New Self Defence Law
Dec 14th, 2009 | By Bock | Category: CrimeWell fuck me sideways and call me Nora.
At last this knob-gobbling crowd of fuckheads we call a government are doing something right.
At long last it will be possible to blow the living shit out of whatever miserable bastard breaks into your house to take what you own because he doesn’t see why the fuck he should have to work when fools like you will do it instead.
At last it will be possible to shoot the fucker who keeps you in terror as you lie awake at night listening for the slightest crackling of a twig when you should be enjoying the fruits of your old age, but instead have to sleep with a shotgun under your bed.
I see that the Irish Council for Civil Liberties described the proposed law as a “have a go charter”.
Excellent. It’s about time we started having a go.
I used to be a big fan of the ICCL, and still support much of their thinking, especially in relation to the execrable, corrupt, incompetent police force we have, who’d be happy to frame you rather than let the search for the real culprit get in the way of their doughnut-fest, but come on. If some bastard is standing over you in your bedroom, it’s time to whack the fucker if you can.
I once had this experience. I once found myself wondering what to do as my children slept in their beds while two absolute bastards wandered around my house in the middle of the night and I stood at the top of the stairs holding a makeshift club and asking myself what I should do next.
But the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is concerned about these people’s rights.
Pause for thought. Think. Think some more. Process this information.
Output: It’s about time people started having a go at the skobes who rule our streets. Isn’t it about time we as a society started saying NO to the vermin who think they can take what’s ours and live off us as if they were entitled?
You know what the Irish Council for Civil Liberties can do? They can fuck off. I abandoned them a long time ago when I realised that criminals call all the shots and have all the rights.
If some bastard turns up in your bedroom in the middle of the night, in my opinion he has no rights, except the right to a faceful of buckshot and a rapid burial in a shallow grave.
Fuck him.
I don’t go out invading people’s homes, taking away their peace of mind, making old people’s declining years a misery, and neither do you, in all likelihood.
If some fucker breaks into a person’s house, in my opinion, they forfeit all entitlement to fair treatment.
Fuck them.
For once, this tosspot of a government has got something right.
__________
Previously
“For once, this tosspot of a government has got something right.”
Nope. The credit goes to the Law Reform Commission.
True. But it seems the tosspot of a government is going to implement the Law Reform Commission’s recommendations.
In Thailand once you enter someones property you are in danger of being shot.
My Mother-in law has a 9mm semi automatic and a .44 revolver legally.
One night some guy climbed over the wall and was obviously up to no good.
She shot at him and took one of his fingers off.
Police called around filled in a few forms, had a whiskey and left. Case closed.
Word got round the village – No more robberies.
I never argue with my darling mother-in law.
In Ireland, your mother-in-law would be facing serious charges. What a country.
In the Cape Feare episode of the Simsons Chief Wiggum is in Homers house and informs him that once a man is in your home anything you do to him is legal Homer immediately goes over to the window and starts beckoning to Ned Flanders. “It doesn’t work if you invite them in, says Wiggum.
Doh!
We raise our glass to the Law Reform Commission.
Feck’s sake bock, I thought you smarter than this.
1) Has there *ever* been a case where someone was convicted because they defended themselves? And I mean *defended* themselves now, not decided that once the burglar was safely unconcious on the floor that they’d switch over from the hurley to the tank of petrol and a match (as actually happened in the UK a few years ago)?
2) The LRC gets ignored all the time – I’ll celebrate when the Act gets commenced, not a moment beforehand; and
3) How long until we get Nally v2.0 when yet another paranoid nutjob lies in wait for any random target he doesn’t like the look of, then beats, shoots and stomps him to death and then claims it was self-defence because the unfortunate dead chap rang his doorbell in a suspicious manner, thus provoking a backlash that introduces law that *does*, for the first time, make it possible for a burglar to sue the burgled?
Do you think Nally lay in wait for John Ward and killed him because he didn’t like the look of him?
While this proposal is a good thing the average citizen, it is also about giving the gardai “who’d be happy to frame you rather than let the search for the real culprit get in the way of their doughnut-fest,” a right to shoot to kill. Now in your opinion, do you think the government acted out of concern for the average citizen, or is the self protection aspect of this Bill just the sugar coating to get us to to swallow arming our “execrable, corrupt, incompetent police force”, that way the only framing that will be needed after that is for them to take a small revolver from their pocket and place on your bullet ridden corpse while wondering which one of the sergents would vouch that you were a gang member.
I would always have happily shot anyone trying to burgle me or my people and suffered the consequences later. I am not too sure that this proposed law actually gives me this right. It will be up to the courts to decide. We all know what that means.
why not go the whole way and reintroduce outlawery? if your involved in a crime, your outside the law and forfeit all your rights as a citizen.
“why not go the whole way and reintroduce outlawery? if your involved in a crime, your outside the law and forfeit all your rights as a citizen.”
Do you trust those who will decide who is and is not an outlaw to make the correct decision? Fuck it, why not just introduce a police state, after all if you’ve done nothing wrong what have you to be afraid of, mind you don’t tell that to Frank Shortt.
> Do you think Nally lay in wait for John Ward and killed him because he didn’t like the look of him?
Pretty much, with the exception that I don’t think Nally knew Ward from Adam, he just saw a stranger he didn’t like the look of.
From what came out during the trial, Nally was in the barn for several days with the shotgun waiting for someone to come get him, without any clear threat or danger, in a bit of a paranoid state. What exactly Ward was doing when Nally caught him isn’t clear; he might well have been up to no good – certainly his personal history would support that – but we’ll never know for sure. What we do know is that there’s absolutely no evidence he had broken in – Nally killed him first. And from the coroner’s report, Nally was no defenceless old man either. Ward was beaten senseless in the back yard with a stick, leaving several of his bones broken and probably a severe concussion (since he couldn’t walk afterwards); Nally then shot him once, and then left him on the ground to go retrieve more ammunition from the barn. On returning, Nally found Ward had crawled off the premesis and was trying to flee down the road; Nally walked up to him, reloaded, and shot him at point blank range while Ward was on the road, then Nally threw the body over the ditch into an adjoining field.
Let’s just say it’s not the kind of case I’d choose in order to base a body of law around.
Now look, if someone breaks into your home and you beat him senseless with a hurley; or if you threaten or even shoot him with a firearm; or in fact, if you use *any* means to defend yourself because you think your life’s in danger, *the law already says that’s justified*. And for good reason. And you don’t need to be correct about the threat level, it just says you have to *believe at the time* that your life was in danger, or the lives of your family. But it also says you can’t plan out how you’re going to teach a burglar a lesson. Beat the crap out of the guy in the house to keep your family safe? Totally justified. Chasing after him up the street and knifing the guy so he can’t come back a second time? That’s not on. And the line between the two isn’t exactly a subtle one.
Personally, I think this is all political PR. Being seen to be doing something (rather than the harder act of actually *doing* something). Besides – which would you prefer, more Gardai on the streets actually catching the bad guys, or a report from the Law Reform Commission saying that you can’t be sued for assault by the burglar whose head you caved in at 4am one morning, just before his three mates stabbed you to death?
Look, giving people the right to defend themselves in their own homes will not end the terrorising of elderly (and not so elderly) folk by scumbag vermin. The majority of people are not cut out for hand to hand “combat” with hardened scum and are liable to get themselves seriously injured or even killed by taking on a home invader.
The self defence bill is more populist fianna failure nonsense designed to placate the masses and recreate the illusion that they’re capable of governing our little banana republic. The focus should be on the sentencing side of things. Why is it that hardened, repeat offenders who having no positive contribution to make to society repeatedly receive suspended or derisory sentences from our judiciary? Snatching someone’s handbag or shoplifting is one thing (and I accept that those who experience these crimes are victims too), but making a conscious decision to enter the sanctity of someone’s home to steal what the homeowner have worked hard to obtain, should result in the perpetrator going to prison for an extended period. I’m not in favour of mandatory sentences but I think burglary should attract a minimum sentence ranging from 5 to 20 years depending no whether violence or threats were used.
The older I get (and I’m only in my early 30s!) the more merit I see in the whole “social contract” way of viewing society. As citizens we have entered a contract whereby in return for giving up a certain amount of freedom (i.e. being able to do whatever we want, whenever we want) we receive the certainty and security offered by society, which affords us protection for our person and possessions and (theoretically at least) a social safety net if we cannot afford housing, food or other basic necessities: we give up certain freedoms in return for a plethora of rights
However, once you commit an act of violence such as invading someone’s home or preying on the young, old or vulnerable you breach the this social “contract” and automatically forfeit all the above rights and protections.
Unfortunately, what happens in practice is that the scum and vermin (both underclass and overclass) continue to enjoy the same rights as the rest of us while continuing to breed bastard spawn and terrorise those who honour their contractual commitments.
Personally, I’d prefer to see more police catching criminals, but that isn’t the same thing as prevention. Police on the streets won’t stop anyone breaking into your house.
it’s important to emphasize that this isn’t about a burglar suing a householder. That would be a civil matter.
This is about criminal law, not civil, and as I understand it, there’s no provision for self defence currently in the criminal law.
Likewise, as I understand it, there is no protection contemplated for somebody who plans a killing, and therefore, if Padraig Nally planned to kill an intruder, he would still be convicted under the new law.
> as I understand it, there’s no provision for self defence currently in the criminal law.
Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act, 1997:
http://www.bailii.org/ie/legis/num_act/1997/0026.html#zza26y1997s18
18.—(1) The use of force by a person for any of the following purposes, if only such as is reasonable in the circumstances as he or she believes them to be, does not constitute an offence—
( a ) to protect himself or herself or a member of the family of that person or another from injury, assault or detention caused by a criminal act; or
( b ) to protect himself or herself or (with the authority of that other) another from trespass to the person; or
( c ) to protect his or her property from appropriation, destruction or damage caused by a criminal act or from trespass or infringement; or
( d ) to protect property belonging to another from appropriation, destruction or damage caused by a criminal act or (with the authority of that other) from trespass or infringement; or
( e ) to prevent crime or a breach of the peace.
…
(5) For the purposes of this section the question whether the act against which force is used is of a kind mentioned in any of the paragraphs (a) to (e) of subsection (1) shall be determined according to the circumstances as the person using the force believes them to be.
…
(7) The defence provided by this section does not apply to a person who causes conduct or a state of affairs with a view to using force to resist or terminate it:
But the defence may apply although the occasion for the use of force arises only because the person does something he or she may lawfully do, knowing that such an occasion will arise.
In other words; yes, you can defend yourself, but no, you cannot ‘teach the bugger a lesson’. In fact, what the LRC is recommending (read the report!) seems to roll back on what you can do. Under the current law , whether or not you used excessive force is determined according to the situation as you believed it to be at the time; the LRC is recommending that “The test of whether the use of force is necessary and proportionate is based on an objective standard of a reasonable person (if the person attacked used lethal force, and subjectively believed it was necessary and proportionate but objectively it was not, the person should be found guilty of manslaughter, not murder: this is usually referred to as excessive or disproportionate force).”
In other words, if you swing for someone during a robbery because you *think* you’re in danger, but in fact with 20/20 hindsight from the warm safety of a courtroom three years later, they judge you weren’t *actually* in danger, you get done. Whereas under current law, you’re not.
Doesn’t that relate to non-fatal offences?
Yes, because we split out assaults and other non-fatal stuff into an actual Act; murder and manslaughter (and the defence of self-defence) are still in the original Offences Against the Person Act from 1861 (and thus the roots of it are in english law, which listed self-defence as a complete defence against murder/manslaughter charges from day one). The force used must be reasonable, but it’s been understood from day one that if you’re being attacked, the pressure of the situation may impair your judgement significantly and you can make mistakes in determining threat level. From Palmer v The Queen in 1971:
“The defence of self-defence is one which can be and will
be readily understood by any jury. It is a straightforward
conception. It involves no abstruse legal thought. …Only common
sense is needed for its understanding. It is both good law and good
sense that a man who is attacked may defend himself. It is both
good law and good sense that he may do, but may only do, what is
reasonably necessary. But everything will depend upon the
particular facts and circumstances. …It may in some cases be only
sensible and clearly possible to take some simple avoiding action.
Some attacks may be serious and dangerous. Others may not be. If
there is some relatively minor attack it would not be common sense
to permit some action of retaliation which was wholly out of
proportion to the necessities of the situation. If an attack is
serious so that it puts someone in immediate peril then immediate
defensive action may be necessary. If the moment is one of crisis
for someone in imminent danger he may have [to] avert the danger by
some instant reaction. If the attack is all over and no sort of
peril remains then the employment of force may be by way of revenge
or punishment or by way of paying off an old score or may be pure
aggression. There may no longer be any link with a necessity of
defence… If a jury thought that in a moment of unexpected anguish
a person attacked had only done what he honestly and instinctively
thought was necessary that would be most potent evidence that only
reasonable defensive action had been taken.”
Something else to note is that current law indicates that if you truly believe you’re in peril, you can strike the first blow, you don’t need to wait for the guy with the knife to swing for you before you shoot him; the LRC’s proposal isn’t so forgiving.
Seriously Bock,it’s a law that’s been around and tested since the 1800s; it has not one single case in Ireland where honest self-defence led to a conviction for manslaughter or murder for the defending person; where even a few cases where any reasonable person would be saying “whoa, hang on a second” have lead to complete acquittals; and the proposed replacement is *more* restrictive to people defending themselves, not less; and it’s being brought in by a hugely unpopular FF government, and specifically by a Minister who’s even more unpopular with everyone because he’s not getting the job done (and he’s desperately looking for anything he can spin to good PR); what the heck are you doing lapping this liquid shite up? This is not a good thing!
Bock –
Whatever about Mr Nally’s intentions or whether he was “lying in wait”, forensic evidence was conclusive that the man was shot in the back and on his way off the property. ie – the job of defending the property (if this was, in fact, what was necessary in the case) had already been done. Also Mr Nally could not prove conclusively that the other man had, in fact, threatened him. There was no evidence that the man said things like – “give me all your money or I’ll blow your head off” or similar. There was only proof that Mr Nally happened to believe that the man was up to no good. In my opinion the jury made the right decision. Shooting someone in the back when they are running (or at least retreating) away from you comes under no definition of self-defence I’ve ever heard of. Shooting them again, when they are lying there wounded and pleading to be let go is simply viciousness and there is no excuse for it.
Sorry, I hadn’t read all the way down to Mark Dennehy’s excellent contributions. And I utterly concur with his conclusion:
Having spent a great deal of my early life in other countries with more permissive domestic “licence to kill” laws, I can testify that the results are not usually happy ones – remember the case of the Irish man who got lost in an American city a couple of years ago and got shot and killed by police while knocking on a door shouting his sister’s name?
We have sufficient protection to defend ourselves from threats without giving up rights which belong to us all. Please note that neither the ICCL nor any other rights group is in the business of defending “criminals’ rights”. There is no such thing. Any rights they set out to defend are rights that belong to me, you and the man in the street.
Mark — As you know from reading this site, I’m not in the business of lapping up anything from Fianna Fáil, but it can happen that I might agree with them about something. They’re like a stopped clock that’s occasionally right, by accident. We’ll try not to make it personal.
The issue here seems to be about standing your ground. Correct me if this is mistaken, but at present there’s an obligation on a householder to retreat before offering any violence to an intruder, and this is what is being changed.
Scotlyn — I think this is about householders, not police, and in any case we already have that sort of thing happening. I remember years ago, a man standing at a bus stop in Dublin was riddled with Uzi-fire by police who thought he was a bank robber.
You’re mistaken – there is no obligation on any person claiming self-defence to retreat, in any circumstances at present. The situation is that if retreat was a possible option, then the jury in a case can take that into account when deciding if the amount of force used was reasonable. So if someone yells at you from fifty yards away on the street, you have the option of withdrawing instead of shooting them with a rifle; and that’s a judgement you’d probably lose. But in your own home, that option is not available for several reasons; you may not have an avenue of escape (eg. your “back door” is the balcony on a second-story flat); or your family would be left behind if you fled; or if you surprised the burglar (and yourself) and wound up face-to-face with them so *you believed at the time* that retreating was only going to get you stabbed from behind.
Seriously Bock, this whole thing’s a con job from start to finish. Ahern’s desperate for good PR right now because he’s brought in gun laws and knife laws and gun crime and knife crime hasn’t gone down in response; and worse, he’s tied to FF at the most unpopular time in their history. This is just another spin job, and the outcome is worse for us if the LRC’s recommendations are taken on. It’s only better for barristers because we’d go from a situation where case law is the main source of judgements (ie. experience in real world situations) to one where there’s a criminal code model for judgements (ie. a set of rules drawn up in a nice warm cosy safe office somewhere in the DoJ).
Mark — Thanks for that clarification. Are you also saying that the Law Reform Commission are part of the con job?
I’m saying they want to see a “criminal code” model of law in Ireland, rather than our present system which has evolved over time (and fair dues, in many, many, many areas that’s a very good idea because lots of our law is arcane in the extreme – a criminal code would simplify things enormously for pretty much everyone). But in *this specific case* their recommended reform is more restrictive than the existing situation, and that’s a really bad idea. Making the judgement as to whether force was reasonable or not an *objective* one by the jury rather than the current *subjective* one by the defendant is only a good idea in a nice safe place during daytime; it becomes a pretty shockingly bad idea at 0400 when you hear someone kicking in the door of your flat and you don’t know if it’s a burglar or if upstair’s tenant had one too many and got off on the wrong floor from the lift (which you’ve done yourself once or twice even while sober). Do you go out there and belt the first dark shape you see with a hurley, or do you stop to ask questions or try to identify the person? The existing law says the former is acceptable; the LRC’s proposal says the latter is.
Brilliant – but wait until FF get their idiot hands on the final wording of the legislation. Remember Fine Gael tried to get a great version passed a few years ago but FF stopped it. This incarnation may well be a toothless piece of crap legislation. I am pessimistic given their track record.
Bock – late back to the table, but
That case, was one where a householder felt threatened by someone who was genuinely not attempting to threaten them, and very possibly the householder would have shot him themselves if they had owned a gun, instead of having to call the police. Both householders and police can make mistakes.
Mark is very good at clarifying Irish law very expertly, and I’m certainly no expert. But I have watched the PR spinners invent the notion of “criminal’s rights” over the past 2-3 decades, starting in the US, where serious efforts have been going on for years to undermine the wonderful US Constitution. The “talking point” that right wing commentators are supposed to harp on about until it sinks into everyone’s unconscious, and you’ve forgotten why you ever thought there was something wrong with it, is that “criminals” have rights and “victims” don’t. The aim of the game is to try to make ordinary people willing to give up the rights that belong to us all, in order to prevent them being used by criminals. The fact that criminals happen to make use of your right or my right to due process of law, to be assumed to be innocent until guilt is proven, to remain silent when questioned, etc, doesn’t make these “criminal’s rights.”
As Mark explains, our law is fine. There is no history of householders being prosecuted for defending themselves in Ireland. Therefore there is another agenda here. And that agenda is more than likely going to impact on us all, not just on criminals.
Scotlyn — I’m afraid there is such a thing as criminals’ rights. There are people in this town and elsewhere who are habitual, committed criminals, and who are protected very well indeed by their rights.
[Mod Edit.
Despite containing a number of valid points, this comment has been deleted because of personal abuse directed towards another commenter.]
Thanks for that Bock. Billy’s incorrect on most of his factual points in there though. Nally didn’t know Ward and testified to that in his trial. So either Billy’s wrong, and Ward wasn’t often calling to the door; or Nally was lying on the stand. Neither really paints him in a good light.
And yes, I’ve been burgled, twice from my home and twice from my car.
Sorry, Bock – I hadn’t seen your reply to mine, so sorry if this is a late one.
I absolutely agree with you that when known criminals walk around unprosecuted and able to prey on people with seeming impunity, it is a travesty. And we need to figure it out and put a stop to it!
But it simply doesn’t follow that such people have “more” rights than anyone else, or that the solution lies in taking away rights, that belong to us all, away from us. Why should I allow the police more powers to batter down my door, or listen to my phone conversations, or retain my email/google records, in order to make me “safer” from criminals?
a) it doesn’t work – I end up with less rights, the government ends up with more power (and power, as we know, corrupts and leads to more potential for predation and abuse), and the criminals still get off.
b) the criminals are not actually protected from prosecution by their “rights” but by their success in instilling fear and loyalty. The most persistent problem that recurs in trying to prosecute these cases is the “never saw nuffin” phenomenon – ie “bought” or frightened witnesses.
c) people that persist in arguing that criminals are too highly “protected” by their human rights (or that enemy combatants are too highly “protected” by their human rights), so persist in order to win their campaign to remove those rights from me and you. Don’t be fooled – this arguments is usually fought in an emotional way – and when people try to manipulate your emotions it is because they really don’t want you using your critical faculties.
If we seriously want to put an end to the seeming impunity of such criminals as you describe, we need to provide a lot more protection for witnesses (and here I don’t just mean the government – I mean people need to feel that if they stand up in court and testify, we’re all going to be out there applauding them, and watching their backs!). We also need to work on ways to isolate the criminals from the support of their communities. People who are not trapped by poverty are far less vulnerable to being “bought” by them, people who are certain of being strongly protected, and of winning great social approval and gratitude, for whistle-blowing (and this also applies in those other well-known criminal dens – such as banks, churches, political parties, etc) are less likely to be frightened out of their wits for doing so. Public shame and public approval and support (properly applied) are weapons we have forgotten how to wield effectively.
Nevertheless, we also need to continue to protect our human rights, now more than ever, when both governments and private persons command so much useful technology for surveillance – and this is so even if criminals make use of such rights, too.
scotlyn..thats a great post and spot on.Love the bit about taking away all our rights to protect us from criminals.