Tagged: New Jersey

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 #343: COMMISSIONER GORDON CAN’T DO THE TIME, IF HE DIDN’T DO THE CRIME

500px-Batman_Eternal_Vol_1-13_Cover-1_TeaserIf you thought things looked bad in Batman Eternal before, well now they’re even worse. But enough about Batman Eternal, let’s look at where this year-long story has put our friend Commissioner James Gordon of the Gotham City Police Department. It’s not looking too good for him, either.

In Batman Eternal # 21, Commissioner Jim Gordon, who had been tried on 162 counts of manslaughter was found guilty on 123 of them. That must have been soooome interesting trial. The prosecution alleged Gordon negligently discharged his service revolver in a subway station, causing a transformer box to explode. This catastrophe somehow caused two subway trains to collide. The resulting death toll was 162, hence 162 counts of manslaughter. So, based on these facts, how was Gordon convicted on only 123 counts? Shouldn’t he have been guilty of everyone who died in the crash? Not most everybody?

Did 39 people who were on the subway all die of sudden, simultaneous heart attacks just seconds before the crash? Or 28 died from slow-acting poison administered by their wives at breakfast, while 10 of them succumbed to Legionaries’ Disease, and one of them just burst out in spontaneous human combustion? No, there’s nothing wrong with this result, I’m just curious as to what evidence the jury could have heard that made them believe that Gordon was responsible for only 123 of the deaths but not those last 39.

Anyway for some reason not explained in the story, Gordon was convicted of 123 counts of manslaughter. Then, for some reason also not explained in the story, he was promptly sentenced to life in prison in Blackgate Penitentiary.

Now we are in the realm of something legally wrong with the result. Long story short – a term that can’t be applied to Batman Eternal, itself – Gordon really wasn’t sentenced to a life term, because he couldn’t have been.

Under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution – an Amendment which applies both to the federal government and to the individual states by incorporation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment– no government may deprive a person of liberty without due process of law. And even though some people who suffered through six seasons of Snooki and her drinking buddies might want to disavow New Jersey, it is part of the United States. That means the Fifth Amendment fully applied to Jim Gordon’s sentence.

What does the Constitution mean when the Constitution says that a person can’t be deprived of liberty without due process of law? Among other things, it means that a defendant can’t receive a sentence which is not authorized by the sentencing statutes of the jurisdiction in which he or she was convicted. See, e.g., Williams v. New York (1949) 337 U.S. 241.

(Wow, it’s been a few years since I’ve used the old “See, e.g.,” in a sentence. Nice to know the muscles haven’t atrophied.)

Boiled down to its essence, if a state trial court imposes a sentence which is greater than the sentence that jurisdiction’s sentencing statutes authorize, that sentence is void. Boiling the essence down to its essence, if a defendant is convicted of theft and the statutes authorize a maximum sentence of only one year for theft, then the defendant can’t be sentenced to two years. Not even if the defendant stole candy from a baby and the judge thought a longer sentence was more appropriate. The harsher sentence was not authorized by the law and due process says only the sentences authorized by law can be imposed.

In the same way, if a person is convicted of manslaughter in New Jersey and the New Jersey statutes don’t authorize a life sentence for manslaughter, then imposing a life sentence is unconstitutional and the sentence is void. Doesn’t matter that the defendant’s manslaughter was magnified by a factor of 123, the judge can’t up the sentence to something not found in the law, just because the crimes were particularly heinous. (Which means, unfortunately, no matter how much we may think they deserve it, the producers of Jersey Shore can’t get the death penalty.)

New Jersey Statute 2C:11-4 defines manslaughter. It, in fact, defines two kinds of manslaughter. They are aggravated manslaughter, a felony of the first degree, and manslaughter, a felony of the second degree. If you surmise that felonies of the first degree carry harsher sentences than felonies of the second degree, you are correct. Congratulations on your astuteness. If you happened to make this surmise based on what your learned after years of reading “The Law Is a Ass,” then congratulations on your good taste and thanks for paying attention.

Batman Eternal never actually mentioned whether Gordon was charged with manslaughter or aggravated manslaughter. For the purpose of this little treatise, I’ll assume he was charged with the worst form of manslaughter: aggravated manslaughter under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to human life. Why? Because that’s the version of manslaughter that has the longest sentence. If any version of manslaughter was going to carry a life sentence, that would be the one.

Buuut, it doesn’t. The same statute that defined aggravated manslaughter also set the maximum sentence for aggravated manslaughter. Set it at 30 years.

That’s 30 years; not life.

Last time I looked – in fact every time I looked – a life sentence was longer than 30 years. Gordon’s life sentence exceeds the statutory maximum sentence for a manslaughter conviction in New Jersey. Which means the life sentence imposed on Gordon was illegal. And unconstitutional.

Sure, the judge could have imposed a maximum sentence of 30 years on each of the 123 counts of manslaughter and ordered Gordon serve them consecutively; that is one after the other, after the other, and so on until you reach 123 of them. Quick math – okay, quick use of the calculator app on my computer – reveals that maximum, consecutive sentences in Gordon’s case yields a sentence of 3,690 years. But that’s still not life.

Yes, 3,690 years is the functional equivalent of a life sentence. In fact it’s closer to the functional equivalent of a life sentence with a few extra zeros added to the back end just to seal the deal. Not to mention seal away the defendant for a good long while. But 123 sentences of 30 years maxed and stacked, is still shorter than a single life sentence. The life sentence was illegal.

Which is why I say Gordon couldn’t have been sentenced to a life term. Because he couldn’t.

Would it have been that difficult for someone to have checked what sentences would be possible for Gordon’s manslaughter convictions? I wasted a whole ten seconds writing a simple and rather unimaginative Google search on “New Jersey manslaughter sentences” which produced a whole page of links almost any of which revealed the answer. With that information, the writers could have given Gordon an actual and legal sentence not whatever sounded the worst.

For that matter, does life actually sound worse than 3,690 years? I don’t think so. After all, 3690 years, much like Batman Eternal, is actually longer than life.

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.

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