Understanding the Basics of Self-Defense
What is self-defense and when is it applicable? I’m criminal defense attorney Carl Birkhead with Wirth Law Office in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I’ve been practicing family and criminal law for about seven years now, and I want to help you make law easy by talking a little bit about what self-defense means and how it can be used to help you in a criminal case.
A lot of times, especially if you’ve got cases where someone’s charged with assault and battery or something like that, people want to raise a self-defense claim. You can in certain circumstances. The biggest factor that any court is going to look at, and the biggest factor that’s going to ultimately be put to the jury in these instances, is how reasonable the force that you used to defend yourself is.
Determining Reasonable Force
So a hypothetical, let’s say you’re hanging out with your brother and for one reason or another, you guys get into a fight, and he punches you in the jaw. That does not mean that you can pull out a nine-millimeter and shoot him in the face. That’s not self-defense. That’s murder.
Or let’s say it gets a little bit trickier. Let’s say maybe you get into an altercation with someone who has a physical disability or is significantly older than you. For instance, you’re on the street with an old man. You can’t grab their cane and beat them with it even if they try to swing first. It all comes down to how reasonable was the force and was that force enough to just de-escalate the situation, or did you end up becoming the attacker?
Case Studies and Lessons
It gets to be kind of a weird line. I had a case a while back where my client was initially the aggressor. I’m not going to go into details but suffice it to say that he did enough. He was banging around, making threats, and damaging property. The guy that he was just going at it on finally came after him back. He and his buddy started chasing him. They’re running, running, running. All they had to do was let him go. He was off the guy’s property. He was no longer the aggressor.
They chased him down. They knocked him down, and they kicked the ever-living crap out of him. At that point, it’s not a defense. You’re not defending your home. You’re not defending your property. You chased him off of your property, jumped him, and beat him something good. That’s not self-defense at that point. That means that you are now the aggressor. You have now committed the crime.
Walking the Fine Line
All it’s going to come down to every time is was the force reasonable enough to dissipate the threat. If the threat’s gone, you can’t keep using the force. If they’re coming at you, you can swing, knock them out. You can’t just take them while they’re down. You have to use reasonable force at all times. It’s such a fine line to walk between being the defender and the attacker.
My best advice is just be careful, be cautious. If you’re looking at a situation where you might have to defend yourself, get out of there as quickly as you can. If you have questions about this, if you think that you have a legitimate self-defense claim that you can raise in your case, or if you think that something might be coming down the line and you just need some help with it, give us a call.
Low-Cost Initial Strategy Session
I’m more than happy to do a consultation, talk about the facts of your case, and figure out when and if that issue can be raised. My name is Carl Birkhead. I’m with Wirth Law Office and want to help you make law easy. Contact us at 918-879-1681 for a low-cost initial strategy session and find out how we can assist you.
