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I have heard so many things about the law and the Martial arts. I have heard one thing that I do agree with; I heard that if a martial artist protects is family against a thug and uses his martial art "skills" and if it gets taken to court the court should have a martial artist (Hight ranked Martial Artist) be on the jury. What do you think about this?? I like that idea because the highly ranked martial artist on the jury might know what it feels like to "Neutralize a situation" and still go to jail and court for it, worse than that is if you get sent to prison for many years when all you were doing was protecting your life as well as someone elses like your family, or friend!
I would be glad to hear other perspectives on the idea of having a martial artist be on the jury!!

Later, Eric

I'd rather have an expert witness working on my side, who can explain the law and how it applies to my self-defense case. A jury is supposed to judge the case by the evidence presented to them. Having one juror, who knows something not presented in evidence, won't help. On the other hand, an expert witness will educate all the jurors as to what happened and why.

A martial artist on the jury, may actually do more to harm than good, since some martial artists have some pretty screwed up understanding of "real" self defense and may try to "correct" what the expert witness testified regarding what happened. I.E. "The defendant should not have, under any circumstances, attacked first!"

The other jurors might believe him!

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GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"

Eric

The idea of having a martial artist in the Jury Pool seems like a pretty good suggestion at first glance.

Sensei Mattson has given us fine advise in his response

Prosecuters woud challenge the MA in most cases

There are cogent reasons why it would not be practical including constitutional issues and all jobs and professions wanting to do the same thing

I think that the esxpert witness is the way to go, as well as using a criminal defense attorney who knows the laws of self defense

I think that it will be of use to MA s to read some articles and cases some of which are posted in this forum.

Welcome abord, Eric

Alan K

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"The Goddess of Justice is Blind"

Thanks guys for all of your opinions and thanks for welcoming me abored. I am hoping to have a lot of fun and learn a lot of new stuff about Martial Arts and the law. This forum is very interesting. I am glad you guys told me all the stuff you did. I will take it all into consideration and be careful about getting a situation where I will have to use my skills. I think most fight situations can be avoided by just talking to the person. What do you guys think about this?

I cannot vouch for other states, but in Massachusetts, no part of your body can be a deadly weapon.

If you hit someone with it, and you were born with it, you're safe (well, you'll still face assault, but not ABDW).

Kicking someone with a shod foot, however, IS a deadly weapon, so take your shoes off before kicking, or face a felony charge.

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~Brian

Brian,

Good point about 'shod foot' _

One question that comes up often in classes is_ what if I hit the attacker with my shin, as we train to do, and cause injury.

Will the fact I have a shoe on be held against me? Some of us can break baseball bats with a shin shot...what if this knowledge comes to the attention of the DA?

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Van

It seems to me that the critical question is whether you were partly responsible for the altercation and whether your level of force was reasonable. I expect you'll get more leeway with the DA when children are at risk, but if you mount the guy and repeatedly elbow him to unconsciousness, somebody is bound to ask whether you should have stopped sooner.

I was thinking about that "boxer" clip we had here awhile back, where a couple of hoodlums were hanging out on the sidewalk and one of them backhands the girl as a the boxer and his girl walk by. Everybody seemed to praise the "boxer" for his quick reaction. In street cred terms, what he did was probably right, but I wonder what might have happened to him had he hit a guy in the kidney and the guy subsequently died the next day. Then the question gets asked, could he and his girl just have kept walking? MAs aren't inherently experts on such things. You need people who understand the streets.

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Mike