Fights are not self-defense. Let me repeat that, fights are not self-defense. I say this because I often hear people saying, \u201cit was self-defense,\u201d when it was nothing of the sort. When I was working in the City Attorney’s Office, I prosecuted a guy for assault who plead self-defense, when it wasn’t. He lost and was found guilty. The fact is, many incidents, such as bar fights and \u201clet’s take it outside\u201d fights are just that, fights. They do not have elements of self-defense at all, and in a court room, that is how it will play out.<\/p>\n
In this short article, I’m not going to explain everything about the legal definition of self-defense, so I’ll just mention that self-defense is an affirmative defense to a charge against you. Simply stated, this means you admit to hurting someone else, but claim you had justification in doing so. Your defense to hurting a person is that you did so in self-defense, so it was justifiable use of force against another person. Then it is up to you to prove and illustrate why you were acting in self-defense and justified in doing what you did. You need to be able to articulate why it was justifiable and why it falls under the legal definition of self-defense. And yes, there are legal definitions of self-defense, and you will have to meet the elements and definition for the jurisdiction you are in.<\/p>\n