Walk It Through: The Fight Outside The Bar
A drink on the sidewalk, a shove, a knife on a belt, and an officer arriving.
At closing, a group spills onto the sidewalk with drinks still in hand.
Two things a person in this spot might do. Picking one shows what the law says about it.
One night outside a bar. Serious injuries, a felony assault charge, a civil suit by the stranger and the bar's own liability are not worked through here.
A practice walkthrough, not a prediction of how any real one will go. Legal information, not legal advice.
Words this turns on
Terms with a legal meaning that is narrower than the everyday one. Each links to the definition and the authority behind it.
- ConcealedCarried so that another person in the ordinary course of events would not be put on notice of the weapon.
- Deadly weaponAn instrument designed or readily adaptable to be used as a weapon, including a knife with a sharp-edged or sharp-pointed blade capable of inflicting cutting, stabbing or tearing wounds.
- Duty to retreatAn obligation to withdraw before using force. A lawful occupant of a home, and a person attacked anywhere they have a legal right to be, has no duty to retreat before using reasonable and proportionate force.
- Factory-built homeA home built in sections and placed on a rented site. A single section home's lot may not be terminated except for good cause until twelve months after it is placed, and a multi-section home's until five years.
- Place of public accommodationsA place open to the public, whose owner, manager or employee may not refuse anyone its services because of race, religion, sex, age, blindness or disability.
- Public placeAny place, building or conveyance the public may access, including any highway, street, lane or park, but not premises licensed to serve alcohol for drinking there.
- Request to desistAn officer's request that a person stop disturbing the peace. Disorderly conduct requires that the person persist after it.