afterwards. I, realizing that I'm done for the second he swings a punch, determine that my only defense is to shoot him - otherwise, I'm as good as dead. Does the law allow for cases like this (as rare and improbable as they may be) to be considered a "reasonable" defense? After all, it's not reasonable for me to think I can beat Mike Tyson, or even last beyond a single swing, so I would consider it reasonable to just shoot him before he can touch me.

 

Wouldn't even have to be someone I KNEW to be a heavy hitter. Like, say it was just your average, run of the mill, 300-pound chunk of solid muscle. Would it be alright if I shot them? I mean, for all I know, the guy could have no idea how to defend himself, and could just be drunk and belligerent. But by the same token, he could wipe my face off with a single punch, for all I know.

 

Is it reasonable for a person to assume that their potential attacker, given a large mass, is capable of destroying them as easily as Mike Tyson could? Because if one CAN make that assumption, then I suppose I would be justified in shooting this guy as well.

 

But again, I know NOTHING about this guy, other then that he's really, really big. That doesn't mean he's a good fighter, but is the chance that he is good enough to destroy me sufficent reason for me to launch a pre-emptive bullet?

 

So basically, how much do the circumstances affect the reasonableness(?) of the chosen method of self-defense?

 

And I just now realized that Vyce put forth the same basic premise. But I won't allow my typing to be in vain, so I'm posting this anyway. Nyear.

It's SO WEIRD you bring up the Mike Tyson example, because we used a hypothetical very similar in my Criminal Law class last semester. We actually read the Mike Tyson rape case.

 

You brought up an excellent point - if a guy was coming towards you, say unarmed, and you shot him - that may very well be unreasonable. But what if he's bigger than you? That was the situation in the Tyson rape case (different jurisdictions have different definitions / elements of rape, some requiring the woman to fight her attacker "within reason"....the case with Tyson was, well, how do you define "reasonable resistance" when she's a small woman and he's a monster that dwarves her by a good 100 lbs? In that case, she didn't really resist at all, and that was pretty much reasonable under the circumstances).

 

So basically, how much do the circumstances affect the reasonableness(?) of the chosen method of self-defense?

 

They effect it a great deal. They effect it totally. It literally becomes something of a case-by-case basis, where courts / juries may have to look at the totality of the circumstances to determine whether the behavior used was reasonable.

 

For instance, use your Tyson example. A person who pulls out a gun and shoots a rampaging Mike very well may be found to have acted reasonably. However, what if that person wasn't so ordinary? What if that person was a champion runner - someone who could easily run away from their attacker, with little to no risk of danger to themselves, and flee to safety without resorting to deadly force?

 

You'd have to look at all the factors.

 

Self-defense is really a very fascinating concept of law to study. It can get very complicated.

[Guest LooseCannon]

It's SO WEIRD you bring up the Mike Tyson example, because we used a hypothetical very similar in my Criminal Law class last semester. We actually read the Mike Tyson rape case.

heh, first year hypos are invariably bullshit... but nevertheless essential, I guess, for getting you to think like a lawyer as they say.

 

Anyway, the thing about the reasonable man standard is that it's purely a question of fact that has almost no legal content. Meaning its for juries to decide whether or not someone has satisfied the reasonable person standard and you'll almost never see an appellate court say that someone satisfied that standard as a matter of law. (Actually the self-defense arena is one of the few areas where the standard has some legal content both in criminal and torts cases, but Vyce already went over that... whether or not you're in your home, the level of force used by your attacker, etc... still not a lot of definition and the level of force used by the attacker is often itself a question of fact). This is appropriate because the law is a product of social contract and its for society to decide whether or not the actions of a person in a given situation were criminal (or tortious) or permissable, and the jury functions as a proxy in this respect. It's just not appropriate for judges and scholars to decide this sort of thing in a high altitude vaccuum, imh-fucking-o. Besides who knows better what the reasonable man is than the jury?

 

But the interesting thing to me about the reasonable man standard as used in the criminal law (usually cases of self defense or manslaughter) is the debate in different jurisdictions over whether or not this reasonable man should be given the characteristics of the defendant, e.g the reasonable troubled teen, or the reasonable Japanese Dwarf. This sort of thing can make a difference in a case of manslaughter where you're judging the defendant's reaction to provocation. On the one hand, because the stigma associated with the criminal law is such a serious thing, fairness may dictate that we allow for provocations that might be unique to a defendant's situation but that wouldn't be provocative to the so called reasonable man.

 

On the other hand, once you go too far with characteristics (and I have with my examples usually courts are qualify the standard much less than I have done) it ceases to be an objective standard at all. And the rationale for using an objective standard "to ensure that ... there is no fluctuating standard of self-control against which accused are measured. The governing principles are those of equality and individual responsibility, so that all persons are held to the same standard, notwithstanding their distinctive personality traits and varying capacities to achieve the standard." is undermined.

[Guest Vyce]

heh, first year hypos are invariably bullshit... but nevertheless essential, I guess, for getting you to think like a lawyer as they say.

I really enjoyed my Torts professor's hypos.

 

"Okay, say that you're a shepherd, and you hire me to watch over your sheep for the day.

 

While I'm watching the sheep, I notice a particularly attractive one, and I have sex with it. You come home and catch me doing it.

 

Will you be able to sue me for trespass the chattels?"