An attempt to capture a prank armed robbery for YouTube ended with one of the pranksters dead from a gunshot. Two young men approached a group of people outside a Nashville business holding butcher knives. One of those people, apparently believing that the robbery was real, and not staged, opened fire, killing one of the men involved in the prank.
Obviously, this is a tragedy. It also points out issues of potential homicide, self-defense, and justification. We understand that the person who fired the deadly shot will likely claim self-defense if charged in the case. To date, no charges have been filed. We bring the case up because it raises a number of issues, including some which might apply had the incident occurred in Arizona.
Video Pranks and YouTube Policy
The first thing we should address is the notion that any crazy stunt can be successfully published on YouTube. In fact, the idea that you could post the recording of an armed robbery on YouTube simply won’t fly. YouTube policy prohibits footage of physical attacks, robberies and a host of other acts intended to shock (or to disgust) the viewer. The bottom line is that the prank never really had a chance to go viral and catapult the pranksters into stardom, if in fact that was their intent.
Murder, Justification and Self-Defense in Arizona
In the Tennessee case, thus far no charges have been filed against the man who shot the prankster. If he is charged with homicide (murder, manslaughter, etc.), the charge will almost certainly be met by a claim of self-defense.
Self-defense in Arizona is defined in A.R.S. 13-404A, which says that you are generally justified in using force against another person if, and to the extent that, a reasonable person would think that the force would be necessary to protect against the used of unlawful physical force against the defendant. When deadly physical force is used, the law states that it is justified when necessary under the preceding statute, and if a reasonable person would think that deadly physical force was “immediately necessary” to protect against the other person’s use of deadly physical force. Also, in Arizona, there is no duty to retreat.
Finally, unlike many defenses, where the burden is on the defendant to prove the defense by a preponderance of the evidence, to defeat the defense of justification, where self-defense is the issue, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that justification did not exist.
Again, no charges have been filed as yet in the Tennessee case. Whether this changes may be a function of the possibly of additional facts emerging in the case.
Law Offices of David A. Black
40 North Central Avenue #1850
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(480) 280-8028