The study of martial arts can offer many rewards to the student. It offers a sense of self-accomplishment and respect from one’s peers. It builds confidence and helps exude a feeling of self proficiency. Studying martial arts also can turn an otherwise well functioning body into a living weapon. While that is not necessarily a bad thing at all, there are precautions that must be taken with respect to the law. In our last article, we concluded that the fundamental principle of martial arts was to teach self-defense. But while self-defense is a right, laws regarding martial artist using their training to defend themselves are not so forthcoming.
Here’s a scenario. It’s a Sunday night and you and a loved one are walking down a relatively safe, yet deserted street. Suddenly two assailants confront you and your loved one with one of the assailants brandishing a knife demanding your valuable possessions. What are your options? You can (1) talk your way out of it (of course the assailants are high as a kite, so needless to say they’re not in the best frame of mind for logical reasoning (2) run (but your significant other might be a female with 6 inch heels or a gentleman with a cast on his leg from a work-related injury) or (3) use your martial arts training and stop these thugs dead in their tracks, leaving them to ponder in their respective hospital beds what exactly hit them. If option three is your choice, you need to understand the legal ramification of taking such action. The courts say if a person is attacked, that person’s only goal is to avoid being hurt. When the threat stops, so should the defensive force. If the attacker show signs of resuming his assault, then the defense can resume, but anything beyond that is vengeful and malicious and is so viewed by the courts. The general rule is that deadly force is not allowed unless under extreme circumstances. Courts have labeled three major areas in which deadly force is acceptable.
The first area is sexual assault. A person who is the intended victim of a sexual assault is allowed to use deadly force to prevent or halt the intended harm. The main reasoning behind this rule is that it is difficult for a person to find a proportional level of self-defense when one is being sexually assaulted. Thus, since this assault is so terrible to the victim and has no appropriate defense to match, deadly force will be allowed if the assault is extreme enough. Another reason for sexual assaults allowance for deadly force is that it is most often done to women. Women are often smaller than most men and thus have less of a chance of subduing their often-larger attackers with a lesser degree of force.
The second area in which deadly force is proper is when there is a threat of deadly force directed to the victim himself. Clearly, if a person is being threatened with deadly force, deadly force as a defense would be proportional to the attack. Many legal theorists argue that deadly force as a defense merely trades one death for another. However, courts justify their rulings by stating that deadly force as a defense is the lesser of two evils. Obviously, in a situation involving an individual attacking a trained martial artist with intent to kill will result in someone's death. Seeing as how the victim presents a smaller possibility of recommitting his actions and is less of a societal menace, then his deadly force is a lesser evil than that of the predatory attacker.
The third area recognized by courts is when there is a risk of serious bodily injury to the victim. This area is often merged with the area of the threat of deadly force. The reason being is that it is often difficult to ascertain which outcome will occur when being attacked. For example, a knife-wielding attacker is just as likely to kill his victim as he is to seriously wound him with the weapon. Serious bodily injury is classified as being an injury that severely hampers the quality of life that the victim currently enjoys. Thus, a victim who is threatened with the injury of having his legs cut off is being threatened with a serious bodily injury. Courts have deemed it acceptable for a victim to use deadly force in this situation rather than suffer the severe pain and potential eventual death that may result from an attack intending to cause serious bodily harm. It is important to remember that these three areas and the use of self-defense as a whole is subjective.
The area of self-defense is twofold. Primarily there is self-defense by justification. This of course is justified self-defense and is governed by proportionality. The victim exercises self-defense and his actions were justified due to the circumstances of the attack. In addition, there is also self-defense by excuse. This second aspect of self-defense is contingent on what the victim reasonably believes as opposed to what is actually occurring. For example, a person uses self-defense because he/she reasonably believes that he or she is being threatened with harm. Whether or not the person is actually in danger of suffering the anticipated injury is not as important as what the victim "reasonably" believes. A martial artist should be aware of these two views and know the applicable school of thought for his home state in the event his/her skills are required to defend his person.
Also, although the term "self-defense" seems to apply to defending one's own body, a person can also use reasonable force in defense of another individual or of their property. The law is much the same for the defense of third parties as it is for defending oneself. If “Joe” sees “Bob” attacking “Cory”, then ”Joe”, to defend “Cory”, may use whatever force would be proportional if “Joe” were in “Cory's” place. No new rules apply. However, the defense of property is much different. How does one measure proportionality if one's person is not in danger of being harmed? Courts have answered this question by stating that a person can use self-defense to reclaim or protect their property only if the level of force exercised was the absolute bare minimum required. Therefore, if someone steals a 10 year martial arts practitioner’s wallet, the martial artist is justified in grabbing the person to retrieve his property. However, he is not justified in fully performing a “catch-arm” throw, resulting in the robber landing on his back and dislocating his shoulder. The martial artist will be held liable by the courts.
When confronted with a party that is a martial arts student, a court will often factor this into their analysis of the situation. Martial artists are viewed as being in possession of extra knowledge. Most frequently, a court examines this extra knowledge when determining proportionality. First, let us say that a man attacks another man in an alley (forget why one would be in an alley to begin with. Maybe in looking for the car, the victim took a wrong turn). The man under attack manages to disable his attacker and breaks his attackers jaw, collar bone, and left arm as a result. The court will consider several factors in determining whether the force was proportional. If the attacker is larger than the defender, then the level of allowable force would be greater than if both individuals were of equal size. Other factors are also weighed in. These include, but are not limited to; whether one party is a female, whether one party is intoxicated, armed, known to be a societal menace, handicapped, belligerent, etc. Thus, if a man attacks a woman, and the woman harms the man severely, a court may not look upon her actions as harshly as they would if she were a man in the same situation due to the average women so often being in possession of a smaller stature than the average man. Needless to say, if a person defending himself breaks his attacker's arm as a result of self-defense, the court will look at this defense differently if the person is a student of the martial arts. He or she will have more knowledge as to how to harm a person effectively. If it is found that he acted negligently in light of his skills then the courts will find him liable.
Thus, while I tried to shed some light on some of the ramifications of the usage of martial arts in self-defense, this is by no means an exhaustive account of the many laws regarding this subject. The goal here was to show that the area of self-defense and martial arts is multifaceted. It is important to know and understand that the privilege of knowing and possessing martial arts skills places a level of responsibility upon the student. While everyone has the right to defend themselves, a martial artist has an even greater responsibility in controlling the level of force of their defense. Rightfully or wrongfully so, that is the law.
Neal Zephyrin is a 3rd Degree Instructor at Alan Lee's Chinese Kung-Fu, Wu-Su Association. He has been studying martial arts for over 18 years. He is currently an AVP at an Investment Bank.
