Kansas Supreme Court Decision

[biw371]

Ok, I have always felt that our judicial branch reads entirely too deep into stuff. This is a perfect example.

http://www.kscourts.org/Cases-and-Op...1023/97323.pdf

Consider the following example. One evening, a large man approaches a woman in a menacing manner and threatens, "I'm going to hurt you!" Worried for her life, the woman takes a gun from her purse, points it at her assailant, and says, "Stay where you are!" The assailant turns and runs.

That is quoted from page 7 of this recent decision. According to this decision, the woman COULD NOT claim self-defense because the "use of force" was not present. Subsequently she could now be charged with agg assault.

According to this decision, if she would have just shot the large man, then she could claim self-defense. They are saying nowhere in the K.S.A. is the term "use of force" defined, therefore it means just that, the use of force, not threat of force, not forceful yelling, etc.

So in short, tell your friends and such if they are in a situation which they believe they need to defend themselves or someone else from bodily harm or death, then they NEED NOT threaten the person, they just need to act.

Anyone else have an opinion on this??????

[kansascop72]

Well, we all know that words alone can not justify using deadly force. If that was true there would be a lot of gang bangers using it as a reason to shoot someone. Some other action must take place such as this guy attempting to grab her. I don't agree with everything the court rules on but they may be right on this one. I would have to know more to make a complete decision. Now as far as charging her with a crime, I wouldn't go that far.

[kansascop72]

After I posted my comment I decided to read the passage you placed. I believe what the court is saying is, if the woman felt threatened enough to pull her weapon, she could use a self defense claim ONLY if she had shot him. But since she did not feel threatened enough to shoot, she could not use the self defense claim.

Example, you have someone come up to you and he begins to attack you. Your able to get in a lucky punch that lays him out. You then begin to kick him to the point he later dies. You would loose any self defense argument due to the suspect was no longer a threat after you were able to fend off his attack.

Or a store owner has a gun put in his face and told to hand over the money. He does and the robber runs away. The owner then grabs his gun and chases the suspect down and shoots him. The owner will not be able to claim self defense because his life was no longer in danger once the suspect left.

Self defense is closly watched by the courts because of these sticky situations that can come up.

"If you fear for your safety, act on it:" But once your safe, Run your ***** off.

[biw371]

I understand that, it has always been that way. You can't beat someone when they are already down. However, that's not what they are addressing in this opinion. They are saying that you have to "use" force in order to seek self-defense. Merely pulling a gun and threatening to use it against the attacker means the self-defense statute is not applicable since there was no "use of force", there was only a "threat of force". Since self-defense does not apply, then you are subject to criminal charges. Would they be filed, I would have to hope not.

They also said they don't believe the statute was written to mean this, however, given the wording of the statute, that is how they have to interpret it. Hopefully the legislature will re-word the statute to include the threat of force. They also said the term "force" means physical force, or contact. I'm not sure how they can come up with that when it is not defined. If they want to start defining terms, then they should have expanded from physical contact to verbal threats of force as such. But nope, our supreme court says it only means physical contact.

[crass cop]

Well of course, the woman SHOULD have waited until said big scary man had her on the ground, trying to get up her dress. Then she should have pulled her gun...if she could.
THE WORLD HAS LOST ITS MIND......all this touchy feely crap.....
I know 2 cops, husband/wife, who found 2 people in their house...they held them at gunpoint til on duty cops arrived. They are now being SUED for violating the d-bags right!!! No summary judgement, no "this case is BS and will be thrown out", nope...bad guys rights were violated...even though they broke in the house. BS