A Request for Comment Regarding Creating a Better Criminal Defenses Statute

Firestone Discussion
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Hey fellow Firestonians, it’s ya boy, law dude. So in my adventures in my CJ 322 class on criminal law, I have come to realize we have functionally no defenses to criminal liability beyond what we’ll get to soon, and the practical means of executing something like this in our game is kinda iffy. Nevertheless, I wish to create a law that will codify defenses to criminal liability. There will be a little poll in here that I kinda need answers for, so at least do that please.

So, some of you may be unclear on what a defense is in this context. In the criminal legal system, a defense to liability/justification/excuse (often times referred to as affirmative defenses due to requirements that the defense prove certain things) deflects liability for a crime, i.e. you can’t be found guilty or you can’t be found to have a certain mens rea necessary. I should note that excuses and justifications are different types of defenses, but for our purposes they’re ultimately interchangeable. To give you an idea of how this works, we can look to Firestone’s whole three defenses.

  1. Self defense. Per the UCFA and some amendments to it, a person is entitled to use proportional force, even deadly force, to defend themselves from a threat of harm (serious bodily injury or death in case of deadly force); assuming they aren’t in the commission of a crime of course. This is an absolute defense to liability for conduct that would otherwise be a crime (battery, ADW, or any of our forms of criminal homicide). Essentially, if you can prove you were acting in self defense you can’t be guilty of, say, SDM or Manslaughter for shooting the person. Interestingly, we’ve held by common law that this is a defense to arrest. It’s important to note that, functionally, arrest and conviction in FS carry similar weights against your standing as a citizen. Because normally, a defense to liability is a defense against conviction.
  2. Defense of third party: same shit as SD, just for another third party who isn’t in the commission of a crime.
  3. Actions taken in the lawful execution of public duties. While it’s less specifically spelled out than SD and DTP, Firestone recognizes, in several ways, that a state actor lawfully executing their duties is immune to criminal liability. This includes use of force, protection for traffic laws, detainment, etc.

However, I feel there are more defense relevant to our purposes that we just sorta pretend exist (mainly the DOJ doesn’t prosecute if they think the scenario matches it).

  1. Duress: a person cannot be liable for a crime they committed while under immediate threat of harm or danger by another person, the only exception is murder. We pretend this exists in Firestone, but it doesn’t. Like technically speaking, you aid a bank robbery by being a hostage and we just all pretend, in a legal fiction, not to apply criminal liability to that.
  2. Preventing a greater evil: if one’s criminal conduct was performed in good faith to avoid a greater harm than that caused by the crime, they aren’t liable. An example of this is, say, VAing a car blocking the road to get it out of your way as you flee from some active shooter at CD.
  3. Defense of property: You can use proportional, non-deadly force to protect your property was unlawful incursion. We kinda acknowledge this one, but not well. Example: physically pushing a fucker out of your business because you told them to leave and they’re being annoying.
  4. Entrapment: you aren’t liable for a crime if a state actor enticed you to commit it if you otherwise wouldn’t have. Another one we kinda pretend exists but it doesn’t. An example of this is if the FBI men told you a car was unlocked and to take it, so you did, and then they arrested you :frowning:
  5. More applicable if I can find a good copy of the Model Penal Code

So yeah, look at all this good shit we could have. The issue occurs in the execution of this. Because while I can easily set burdens to prove, and standards for a trial court, doing so for arrests is a bit harder. I can’t really expect any regular patrolman to be able to, essentially, hold a two person magistrate court right at CD to determine if any one of these defenses is a valid defense to arrest; because I discussed earlier, ultimately, an arrest and a conviction fuck you over about the same here, which they don’t irl. My only way to get around this hurdle is to essentially exploit the “good cause” expungement reasoning to include valid defenses the arresting officer didn’t consider, or didn’t consider well enough. As expungements are running pretty fast nowadays, waiting times are in the single digits of days. This is where my poll comes!

If defense were to be implemented by law, should they cover arrests in the manner described?
  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

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i mean now expungements and civil suits for false arrest carry different burdens and requirements, as per common law it’s a requirement for false arrest suits to prove BARD that there was no PC at the time of arrest.

there are similar circumstances where a law enforcement officer is expected not to do something but not liable if it occurs, such as citing an illegally parked car – such citation would be legally false and eligible for expungement, but the officer is not liable. similar logic could be applied to self defence; if a law enforcement officer witnesses you gun down a man at CD and arrests you for murder, they have probable cause, but if the man you gunned down was punching you down to 1 HP, that arrest would be false.

i imagine these defences could form a similar role; if a court finds an arrest falls into those arrests, the arrest can be false and would be removed, but as long as the officer was acting reasonably and in good faith, there would be no liability

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Tldr please.

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Please explain in laymens terms

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Just get gud lmao…

basically scrib, if the following defences were to be implemented…

…should they apply to arrests too? The issue with that being the case would be

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Ummmm.

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If we do set up defenses I suggest placing the burden of proof on the state that such a defense does not apply

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TDLR for those who don’t understand what he’s proposing:

These defenses are basically the defendant saying “I admit to committing this crime BUT I have a valid excuse for doing so”.

If the excuse lines up with what the law says (Aka what excuses are allowed) then the person should be treated as if they DIDN’T violate the law.

In some places it’s on the defendant to prove the excuse applies in other places (I.e. Kyle Rittenhouse) it’s on the state.

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If im hearing you right danny, your saying “Well we basically do this for proseucution already, why not apply it to arrest?” (since you note even though some dont legally exist, we do apply these concepts over in the DOJ)

My answer would be: any half decent cop already does.

if you hit something trying to flee from gunfire, a decent cop here doesnt arrest you. if you force a fucker off your property, a half decent cop doesnt arrest you. entrapment… well. people exploit that one. ill give you that.

that being said, i would 100% be for its legal establishment. if a WELL VERSED lawyer who has state legislature experience wrote it

(that basically narrows it down to, well… auto. if we arent counting justices.)

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Good points and I do agree there are already unofficial affirmative defenses… any change in law needs to be carefully reviewed/edited.

Doesn’t matter who writes it.

Changes in this particular area can go very wrong very easily so obviously there doesn’t need to be a change overnight.

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Well, my point is more that we’re being saved from government exacerbation solely by benevolent prosecutorial officials alone, and that is not a good system of government. But yeah, giving people some recompense for sad arrests is nice too.

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My plan was making most of them have a burden of production, and then placing the countering of the defense under the things the state has to prove BARD, just like the elements of the core offense.

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It’s a good idea, but as with most massive law revamps it nearly always ends in unforeseen issues. There’ll always be more to perfect.

One could argue that “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it,” but in this case we are lacking both constitutional and statutory protections that—if this type of case did pop up—we would have to radically establish common law unalike to how Firestone’s been operating (like a civil law state) since inception, so this specific law would (IF done well) prevent convulated Supreme Court petitions…

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