Double Standard
I consider myself neither exceptionally brave nor a paragon of chivalry, but if I was a state supreme court justice and an angry sister justice rushed up to me and got in my face, I don’t think I’d “reflexively” put my hands around her neck, as Justice David Prosser of the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently did. I think I’d have the presence of mind and the dignity to wait until she actually did something like smack me in the face before I tried to choke her.
On the other hand, if I was standing in my own backyard and a man I knew to be a serious violent felon suddenly showed up in my backyard with a pistol in his hand and angrily charged up to within “close range” of me, and if I happened to also have a pistol in my hand because a few minutes earlier the serious violent felon’s son had been angrily waving his own pistol around and had tried to physically force his way into my garage to get at an associate of mine whom the serious violent felon and his son were looking for, and was still standing vigil outside my garage (wherein I had ensconced my young son to keep him safe from the chaos and threatened violence occurring in my backyard) when his father showed up, I think my “reflexes” would be quite different. I don’t think I’d have the same presence of mind I’d have if only faced with an angry but unarmed lady justice. I don’t think I’d have the “presence of mind” to just stand there and wait and see if I was going to be shot at point-blank range in the next split second.
Apparently, all of the Justices on the Indiana Supreme Court think they would. They apparently think they’d dial 911 during the 3 or so seconds it took the serious violent felon to march up to within point-blank range of them after first appearing in their backyard and tell the operator to send the police over right away because two armed and dangerous men are on their property. They apparently are not afraid in their judicial wisdom to declare that a person who reacted differently to that situation deserves to spend 45 years in prison.
Personally, I think they’d react more like Justice Prosser.
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