3. Narrow Self-Defence for Police and Prison Guards

With respect to those in authority who use violence, the work of Harry Glasbeek (Glasbeek, 1993) should be used to ground a different set of legal criteria for self-defence. A more stringent standard of self-defence is justified on the basis that those in lawful authority typically have physical control over the deceased, whether through arrest, detention, or imprisonment. They are authorized to carry and use weapons, unlike all other citizens, and thus have an enormous responsibility not to quickly or erroneously use their weapons. And, they, unlike ordinary accused persons, can make far greater use of all of the traditional safeguards (such as the presumption of innocence, the rules of evidence) to secure acquittal in circumstances where other accused could never succeed (e.g. Officer Monette and the "flying guitar resembles gun" theory used by Eddie Greenspan to secure a self-defence acquittal regarding the shooting death of Vincent Gardiner).

4. Distinction between Unintentionally and Intentionally
Causing Death or Bodily Harm

Justice asks whether the law of self-defence ought to differentiate between those defenders who intend to grievously injure or kill and those who do not. The current law, quite inexplicably, uses somewhat more rigid rules for those who unintentionally cause death as opposed to those who intend death as a result (compare s. 34(1) to s. 34(2)). A new law could instead make the defence less available to those defenders who intend to cause grievous bodily harm or death or it could eliminate any distinction.

CAEFS believes that the law of self-defence ought not to impose different legal requirements based on whether the accused did or did not intend to seriously injure or kill the aggressor. It must be almost impossible, in situations of self-defence, to draw this line in many cases. It seems to be a less dramatic legal change to merely remove any legal distinction between the two situations rather than to reverse the placement of the more onerous legal requirements. Furthermore, appeal courts have already effectively nullified the significance of the current legal distinction by ruling that a person who did not intend to cause death or grievous bodily harm is entitled to rely on the broader defence under s. 34(1).