Tagged: Gotham City

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #352: BATWOMAN: ADVICE ON CONSENT

Nocturna did not rape Batwoman.

The debate’s been going on for months now – ever since Batwoman v2 #34. Did Nocturna, the vampire super villain in the Bat books, and use her vampire hypnosis powers to rape Batwoman. I say no. But it’s not as simple as that.

Let me explain.

In Batwoman v 2 # 34, Nocturna saw Batwoman fighting and found her alluring. During the fight, Batwoman’s mask was displaced and Nocturna saw Batwoman’s face, which she recognized as that of Gotham City socialite Kate Kane.

That night, Batwoman – well, Kate Kane but I’m going to call her Batwoman – was going to bed when a shadowy figure appeared in her bedroom and this happened:

Screen-Shot-2014-11-30-at-10.57.48-PM

Panel One: Batwoman saw a figure in the shadows and asked, “Maggs, is that you?”

(For the record, Batwoman is a lesbian. Maggs is Maggie Sawyer, Kate’s ex-fiancée, with whom she broke up earlier the same issue.)

Panel Two: The figure caressed Batwoman’s cheek and said, “Who do you want me to be?”

Panel Three: Batwoman – her speech suddenly slurred with strange purple star-like squiggles in her word balloons – said, “Must’a had too much wine… Feelin’ a little light-headed.” Batwoman was clearly under the influence of something. This panel was from Batwoman’s POV and showed clearly Maggie reaching for her.

Panel Four: From the exact same POV the figure, now clearly Nocturna and not Maggie, reached toward Batwoman in exactly the same position as “Maggie” had been in the panel before and said “It isn’t the wine.”

Next Page: Nocturna bit Batwoman on the neck and said “And I’m not Maggie.”

Reaction to the story was strong. Many people said that Nocturna used her powers to make Batwoman believe she was Maggie Sawyer to trick Batwoman into having sex with her. These critics say that by doing this Nocturna raped Batwoman.

It’s not that simple.

Marc Andreyko, the writer of the story, responded in some Tweets that the story wasn’t just the usual “mindless slave trope,” and that no one had forced Batwoman to do anything. He asked the readers to hold off judgment until they had seen the entire story.

It’s not that simple, either.

The story didn’t actually show Batwoman and Nocturna having sex. However no one, including Mr. Andreyko, has ever disputed the interpretation that they had sex. Andreyko merely said that Batwoman wasn’t forced. So I think we can safely conclude both from the context of the story and the absence of any denial, that Nocturna and Batwoman did have sex.

Mr. Andreyko asked us to forbear passing judgment on the story until we saw the end. That end came several issues later. So for several more issues, we followed Batwoman and Nocturna through their sexual relationship. It was one where Nocturna was the dominant figure. Batwoman, in fact, seemed to be little more than manipulated and subservient. We finally got to the end of the story in Batwoman v2 #39.

In said comic, Batwoman’s sister, Beth Kane, freed Batwoman from Nocturna’s hypnotic spell. Batwoman confronted Nocturna. Nocturna didn’t deny hypnotizing Batwoman. After that the following exchange occurred.

499rofBatwoman: “You don’t… love me?” Nocturna: “I don’t even like you. You were just so easy to ensnare.” Batwoman: “You used your powers to make me sleep with you?” Nocturna: “I bet you wish that were true. No, Batwoman that was all you. “I’m no rapist. You wanted me so I figured, ‘I haven’t done this college so why not?’ … Hypnosis can’t make you do anything you don’t really want to do… All I did was find an open door in your head. All the interior decorating in that room? Yours.”

So now I’ve seen the end of the story. I need forbear no longer. Here’s what I think.

I think Nocturna was controlling Batwoman’s mind. According to DC Comics’ own on-line database, the victims of Nocturna’s hypnosis act are controlled by her as if possessed. Nocturna admitted that she used her powers to “ensnare” Batwoman. The question is, by “ensnar[ing]” Batwoman, did Nocturna rape her? To answer that, we must examine exactly what Nocturna did.

Nocturna came to Batwoman’s room and used her abilities to make Batwoman believe she was Batwoman’s ex-fiancée, Maggie Sawyer. If Nocturna did that to make Batwoman have sex with her, the answer seems clear. That online DC database I mentioned earlier actually has a page called “sexual assault” that talks about this kind of act. For example, “Nightwing has been raped on multiple occasions. Mirage posed as his girlfriend Starfire to deceive him into having sex with her.”

If Nocturna used her abilities to make Batwoman think she was Maggie Sawyer to trick Batwoman into having sex with her, well even the DC Comics database calls that rape. The problem is, the story’s a little ambiguous and I don’t think that’s what Nocturna did.

When Nocturna came into Batwoman’s room, Batwoman was clearly under the influence of something. Batwoman blamed some wine. Doubtful. Her speech went from perfectly fine in Panel One to slurred in Panel Three. “Too much wine” doesn’t happen that fast. It’s more likely the influencing agent was Nocturna’s powers. That it was Nocturna’s influence not the wine’s is even more likely as Panel Three shows Batwoman’s POV of Maggie Sawyer reaching down to her. Wine wouldn’t make Batwoman see Maggie. Nocturna’s hypnosis could. However, the story also clearly shows Nocturna had stopped looking like Maggie before she bit Batwoman and before they had sex.

I think what happened is Nocturna made Batwoman think she was Maggie, so she could get close enough to Batwoman to bite her. Then she used her hypnosis to “ensnare” Batwoman and lower Batwoman’s inhibitions so Batwoman would have sex with her.

This is, however, one of those differences that makes no difference. Whether Nocturna got Batwoman to have sex with her by making Batwoman believe she was Maggie or made Batwoman think she was Maggie so that she could get close enough to Batwoman to bite and hypnotize her, Nocturna used her hypnosis powers to make Batwoman more compliant.

Nocturna said she didn’t rape Batwoman, because she couldn’t make Batwoman do something that Batwoman didn’t really want to do. So she didn’t use her powers to “make” Batwoman sleep with her. As Batwoman wasn’t forced to do anything, it wasn’t rape.

The fallacy with this argument is that rape doesn’t have to be by force. Remember that DC Comics database page on sexual assault? It talks about another character, Windfall, who was drugged at a frat party and raped. In that instance, force wasn’t used, but Windfall’s ability to refuse was compromised by the drug. It also talks about how Damien Wayne was the product of Batman being raped by Talia after being drugged.

It’s possible deep down both Windfall and Batman would have wanted to have sex with the person who drugged them. But just because they might have wanted to have sex does not forgive the act of drugging them so that they would be compliant and not resist. The DC Comics database calls these acts rape.

The important question is does the law call such acts rape? More important, as Gotham City’s in New Jersey, what does the law in New Jersey say about Nocturna did?

Section 2C:14-2 of the New Jersey statutes says it’s a felony of the first degree if a person has sexual penetration – trust me, the definition of sexual penetration in NJS 2C:14-1 includes the types of sexual acts that occur between lesbians – when “The victim is one whom the actor knew… was … mentally incapacitated, or had a mental … defect which rendered the victim temporarily or permanently incapable of understanding the nature of his conduct, including, but not limited to, being incapable of providing consent.” The statute clearly applies to Windfall or Batman being drugged so that they could not give consent. Does it also apply to what Nocturna did?

Nocturna hypnotized Batwoman to make Batwoman willing to have sex with her. Yes, deep down Batwoman might have been attracted to Nocturna and wanted to have sex with her, but that doesn’t mean that her having sex with Nocturna was consensual.

Let’s look at a hypothetical. A married woman is attracted to one of her neighbors and wants to have sex with him. But, she doesn’t. It would betray her husband. It would violate her wedding vows. Then the neighbor roofies her and lowers her inhibitions, so that she gives in to the desires she had successfully suppressed and has sex with him. That act would fall squarely under the New Jersey statute, because the neighbor knew the woman was temporarily incapacitated by drugs and incapable of giving meaningful consent.

Batwoman’s situation is no different. Even if she was attracted to Nocturna and deep down might have wanted to have sex with Nocturna, the reason she did have sex was because Nocturna’s hypnosis nudged her into agreeing. Batwoman was under the influence of a roofie-like hypnosis which affected her ability to give Nocturna any meaningful consent.

Nocturna did violate that New Jersey statute.

But she didn’t rape Batwoman.

However, the only reason Nocturna didn’t rape Batwoman was because New Jersey calls that crime aggravated sexual assault, not rape. So Nocturna didn’t rape Batwoman, she aggravated sexual assaulted Batwoman.

But, other than that – a difference in nomenclature – she totally raped Batwoman.

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #341: COMMISSIONER GORDON WON’T BAIL ON US

batmaneternal2featuredimageI’ll let you in on a little secret: Batman Eternal isn’t. Eternal, that is. It won’t go on forever. Sometimes it just seems like it will.

Of course, if it did last an eternity and it continued to do things like the bail hearing found in Batman Eternal # 4, that wouldn’t be bad for me. It would mean an eternity of column material.

So, in Batman Eternal # 4, Commissioner Gordon appeared before a judge in a bail hearing after being charged with 162 counts of manslaughter. If you’re wondering how or why, you can find the answer in Batman Eternal # 1. Or you can read last week’s column, where I discussed exactly that. But don’t look here, because I’m not chewing that cud twice. Why not? Be cuds, that’s why.

The judge denied Gordon bail with the following reasoning, “All this destruction. All this death. This is your fault, James Gordon. Because of your negligence. One hundred sixty-two dead. Billions in damage. Critical Gotham infrastructure destroyed. And a major disruption to the lives of every citizen in Gotham. … I’m sorry … but the prosecution is correct that you are a flight risk. You’ve a longstanding willingness to align yourself with Gotham’s vigilante elements, so I’m afraid I have no choice. Your request for bail is denied. And you will be held in Blackgate Prison until your trial for manslaughter.”

A judge in a bail hearing wouldn’t say those things. Oh, he might say the “Your request for bail is denied,” part. He wouldn’t say the, “This is your fault,” part. Between newspapers, TV, blogs, and even live tweeting, other people, meaning probably all of Gotham City, would know that this judge – a respected person who the laity look up to as an expert on the law – said Gordon was guilty. Good luck finding an impartial jury after that little tirade.

As for bail, remember, I only said the judge might deny bail. Might being the key, and even italicized, word. I think it’s unlikely that the judge would deny Commissioner Gordon bail. Okay, more likely than a judge expressing his opinion that the defendant was guilty, but still not likely.

Bail is a pledge of money or property the defendant makes as a surety that he will return for trial if the court releases him before trial. The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution says all criminal defendants have a right to bail that is not excessive. And, while the Eighth Amendment doesn’t expressly grant a right to bail, Rule 7:4-1 of the New Jersey rules of court specifically does grant all defendants a right to bail.

The judge denied bail because he deemed Gordon was a flight risk. The factors which a judge is supposed to consider in order to determine whether a defendant is a flight risk are such things as the length of possible sentences, the strength of the evidence, the defendant’s family and community ties, the defendant’s financial resources, the defendant’s character, and the opportunity to flee.

I admit, the “strength of the evidence,” and “length of sentence” factors do weigh against Gordon. The evidence in against Gordon appeared to be strong. It probably will continue looking strong until Batman Eternal # 48 or so, when Batman finally stops treading water and starts investigating the case in earnest.

The maximum sentence for aggravated manslaughter in New Jersey is 30 years. If Gordon were convicted on all 162 counts and the judge imposed maximum, consecutive sentences on each count, that would be 4,860 years. Even I, who’s acting as devil’s advocate for Jim Gordon, admit that is more than just a little bit lengthy.

But while these facts alone might make Gordon seem a flight risk, those aren’t the only factors the judge should have considered. What about the other factors a judge is supposed to consider? What about, say family and community ties. Gordon has plenty.

Commissioner Gordon had a distinguished career in public service during which he rose from the rank of sargent to commissioner. In less than five years, if I read the revised continuity of the New 52 correctly. He has a daughter in Gotham City. He has many friends in Gotham City, including one of the leading citizens of the city, Bruce Wayne. In other words, Gordon has lots of family and community ties to the community. This factor weighs heavily against ruling Gordon a flight risk.

How about financial resources? Gordon doesn’t have a lot. He was a cop. An honest cop – one of the few honest cops in Gotham City, it seems. Cops don’t earn a lot of money. Honest cops earn even less. Okay, commissioners earn more than beat cops, but still, Gordon wouldn’t be rich. Certainly not rich enough that he could set up a new life for himself in, say Belize, were he to skip bail and flee Gotham.

Yes, Gordon does have rich friends, including one of the leading citizens – and the richest  citizen – in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne. Wayne could set up a new identity for Gordon, if Gordon choose to flee. And if Wayne decided to subvert the law in this way. But what evidence could the  the state introduce to prove that Bruce Wayne was likely to fund any plan Gordon had for fleeing the jurisdiction? Probably even less evidence than it could introduce to prove that Gordon planned to flee the jurisdiction. And it didn’t have any evidence that he was going to flee.

Defendant’s character. Remember what I said about Gordon being one of the few honest cops in Gotham? Kinda goes to his character, doesn’t it?

The only evidence that the state really had to prove that Gordon had a bad character is that he worked hand-in-hand with known vigilantes. This was the only reason the judge cited when he denied bail. But just because a man works with vigilantes, particularly vigilantes who are actually quite effective in bringing the criminal element to justice, doesn’t make him a person of bad character. Moreover, working with actual justice-helping vigilantes would dictate that a person was of a law-abiding character, not a bail-jumping character.

After weighing the factors in Gordon’s case, I don’t think there was enough evidence to justify denying Gordon his right to bail. To be sure, the judge could have set the bail very high. But I still think the judge would have granted bail.

So why didn’t the judge grant Gordon bail? I have a theory.

Remember what I said earlier about Gordon being one of the few honest cops in Gotham City? Same is true of its politicians. Mayor Sebastian Hady? Corrupt. Former police commissioner Gillian Loeb? Corrupt. The commissioners between Loeb and Gordon? Corrupt. Tammany Hall? Historically corrupt. But it’s historical corruption is only a fraction of the corruption that is shown every time a politician appears in a Batman story. So it wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude the judge in Gordon’s hearing? Corrupt.

Now someone is orchestrating this massive 52-issue plan to frame Commissioner Gordon. Is it so hard to believe that the judge would be adverse to accepting a little something, something from that “someone?” Or that the trial judge accepted a little more something, something to order that Gordon serve his time waiting trial in Blackgate Prison instead of the county jail, where most pre-trial detainees are held? I don’t think so.

Were this England, instead of Gotham City, you could say denying Gordon bail was a case of quids pro quo. It being Gotham City, I think it’s more a case of status quo.

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: THE LAW IS A ASS #340: THE ETERNAL LIGHTNESS OF BEING BATMAN

1396880800000-BMETRI-Cv1-1-50-varThere are, among people of a particularly black-humored and waggish bent, jokes that you can’t have manslaughter without mans laughter. Well, I’m not laughing. Not only does manslaughter entail the unlawful killing of another human being – something which is not inherently humorous – but manslaughter is also how the long, arduous Bataan Death March that is Batman Eternal started. And there ain’t anything inherently humorous about that either.

Batman Eternal started with Commissioner Jim Gordon chasing fleeing felon Derek Grady into a subway station. The chase ended on the subway tracks, while two subway trains were approaching the station on the same track, from opposite directions. Grady was standing in front of a transformer box and Gordon saw a gun in his hand. So Gordon shot at Grady’s gun, intending the classic Lone Ranger disarm.

(If your only experience with the Lone Ranger is the Johnny Depp movie, I pity you. The real Lone Ranger was more competent than the oaf in that movie. He never took a life. He shot the guns out of the bad guys’ hands. He was that good. Oh yeah, and his horse couldn’t climb trees, either.)

We’ll never know whether Commissioner Gordon was as good a shot as the Lone Ranger. He didn’t shoot the gun out of Grady’s hand, because Grady didn’t actually have a gun. Gordon had been tricked into thinking he saw a gun. Gordon’s bullet passed through the nonexistent gun and hit the transformer box behind Grady. The box exploded. Then the switching mechanism for the tracks didn’t activate. Neither of the two trains switched to a new track. They collided head on causing one hundred sixty-two civilian deaths. Jim Gordon was arrested on one hundred sixty-two counts of manslaughter. One hundred sixty-two counts, one arrest. It would have been silly to arrest him one hundred sixty-two times. And a waste of fingerprint ink.

Like I said, not a laughing matter. Except, you know, I’m still going to make more jokes in this column, because, you know, it’s what I do and I’m, you know, a hypocrite. But I’m also a pretty good criminal defense attorney. And even though I haven’t practiced in years, I can still be a pretty good pretend attorney for fictional characters.

For example, I know it’s not enough that the state of New Jersey charged Jim with one hundred sixty-two counts of manslaughter. What’s important is that, like bubble gum on the underside of a desk, the charges have to stick. The one hundred sixty-two manslaughter charges against Jim? They’d stick worse than an unlicked postage stamp.

New Jersey Statute 2C:11-4 two kinds of manslaughter, aggravated manslaughter and simple manslaughter. (Okay, there’s also vehicular manslaughter, but Gordon was on foot, so fergedaboudit!) Further complicating matters – because people who write penal codes are never satisfied until they can complicate matters by creating multiple ways for every crime to be committed – each type of manslaughter has two variants. A person is guilty of aggravated manslaughter if he either causes a death under circumstances while manifesting extreme indifference to human life or causes a death while attempting to elude a law enforcement officer. A person commits simple manslaughter when he either recklessly causes the death of another or causes the death of another while in the heat of passion resulting from reasonable provocation. Fortunately for our purposes, just like vehicular manslaughter, two of those four manslaughters are off the table.

James Gordon didn’t cause anybody’s death while eluding the police. He was the police and Grady was eluding him. Only the eluder can commit manslaughter, not the eludee. (I’ve always wanted to make one of those inane “er”/“ee” comments, One more thing off my bucket list. Moving on to my next item. You wouldn’t happen to know where I can get a gallon of chipotle mayo and yak’s milk, would you?)

Gordon also didn’t cause anyone’s reasonable provocation. While a fleeing felon not surrendering his gun might constitute reasonable provocation, that’s not the case here. Gordon thought he saw a gun, but every witness, including Batman, said Grady didn’t have a gun. Even I, the omniscient narrator, tell you, Grady didn’t have a gun. (Why Gordon thought he saw a gun is a long story, but so is Batman Eternal. How Gordon was made to believe Grady had a gun was ultimately revealed in Batman Eternal # 19. As I’m writing about Batman Eternal # 1 and don’t want to write Spoiler Warning this week, I won’t go that story today.) What’s important is that Grady didn’t have a gun. No gun, no provocation. No provocation, no heat of passion. (No Heat of Passion, sounds like the worst Harlequin Romance ever!)

So what about causing a death with extreme indifference to life or causing death recklessly? Like your Christmas centerpiece in January, they’re still on the table.

Gordon said the transformer box behind Grady was shut down and shouldn’t have exploded. He also said the transformer box only controlled the station giving power to the station’s lights and turnstiles. It didn’t control the tracks or their switching boxes. Gordon shot at the gun he thought he saw even though it was right in front of the transformer, because he believed even if he hit the transformer by accident, that would not cause the two subway trains to collide.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Gordon was correct. I say this because if Gordon was wrong, then he was guilty of manslaughter. End of story. End of column. And I still have a few jokes I’ve got to put somewhere.

I also say this because, let’s face it, Gordon was set up. Somebody tampered with the transformer and the tracks. Eventually, Gordon will be cleared and be commissioner again. We all know this, even if Batman Eternal hasn’t told us how he was set up or who did it yet.

Anyway, if Gordon was correct, then he wasn’t guilty of manslaughter. If shooting the transformer by accident wouldn’t have had any effect on the trains, then he didn’t show indifference to life. He honestly believed that if he accidentally shot the transformer, it wouldn’t affect anything.

As for reckless manslaughter, recklessness requires proving the conscious disregard of a substantial risk that a death would result from one’s actions. If shooting the transformer box wouldn’t do anything, then there wasn’t a substantial risk of death from his actions. Not even the Neil Hamilton  Commissioner Gordon from the Batman TV show, who set the standard for police incompetence, could disregard a risk that wasn’t even there.

Even if Gordon acted negligently in shooting the box, that can’t get him convicted of manslaughter. In the eyes of the law, a negligent act, or simple accident, does not rise to the level of a reckless act. In New Jersey, manslaughter has to be reckless not negligent.

The prosecutors might argue Gordon was wrong; the transformer wasn’t shut off and did control the switching mechanisms, so shooting toward it was reckless and showed indifference toward life. It should be pretty easy to prove whether Gordon was correct. Any competent electrician could look at the station’s wiring schematics and determine who was right. (Sure the police in Gotham City are incompetent, but there must be competent electricians in the city. Who do you think wires up all those death traps?)

Might Gordon may be guilty of some crime, say negligent homicide? Maybe. But he was charged with manslaughter and I wanted show that I don’t think the prosecution can make its manslaughter case against Gordon.

Still, even if you haven’t been reading Batman Eternal, you know the prosecutors will make their case against Gordon. Batman Eternal is, after all, a fifty-two issue limited series that’s running every week for an entire year. That’s 1,040 pages worth of story. 1,040 is even more pages than I need to fill out my own 1040 every April 15th. DC has to have something that stretches this story out for 1,040 pages. Having Gordon acquitted of all one hundred sixty-two counts of manslaughter would seem to be counter productive to the product.

Dennis O’Neil: Beautiful Gotham City

BAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW BAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW snifflesob WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW

BAW WAW WAW WAW snurfle WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW WAW

But enough about the election. Let’s go to Gotham City.

Some 25 years ago there was this big hit movie, Batman, directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton, set in the fictitious Gotham City. You knew that, right? What you maybe didn’t know, unless you’re the kind of kid whose mother is forever telling him to go outdoors and get some fresh air, for pity sake, is that we who were charged with producing the comic book versions of Batman very much admired the set design of Anton Furst. Yes – this was Gotham! Ugly and foreboding, its walls high, windows few, designed to keep nature outside, out there, because nature was the enemy, and instead became a maze, a place of gloom, miles of squalor sprawled along the Jersey shoreline, and who knew what kinds of dread lurked in all those shadows?

Maybe we should go to Disneyland instead.

We liked Mr. Furst’s work so much that we asked him to design some Gotham for us, for use in the comics. We couldn’t steal directly from the film, for reasons I’ll probably never understand, but we could put Anton Furst’s sensibility on the page, and so Publisher Jenette Kahn and I asked him to make us some drawings. In time, he did. They still exist. Last time I saw them they were decorating the wall of a DC Comics reception area. Like the movie sets and other renderings of Gotham, the Furst drawings didn’t really show much of the city but they did suggest, or maybe imply, what it would be in its entirety.

In the years that followed, other creators, in both comics and movies, have given us their interpretations of Gotham and it is right and proper that they didn’t remain where we were when we left. What lives, evolves. And I’ve enjoyed my successors’ work; this is not me complaining. But whatever the virtues of these later Gothams, I still preferred Anton Furst’s.

Until the new Gotham came to a television screen near me. This is not the movie city, but our teevee brethren understand that sometimes locations can have the psychological weight of a character – see Holmes’s London, or Philip Marlowe’s Los Angeles, and let’s not forget Middle Earth – and, properly executed, such locations lend not only ambience, but also mood and even a weird kind of credibility to the story; they provide a setting where we can believe that the hero does what he does. They help with that old English class favorite “willing suspension of disbelief.”

Almost certainly video’s Gotham is not produced, as was Mr. Furst’s, on a lot about 30 miles outside London. Actually, I don’t know where it’s done, or how. I’m guessing that what we see is an amalgam of sets and street locations and maybe some of that voodoo hoodoo those folks do with computers and green screens. Whatever they do, those folks, it works.

You want bleak. Check your local Fox channel on Monday nights.

We might not know the meaning of life, but a group of scientists working for NASA came up with a definition for it that’s just seven words long: “Self-sustaining chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”

 

The Law Is A Ass

Bob Ingersoll: The Law Is A Ass #330: BATGIRL FORGIVES HER TRESPASSES

Batgirl_Annual_Vol_4-2_Cover-1_TeaserIt’s a strange power. Almost a mutant ability. Being right for the wrong reason.

Ask anyone who’s played a round of trivia with me, they’ll tell you. I frequently figure out the correct answer by making logical deductions from a known fact. Then, when I give my reasons for my answer, I’m told my “known” fact was incorrect. Still, I came up with the right answer. For the wrong reason.

Oh it’s a thing, all right. It exists. And for proof you have to look no farther than Batgirl Annual v 4 # 2.

In the story, Batgirl and Poison Ivy were investigating a large, fenced-in medical research compound in Kane County somewhere on the mainland just outside of Gotham City. Why they were there isn’t really important to this column. So I’m not going to bother explaining. That way I don’t have to write another spoiler warning.

What does matter to this column is that Batgirl and Poison Ivy cut through the chain link fence and forcibly trespassed in the compound. And what is even more important to this column is that the compound’s security guards came running out brandishing their weapons and warned, “You’re trespassing on private land. We have the legal right to use lethal force.”

Which is wrong. But it’s also right; just for the wrong reason. Oh, let’s see if I can make it easier.

Doe, a deer, a female deer.

Oops, sorry. Wrong simplification. Although maybe I should stick with it. I’m trying to explain self-defense law. And that’s a long, long way to run. See, self-defense has more twists, turns, and convolutions than a mountain road, a plate of spaghetti, and your small intestine. Combined.

When someone attacks you, you have the right to defend yourself and you have the right to use the same amount of force as is being used against you. So, if you’re being attacked with lethal force, you can use lethal force to defend yourself. You can even use a force that’s more potentially lethal than the lethal force being used against you. That’s why, in the words of Sean Connery, you can bring a gun to a knife fight. As long as you have a reasonable fear of imminent death or serious bodily harm, you can use deadly force.

But, and self-defense law has more buts in it than all the port-a-potties at a rock concert, there are exceptions. Biggest? You can’t claim self-defense, if you violated your duty to retreat.

The duty to retreat is not the battle strategy of the Cowardly Lion. Rather, it’s a legal principle that says, before you can claim self-defense, you must be able to show that you tried to avoid the confrontation by retreating. If, for example, you’re in a bar and a drunk tries to pick a fight with you. If you can walk away from the fight without endangering yourself, you must do so. You can’t just stay there, let the fight happen, then claim self-defense. You must first try to retreat from the situation. And you’re not absolved of the duty to retreat because someone called you chicken, so Marty McFly is SOL.

But, and like I said navigating self-defense is like playing a round of but-but golf, there is an exception to the duty to retreat. The Castle doctrine.

The castle doctrine is not: Castle will first come up with some screwball conspiracy theory solution to the murder before he and Beckett figure out who the real murderer is. Rather it says that when you are in your own home, and a man’s home is his castle, there is no duty to retreat. You can use deadly force against trespassers at your home without retreating.

Some jurisdictions even extend the castle doctrine to other places such as one’s car or place of business. So if you’re in your car or place of business, you don’t have to retreat before using self-defense. Other jurisdictions have taken the castle doctrine even farther by passing a stand-your-ground law. Stand-your-ground laws extend the castle doctrine to anywhere. Under stand-your-ground laws, if you are in a place where you have a legal right to be, there is no duty to retreat and you may use deadly force if you believe you face a real and imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death, no matter where you are.

But – remember self-defense law has more buts than the ashtrays outside a Nicotine Anonymous meeting – not even the castle doctrine gives you full and free range to open fire on all trespassers. The castle doctrine – and even stand-your-ground laws – requires that in order to use deadly force, the actor have a reasonable belief that the trespasser intends to inflict serious bodily harm or death on someone, and the actor must not have provoked the intrusion.

So if you’re the neighborhood curmudgeon and you have a “No Solicitors” sign prominently posted on your house, you still can’t use the Castle doctrine to justify shooting the local Girl Scouts. No matter how much you hate Thin Mints.

Now having set the parameters, could the security guards in Kane County assert the castle doctrine against Batgirl and Poison Ivy to justify the use lethal force against the trespassers? The short answer is no.

And as much as I’d like to leave it at the short answer, you know I can’t. Gotham City is in New Jersey. New Jersey does have a castle doctrine on its books – it’s here. But New Jersey’s castle doctrine only applies to one’s house. New Jersey did not extend its castle doctrine to a car or an occupied place of business. The security guards at the medical complex could not rely on the castle doctrine and deadly force did not flow automatically from the fact that Batgirl and Poison Ivy were trespassing on private property.

So the security guards were wrong. But – and I think we’re up to at least But-terfield 10 by now – they were still right. If the security guards honestly believed they faced an immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death, they could use deadly force, just so long as they didn’t violate their duty to retreat.

Did the security guards violate a duty to retreat? No. They were, after all, security guards. They were hired to repel forcible trespasses. The guards wouldn’t be able to do their jobs very well, if every time there was a trespasser, they had to back away to comply with a duty to retreat.

The duty to retreat is suspended for armed security guards. But they still don’t have the right to use deadly force against any trespasser; like some really ambitious Girl Scouts who were trying sell cookies at a remote medical research complex. But they could use deadly force against trespassers whom they feared were about to inflict serious physical harm or death.

These security guards didn’t have Girl Scouts. They had Batgirl, a masked vigilante whose usual modus operandi is to resort to physical force. Hell, during the fight scene Batgirl’s internal dialogue caption even said she was “pretty good at force.” They also had Poison Ivy, a known super villain who was even quicker to use serious physical force, and sometimes even deadly force. I don’t think the security guards would have had much of a problem proving they had a reasonable fear of serious physical harm or death.

So, the guards were right, they did have the legal right to use deadly force against Batgirl and Poison. But for the wrong reason. They couldn’t claim the castle doctrine, but they could invoke standard self-defense.

Gee, armed security guards in Gotham City actually did something right. It’s almost enough to make you start believing that armed, uniformed authority figures in Gotham City are actually good at their jobs.

But only almost. Let’s not get carried away or anything

Michael Keaton’s Birdman Trailer Hatches

BirdmanWell, this sort of came out of nowhere. We must have missed when this wnet into production but here comes Michael Keaton in a brand new superhero film that is set somewhere other than Gotham City.

Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance is a black comedy that tells the story of an actor (Michael Keaton) – famous for portraying an iconic superhero – as he struggles to mount a Broadway play.  In the days leading up to opening night, he battles his ego and attempts to recover his family, his career, and himself.

The Law Is A Ass # 317: Two-Face Makes A Dent In Crime

When lawyers talk about Miranda, we mean the Supreme Court case of Miranda v. Arizona and not a Brazilian movie star famous for her samba singing and fruit-laden hats that were so big they must have caused neck strain. When comic books talk about Miranda, it’s more of a crap shoot. I assume they’re talking about the Supreme Court case, but…

Well let’s put it this way, the banana on Carmen Miranda’s hat probably has more accurate knowledge of Miranda v. Arizona than the average comic book story. Case in point: Batman and Two-Face #27. (Or, maybe that should be court case in point.)

(more…)

‘Gotham’ Gets Series Order on Fox

Exactly a week before Fox is slated to present its schedule to advertisers, the network has given a formal series pickup to Gotham. The project, based on characters from the DC universe, had a series commitment and had been considered a lock for the spot on the 2014-15 schedule. An origin story of the great DC Comics supervillains and vigilantes, Gotham explores the early years of Commissioner James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) as an idealistic rookie detective in Gotham City and the rogues’ gallery of villains that made the city infamous. The pilot for the project, from Warner Bros TV, was written/executive produced by creator Bruno Heller and directed/exec produced by Danny Cannon.

Co-starring alongside McKenzie are Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney, David Mazouz as young Bruce Wayne, Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot, Carmen Bicondova as Selina Kyle, Erin Richards as Barbara Kean, Sean Pertwee as Alfred Pennyworth and Zabryna Guevara as Captain Essen.

via ‘Gotham’ Gets Fox Series Order — Batman Prequel Picked Up.

THE LAW IS A ASS #311: Commissioner Gordon: Threat Or Menace?

All I can conclude is that James Gordon attended police academy with Steve Guttenberg. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for what he did in Detective Comics #25.

Detective Comics #25 is set during Batman: Year Zero which, despite that title means the story takes place during Batman’s first year, not his zeroth year. At this time, James Gordon wasn’t Commissioner of the G.C.P.D. yet, just a recent transfer from Chicago who found himself in a city overrun by mobsters and crooked cops paid to look the other way while the mobsters mobbed. Gordon wanted to take down both the mobsters and the corrupt cops, starting with Roman Sionis, who Gordon suspected was the secret head behind the Black Mask gang. So what Gordon did was…

Oh, wait. SPOILER WARNING! Leaving your milk out will spoil the milk. Reading this column will spoil Detective Comics # 25. If you don’t want either your milk or comic books spoiled, don’t leave your milk out and don’t read this column. (No, wait. Do read it, just finish reading Detective Comics # 25 first.) (more…)

Beware the Batman Season 1 Part 1 Out Next Week

1000x1000_BewareTheBatmanS1BURBANK, CA (February 14, 2014) – The caped crusader continues to conquer Gotham City’s villains with the Blu-ray™ and DVD release of Beware The Batman: Shadows of Gotham, Season 1 Part 1 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment. Batman and his trusted friends Alfred and Katana band together in the series’ first 13 episodes to face the twisted machinations of Gotham City’s criminal underworld.

BtB_345_930_Still05Beware the Batman Season 1 Part 1 is available for the first time on both Blu-ray™ and DVD next Tuesday, February 18, 2014. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment offers a two-disc DVD set ($19.97 SRP), while the single-disc Blu-ray™ is available from Warner Archive Collection for $19.95 via shop.warnerarchive.com and wbshop.com.

BtB_345_931_Still01Batman swings into an exhilarating new age, teaming with a powerful allies old and new for a thrilling new take on the classic Dark Knight franchise in Beware the Batman: Shadows of Gotham, Season 1 Part 1. The new action-packed detective thriller incorporates Batman’s core characters with a rogue’s gallery of criminals as the Caped Crusader faces some of Gotham City’s most despicable villains. Through the show’s first 13 animated adventures of this two-disc collection, ex-secret agent Alfred and lethal swordstress Katana join Batman to takes on an array of evildoers including the likes of Anarky, Professor Pyg, Mister Toad and Magpie. This thrilling series redefines what we have come to know as the “Batman show” and is sure to excite fans with cutting-edge CGI visuals.

“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is delighted to begin this exhilarating animated Batman series with the release of Beware The Batman: Shadows of Gotham, Season 1 Part 1,” Mary Ellen Thomas, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Vice President, Family & Animation and Partner Brands Marketing. “Fans will be excited to see their favorite super hero up against a whole new set of villains from the DC Universe to continue the expansion of the Dark Knight franchise!”

Episodes:

Beware the Batman Season 1 Part 1

  1. Hunted
  2. Secrets
  3. Tests
  4. Safe
  5. Broken
  6. Toxic
  7. Family
  8. Allies
  9. Control
  10. Sacrifice
  11. Instinct
  12. Attraction
  13. Fall

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