Attorney Explains California Self Defense Laws

how's it going everybody my name is Anton Randa I am a licensed and practicing attorney in the state of California and today I am going to be reviewing California self-defense laws [Music] although I am a licensed practicing attorney state of California this in no way is legal advice if you have a specific situation or scenario or something that affects you personally please don't stand on this video go seek an actual licensed attorney in your area to help you this is just for general education so what is self-defense just a quick overview of in general what is self-defense what are we talking about when were discussing self-defense and self-defense generally means when you are using force or violence against another person but you did so to protect yourself or another and you use this force to protect yourself or another from imminent harm or danger the law of self-defense and self-defense in general is what's known as an affirmative defense when unfirm defenses is that you are raising this to essentially excuse your action what you are generally saying is yes I engaged in this conduct let's say I acted in self-defense and I killed someone yes I committed murder but that murder is excusable because I was acting in defense of myself or another so important for established self-defense and the kind of a law that surrounds self-defense I'm gonna pull directly from section 505 of California's criminal jury instructions and these are what attorney is generally or your your defense attorney would generally pull and submit to the jury and them determining whether you acted permissibly in self-defense these are the jury instructions of what they'll get and it will talk in general about self-defense and so what does this look like a defendant will be considered to have acted in self-defense and therefore will not be guilty of a violent crime if they can prove three things the first being they reasonably believed that they or someone else was an imminent danger of being harmed too they reasonably believed that the imminent use of force was necessary to defend against that danger and three they only used the amount of force that was reasonably necessary to defend against the danger and so this is the general umbrella overarching foundation for self-defense in proving that you acted in self-defense this is what you stand on to excuse your actions in proving that you acted in self-defense there is actually a burden on the prosecutor and this burden is bared by them and it is their burden of proof to establish that these requirements were not met and so in other words the prosecutor has a burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that you did not act in self-defense and therefore self-defense does not apply also important for this and I'm gonna just quickly note here but and we'll jump back to it later on in the video is that under California we have a Stand Your Ground law and so when claiming self-defense you do not you are not required to prove that you try to retreat or escape from the harm or injury that was being auctioned on you under California you that is not a requirement you are not required to retreat and this is different from other some other states because some other states do require that you must retreat before defending yourself so first let's talk about imminent danger what is imminent danger so essentially you must accept Allah show that someone else was about to kill injure rape or unlawfully touch you imminently that is immediately or right away it is not a fear in the future of someone going to injure you or in the past someone said that they were gonna injure or kill you or I when I was in law school they would always say it's not someone say hey I'm gonna come back in two weeks you in the head that is not imminent danger that is not something happen happening immediately to you that's not an imminent risk to your life so another important and definition we need to cover is a reasonable belief in a threat or a reasonable belief that there is a threat so in order to plead self-defense successfully you must have had a honest and reasonable belief that you faced imminent harm and needed to use force to defend yourself and for this it doesn't matter if your belief was correct or not as long as it was reasonable so ultimately this is for the jury to determine whether there was a reasonable belief that there was a threat so ultimately what they are supposed to ask themselves when they're in the jury room is what a reasonable person in your shoes have believed that they were in danger and the question is not necessarily whether you believed you were an imminent threat or you reasonably believed that there was a threat it's whether a reasonable person in your situation would have that belief so let's talk about a reasonable response or a proportionate response to the immediate fear or immediate danger of great bodily injury or death or something of that nature so in California you are only allowed to use force which is reasonably appropriate in proportion to the threat that you have to yourself so what does this look like I'll give you guys a quick example if someone just randomly punches you you do not have the right to then just whip out your gun and shoot and murder them self defense would not apply to you because you are not reacting in proportion to the immediate threat that you have yes you may be injured by the punch you don't necessarily have fear of death from someone just punching you for you to jump from A to Z and automatically shoot them in that scenario would not necessarily apply and it'd make it much harder for you to claim self-defense so let's talk about California stand your ground laws so in California you may use reasonable force to defend yourself even if you also had the option to escape so this is essentially encompasses what Stand Your Ground laws are even though you have the option to retreat you are not required to do so in California because we have a stand-your-ground law you may react in the situation immediately to the threat which you're faced in California if you were faced with a serious situation where let's say someone you know pulls a gun on you you don't you're not necessarily required to retreat if you have that option you can react immediately to that threat and an interesting little car before this also is that under California stand-your-ground laws you are also even permitted to pursue the attacker until the danger has passed so it's hard to kind of explain how that might necessarily play out where you're permitted to it pursue the attacker until the danger passes but I think the easiest way and the most timely way to describe that it has to do with active shooters if there is active shooter in California under this little carve out where you're allowed to pursue an attacker until the danger essentially subsides or goes away and and also with the fact that you are not required to escape that you're permitted to stand your ground in California if there was an active shooter let's say in Walmart and I'm in the Walmart I'm permitted to pursue that attacker until the danger has essentially been eliminated I am not required to flee I can pursue the attacker and I think this is an important place to also branch off and talk about that self-defense does not necessarily apply to just yourself self-defense can also apply to the defense of others so what are the requirements look like for you to be able to claim that you are acting in self-defense of another and essentially this is gonna be another three prong test and the three prongs are the same as it would be for you defending yourself it is that you reason believe that the other person is in imminent danger of being killed injured or touched unlawfully that you reason believe that you needed to use a force to prevent that immediate danger of being killed or injured and that you use the force no more than necessary or you act proportionate to the risk of that they're individual so again in that active shooter situation other individuals may be in risk of being injured or killed and in that situation you are let's say you pull your firearm review or lawful concealed carry permit holder in California and you act in defense of another person that would be justified because those people are actually in imminent danger you have a reasonable belief to believe that they're in imminent danger you're using force to prevent this injury and that force is proportionate to the risk in which those individuals are being faced with ie there's an active shooter they are essentially using a firearm to try to kill someone else and you are reacting proportionately by using your firearm to prevent that injury so I think it's also important to talk about initial aggressor factors that play into self-defense and this is something very common that you go over in law school and they throw out these hypotheticals and it's often you'll actually find them on your final exam where they'll lay out these scenarios of events that take place and you have to figure out at what point what person is acting correctly what person is acting incorrectly and it had usually hinges on the initial aggressive rule and usually how this plays out is what the initial aggressor rule is that you can still plead self-defense even if you were the one who started the fight essentially you were the initial aggressor and you your initial aggression was not deadly or non-lethal force you maybe just slap someone or you push someone something of that nature where you started a fight you started some sort of physical contact or some sort of threat but it's not deadly in nature and then what usually happens in response to your non deadly force that person then reacts with deadly force ie someone let's say they pull a knife or they pull a gun or you know they pick a bad try to hit you in the head something like that they're using force deadly force which is not proportionate to the force of what you initially used and so in this situation although you the confrontation and you started the fight or whatever you started with non-deadly force this person then jumps to deadly force let's say they pull a gun on you you are then permitted to defend yourself from great bodily injury or death and use deadly force on your own as long as you are still meeting those three prongs in general that we explained for self-defense and so the last thing I'm going to cover is self-defense of your home or what is also sometimes referred to as the castle doctrine and so under the castle doctrine rule you are permitted to use deadly force if someone unlawfully and forcibly breaks into your home and this falls under California Penal Code one 98.5 and this Penal Code explains that a person will be presumed to have a reasonable fear of imminent harm when someone unlawfully breaks into their home and so in general if someone uses deadly force while in their home to protect themselves their family or another third party that's in their home that deadly force and protecting themselves or others is therefore justified and excusable under California self-defense laws so I hope this helped you guys I hope you give you some base knowledge about self-defense laws in California if there's anything specific in the future that you guys would like to recover maybe California law specific or farm-related anything like that go ahead and comment down below and I might consider making a video on it thank you guys for watching don't forget to Like and subscribe and never forget that a nation that draws a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its laws made by cowards and its wars fought by fools

Channel: Armed Scholar

Views: 98,440

Rating: 4.9327559 out of 5

Keywords: self defense, self defense laws, self defense laws california, self defense laws ca, self defense laws in california, self defense laws in ca, ca, california, california laws, stand your ground law, castle doctrine, initial aggressor, lethal force, deadly force, gun, using gun in self defense, self defense of another, defending another person, stand your ground laws, home defense, home defense laws, home defense laws california, california home defense gun laws

Id: DNwMsub81pY

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/quatre03]

you can't just whip out your gun and shoot someone if they punch you

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Looks at annual hand/foot deaths

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[u/1Menace1]

The initial aggressor rule was interesting to me from hearing it in this video. Can you not, hypothetically , trap someone in this way by lets say knowing they have a weapon, relying on chance that they draw that weapon upon reacting to non deadly aggression from yourself, thus justifying your next reaction by using deadly force on them? I’m not saying it’s a bad policy, I don’t know enough to make a claim I’m only hypothetically speaking from thoughts on watching this so correct me if I’m wrong. A reason why this might still not be a bad policy is that while you may get lucky and win by relying on the other persons poor judgment, it therefore still falls on that person for having the wrong reaction. Just like it is your responsibility to not react out of proportion to non deadly aggression, it was theirs as well, even though your intent was to draw out a response to reach the end goal of murdering them.

[u/Hungry-for-Apples789]

I am pleasantly surprised to learn that we do have a stand your group portion of the law.