A Good Idea

A Good Idea, Shot Down:

Via Southern Appeal and Orin Kerr, I see this excellent, if poorly written, motion:

COMES NOW counsel for Defendant...

Shaun Donovan and John Conner have consistently maintained that it was perfectly right, legal and moral for the stronger Matt Palagi to beat up Demetrius Joslin. They have maintained that Joslin did not have to worry [about suffering grave injury or death] because Matt's drunk and stoned friends would jump in and protect Joslin.

The defense team disagrees but would love to give Donovan and Conner a chance to stand up for the principle.... Therefore, the defense moves that... there be a fist fight with one side being Mr. Coroner and Mr. Donovan and the otehr side being Kirk Krutill and Bill Buzzel. For further insurances, that Coroner and Donovan don't get beat up to bad, an group of defense attorney's drunk and stoned friends will be there to assure Conner's and Donovan's safety.

All errors same in citation. The judge is not amused.

While counsel for the State are confident they could acquit themselves respectably if it were necessary to settle any part of this matter by means of a physical contest, ancient methods of trial by fire, water and the like no longer have any place in our system of justice.

As a historian, I'd have to chide the judge in turn for failing to understand that "trial by fire, water and the like," properly known as trial by ordeal, were an entirely separate business from trial by combat. Leaving aside the point, however, the fistfight might really be clarifying -- particularly if the counsel for the State were given knives, and asked to judge what a proper amount of force really is.

The problem is that a stabbing knife -- which the facts suggest is what was used here -- is a poor weapon for self-defense. Oh, it will kill a man just fine: a single stab to a major artery or organ can be fatal. The problem is that, when you are defending yoruself, the point isn't that the other man die -- it's that the other man stop what he's doing that justifies the act of self-defense. If he dies, fine. If he lives, fine. But he's got to stop.

A stab wound is likely to be fatal, but it's a death that takes a while. The wound relies on bleeding, and mostly internal bleeding, to drop blood pressure or induce shock to the point that the attacker will stop. However, as Daniel points out, the body undergoes two changes in a fight that make it harder for such a wound to act on you: it shrinks the surface blood vessels ("vasal constriction"), and it dumps adrenaline into the body. Thus, you really have to hit a major organ or artery to kill, and even then, you have to wait until blood pressure really drops -- which can take seconds, or minutes, depending on the severity of the wound.

During those seconds or minutes, the other guy is still pounding on you. Yes, you've dealt him a lethal wound. He just doesn't know it yet. He's bigger than you, and his friends have you surrounded. What do you do?

Stab him again, since all you've got is the knife. Stab him again until he drops. Maybe the pain will finally get through to him, or maybe the extra wounds will speed the point at which the blood pressure drop hits him. Either way, if you were justified in stabbing the first time, you're justified for keeping it up until he stops what he was doing.

This is a point that the State is either trying to obscure, or doesn't understand. The fist fight motion should have been granted, if only for the purposes of education.

From a personal point of view -- and with an eye toward the recent post on Flight 93, and our potential duty to put ourselves in the breach to stop a terrorist -- we also have a lesson to learn. The lesson is: bring the right tool for the job. You want a knife that will slash, so you can attack tendons and make long cuts, rather than stab wounds, in nerves and major blood vessels. That is far more likely to stop an attacker quickly than a stab wound, even though it is less likely to kill him. The best choice is a proper Bowie knife, or a Randall Mk I style combat knife.

I continue to recommend Bowie & Big Knife Fighting System as an entry point into the study of knife fighting. As it shows, these are excellent choices for a fighting man -- at the kind of ranges in which self-defense combat is most likely according to FBI statistics, as good or better than any handgun if you have the strength and the skill.

If you don't, a large-caliber handgun is also a good choice. Again, you aren't worried about killing so much as stopping the foe -- a bullet that will break bones and joints, or reach through the body to the central nervous system, is what you need. A .38 Special will kill a man just fine, sooner or later. If it comes to it, you need something that will stop him regardless of whether it kills him -- and stop him now.

And, of course, for home defense or to keep in the truck, a good rifle or shotgun. Pretty much any rifle will do.

So, the motion proves to be educational even though the fistfight didn't happen. Pity it didn't, though. A little trial by combat would probably improve the system. The current "modern enlightened" system is certainly not impressing me much with its ability to rehabilitate, after all.