Arrow. I warmly welcome all viewers. My guest today is Professor Mariusz Miąsko, a law specialist, lecturer, and author of a book about shooting ranges. Hello and welcome. Good morning. Hello again. Of course, the previous two episodes were typically about shooting ranges, because this is a topic that has been on our minds for quite some time. The professor helped me open my own shooting range, which you probably already know about, but today I would like to talk about something else, something that concerns us all, something that touches us, namely the defense of ourselves in general, the defense of home peace, necessary defense. I don't know if these two issues can be combined, Professor. And that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about today. Yes. I am very glad that you wanted to raise this topic, because there are many misunderstandings and, it seems to me, many distortions in the shooting community. There is also, one might say, a certain judicial dynamic. Interestingly, this applies not only to criminal courts, but also to civil courts, which perhaps few people know about. And it would be good if we mentioned this, but even in the question you asked there is a kind of presupposition that there are only two, I would divide thematic boxes in the scope of necessary defense, i.e. the classic necessary defense, one could say, and quantifiers resulting from such classic necessary defense and the necessary defense in the scope of domestic peace. Meanwhile, there is still a third issue, an area that concerns defense and the conditions of defense necessary in a state of particular threat, agitation and a sense of danger. In fact, each of these areas is regulated slightly differently . Moreover, it is regulated in the same Article 25 of the Penal Code, but in different paragraphs. This fact alone suggests that these are three different events concerning three different approaches and scopes of civil defense, and not just the two mentioned here. It needs to be distinguished, because I understand that since we are, let's say, classically attacked, we already experience this phenomenon of agitation, i.e. great stress, and that is already a factor, right? Well, no, that's not how the penal code sees it. The Penal Code has just separated out what I think criminal lawyers would be offended by now, so please plug your ears with some active headphones, preferably shooter headphones, but since I understand that we are talking and we need to convey information for everyone, not at an academic level, so I will simplify a bit and create some hyperbole, but in connection with the above, I have three types of civil defense. We have such a basic civil defense and I will soon present what elements must be present there. We have defense, sorry, we have self-defense , not civil defense. No, not civil, sorry, ladies and gentlemen. This is due to the fact that I work quite a lot in the field of organizing civil defense, and this is a slip of the tongue, but of course it is about necessary defense, so we have the basic necessary defense, we have the necessary defense of home peace and we have necessary defense in this state of such a particular sense of threat, and today I will try to show the difference between these elements. So let's get started. This is the first issue. necessary defense. Yes, this self-defense I would say, let's call it general self-defense, right? When it comes to necessary defense, three elements must be present for it to be possible to speak of necessary defense at all. Well, it must have a character, an attack on us, an attack on us must be of an illegal nature and then our action, i.e. it is called a counteraction in criminal law. counterattack, because I'll explain, normally we're not allowed to hit someone, not shoot someone, right? Y and as a rule, such an action is sanctioned by the provisions of criminal law, but it is called a contra-type, because it is indeed a case in which such an action, which would typically be prohibited, is in this case permissible and it is permissible if there are such three quantifiers, such three elements. Firstly, if someone attacks us illegally. What does illegal mean? If a police officer, for example, uses direct coercion measures against us and has the authority to do so and does so in accordance with applicable regulations, then he is not doing it illegally. So we are not allowed to attack such a policeman, officer or, for example, a security agent, for example, a qualified security guard, who is also protected in the same way as, for example, a policeman when carrying out his duties. Only, that is, necessary defense is a case in which we are responsible for an illegal action through our own actions , an illegal attack on us by an unauthorized person. This is the first point. Secondly, defense, we talk about necessary defense when this act of attack on us is of a real nature, that is, it is not only verbal, but someone is actually approaching us or has approached us and is attacking us with fists, attacking us with a knife or a firearm or any other object that poses a threat to our health and life. Yes. It can do us real harm, or it already is. Yes. Yes. And and so this one must actually have a real character, right? Real. And it must also be of such a nature that I would say it is real in the sense that there must be a genuine probability that harm will come to us. That means if someone reaches into their pocket and we're not sure if they're going to pull out a gun or if they're going to pull out their keys, we're not allowed to take action and then invoke it, we're not going to invoke a defense necessarily, are we? So we have to make sure that what is happening is actually direct in nature, because someone is attacking us directly, but there is a real threat. Real ones, not keys. True? If it's not a real threat, it's a perceived or perhaps even imaginary threat, and then we can't invoke it. Therefore, there are three elements that must be present for us to effectively invoke the argument that we took action to ensure necessary defense. Second, at least these three elements must be demonstrated. I'll tell you in a moment at what point we must demonstrate it. Let 's say we drew a firearm and fired a shot. And something happens later after we take that shot. We'll move on to these next steps in a moment. What happens in the first 10 minutes or the first minute after we fired a shot, because there are very specific legal conditions that we must meet in the first seconds or minutes after, for example, we fired a shot. It doesn't have to be a shot. Only because we are here referring and talking to the shooting community, I think that everyone imagines it that way. And then there is the first hour in which we have to perform strictly defined activities. And then there is a third stage on the timeline, in which we also have to complete an even longer stage, in which we have to perform strictly defined activities. And these activities have a very clear normative basis in the regulations. So it's not just that we're going to limit today's statement solely to the fact that we're allowed, for example, to draw a gun from a holster and shoot an attacker, right? So what happens next is very important to us. I would even like it to be crucial, because what happens later will determine the assessment of our activities. So we'll explain it in a moment. Perhaps what happens later is even more important than what happens while this attack is being carried out directly against us. So these three quantifiers must occur . First of all, to put it bluntly, it's better to make sure what someone has in their pocket and give them time to get it out of their pocket than to make a decision too quickly. And now, in relation to this general first box, it must be said that there are circumstances in which it will not be allowed to talk about it, it will not be possible to say that necessary defense has occurred . One such example is extensive excess. extensive. This is the situation if we found that someone had attacked us, but had beaten us unsuccessfully, had stabbed us, let's say, in the body, but then turned around and started walking away from us. and then we are not allowed to shoot him, because this is a classic example of extensive excess, i.e. a case in which we were attacked, but because there is no longer that directness, because he has already turned and walked away from us, we are not allowed to shoot him anymore. Or if he had robbed us, or stolen our car, or money, he would have already turned his back on us and walked away. We are not allowed to shoot him, even though he has our property. There is even a relatively recent court ruling in this regard, in which exactly such an event took place: after the robbery, the attacker, probably with the money, was walking away, and the owner of the gun and the money shot him in the back probably five times. And the court convicted him because it said that this was a classic extensive excess, because he, his life and health were no longer in danger at that moment , and at the same time one of the three mandatory quantifiers was not met, i.e. the immediacy. He was no longer in immediate danger because the attacker was walking away from him. It is extremely important that you understand this well. I know that this is a question in the exam, right, about extensive excess, but very often it is like this that you fill in, right, these answers by heart and you don't fully understand what the normative ranges are . We are talking about a weapons exam, if for a sporting weapon, for example, right? What is there among this pool of questions and the scope of law is, among other things, the extensive period, but that is exactly what it comes down to. So there is one more circumstance which says that it does not result directly from the content of Article 25 of the Penal Code, but has been formed by case law. Well, it is not without significance what part of the body we shoot at. In general, you must know that this is a very similar regulation to the Act on qualified physical security workers. It is not the case that a qualified physical security employee can use direct coercive measures , for example, using a baton or hitting any part of the body . There are specific parts of the body that can be hit. These are the ones where the large muscle groups are located . The head is completely disabled, the spine is disabled along its entire length, and the joints are disabled, so even a qualified physical security worker or security agent is prohibited from using blows to certain sectors of the body. On this basis, somewhat by analogy, court rulings have developed, which say that it is not the case that shooting anywhere is allowed. If someone attacks us with fists and it is more of an attack that may suggest that the aim is not to directly take our life, we are not allowed to shoot them in the head, nor are we allowed to shoot them in the chest. Of course, you won't read this from the Penal Code, but rather from case law, from the jurisprudence, right? And there is some logic in it. Well, since a security agent is not allowed to use, to hit certain sectors of the body or certain parts of the body, then he is even more not allowed to shoot at them, right, people whose assessment of the threat to life is such that the aim may be an attack of a robbery nature, but not necessarily a direct, direct purpose of depriving life. The situation is different. as indicated by case law. If someone had already stabbed us or was in a situation where it was obvious they wanted to attack us directly with a knife, I don't know, in the throat, then of course we could defend ourselves. It is not by accident that I am mentioning this, because I will soon provide certain rulings again, which and a certain procedure that we must complete immediately, because after such an unlawful attack on us. The second area we mentioned is the violation of domestic privacy. And this is a little different. This is the amended Article 25, paragraph 2a of the Penal Code. It was wisely amended a few years ago and it says that as part of the protection of home peace, especially in certain conditions, if it is dark, if there is no electricity, because someone, for example, steals something, they steal it and cut off the electricity to the mass. then we are allowed a little more, we have to think a little less about how we behave. But I don't want to say what we're aiming at, because that might not sound entirely elegant, but the courts actually say this: "If someone entered your house, your apartment, you don't have to wonder why they entered and you don't have to see what exactly they have in their hand. Because when it 's dark, at night, we're stressed, we're awake, there's a stranger behaving aggressively, brutally aggressively, then I don't have to wonder if they have a knife at that moment . And that's why this home peace, the protection of home peace, is such an exception, you could say. It doesn't have to be a house, because remember that it can be a farm, ours, our space that we own. Yes, it doesn't have to be a house at all. And here too there's an exception, meaning we don't have to know exactly what this person has. Because life experience has shown that by the time I consider in the dark whether he has a gun and will shoot me, he will shoot me, it will be too late. It is The third one, you could say, is 25, paragraph three, the third thematic box is a state in which we have special circumstances in which we feel particularly threatened. Then we don't have to think too deeply about the details of what the attacker has in his arsenal. This third case is most often realized by simply appointing an expert and the court determining whether the person who deprived the attacker of health or life could actually have been in such a state of stress or a sense of danger and threat that, while they may have exceeded the limits of, uh, necessary defense, they also could not control their actions, and then the court most often refrains from imposing a penalty. They refrain from imposing a penalty. Either the prosecutor dismisses the order or the court refrains from imposing a penalty. They claim that this condition of the counter-type was violated, but at the same time they refrain from imposing a penalty due to this third parameter of this special stress, right? A special sense of special threat. So there are three boxes. But okay, now we have a situation where it's less You're more likely to have a sense of what this, this, this, this quantifiers must be met for us to even talk about necessary defense. But okay, we fired a shot or hit someone with a knife, a baton, whatever, and what next? And he's lying there, incapacitated. We're not allowed to finish him off. I apologize for the term "finish him off," but it clearly illustrates what we're not allowed to do, because then automatically, even if the defense , the limits of defense, weren't necessarily exceeded during the defense, if we were to finish him off out of revenge, unfortunately, a separate crime would automatically be committed . It's true that the conditions of necessary defense were met, but the very fact of beating is, uh, inconsistent with a number of other regulations. And now , what are our obligations? We see that we've incapacitated someone, regardless of whether it was with a firearm or any other weapon, and we see that they're lying there. What are our obligations? Because from the moment we incapacitated them, we're solely burdened by obligations. The first obligation, the first in line, regulates this identically. The Act on Qualified Personal Protection Personnel. The first is to provide assistance, meaning we must check his condition. However harsh it may sound, however unrealistic this requirement may seem, that someone who has just attacked us and we have just shot him because he wanted to harm us, or we have shot him, we must oblige him, immediately provide assistance. I'll explain why this is so incredibly important, so that you remember this. We must check to see if he has bled to death. We must not allow him to bleed to death . If he is bleeding out, we have an obligation to take measures to stop the bleeding. I'm not saying a tourniquet, because whoever has a tourniquet in their home has one, but any measures to protect his life. If we see him choking, we have an obligation to place him in a safe lateral position so that he does n't choke, and so on, and so forth, and so forth. The next obligation is to call 112, or 997, or 112, and inform the police. The next duty, the third one, is before the police arrive, but at a reasonable moment for our safety, unload the weapon, put the weapon down, preferably with the bolt engaged, put the weapon down with the bolt open, and receive the police unarmed, preferably showing your hands. This is very important because there is a strictly defined procedure, which I'll explain in a moment, on the police side. After reporting a gunshot wound to 112, the police will by no means treat us as a victim. Without an automatic weapon, we enter the procedure for an incident involving a firearm. I'll explain in a moment what happens next. So we must demonstrate that we are unarmed. And these are our three duties. First, provide first aid, make a phone call , unload the weapon, and move to a safe place. These are the three elements, and demonstrate that we are unarmed. Even though we are under stress, we must remember this. You will soon understand why this is so crucial. If we don't remember these three conditions, the subsequent proceedings could take three months, or even three years. That's the difference if we make certain mistakes here. Second, The first element is that the police arrive, and that's the first set of actions. The second set of actions is that the police arrive, and the one-hour rule is key. The police, so you won't be surprised, won't treat you as a victim. They will treat you unless you are qualified security personnel. In that case, they will indeed, by law, treat you as their partner in every other case. I treat you as someone who simply shot another person. The role of the police at this stage, as bizarre as it may sound, is not to establish the truth, but to provide security. And the police will most likely perform the following actions. First, they will most likely handcuff you. Not because they have any complaints or personal animosities, but that's what procedure dictates. There was an incident involving the use of a firearm, of which one person was shot or dead. Therefore, we should not delve into what happened, because just because someone called the police and said someone attacked me, that's not how the incident had to unfold. For safety's sake, the police must separate the person from the others. A gun, and then the person who is alive, who shot the other person, without assessing whether they are right or wrong , should be separated, even for their safety, to a place that doesn't pose a threat, because after all, they will probably handcuff you, right? So from the police's perspective, it seems natural that yes, it is natural, it is for some kind of security. Well, they come, imagine, you come to intervene. And how are you supposed to know who is right? Because someone there said that one of them is lying there, one is walking. How do you know what happened, who is who, right? Or maybe they both had something behind their ears, but you don't know. Well, we'll see. And now, this is happening within this first hour. What happens next within this first hour? Within this first hour, the police will conduct a very preliminary interview. A very preliminary interview they will want to do with you. What happened, and I'll tell you right away: if you can, it's best to do two things, as much as the stress conditions allow, of course, but two things. Number one, say like this: "I was attacked by this individual here, I defended myself, and that's basically all I can remember, because I could expand on that , but I was attacked and I defended myself . This is incredibly important because these officers will later testify as de facto witnesses, but they will also record it. It's very important not to say under stress that, for example, I just shot him, right? Because later this evidence will be interpreted differently. can be interpreted differently. So this is the second, this is the second element. Um, so we come and say, um, no, I was attacked, um, I shot at this attacker defending myself or defending my home, but the truth clearly indicates the intentions. And the second, second element, the police will want to do some kind of interview with us . And at this point, in my opinion, this is my suggestion, you should refuse to provide any further explanations, or alternatively ask for the participation of a lawyer, necessarily a criminal lawyer. It is very important that a civil servant or an administrative specialist or a labor law specialist or any other person does not come. This is unimaginably important because criminal law has its own institutions. Individual words in criminal law have different meanings than the same words in another branch of law. So we're not calling just any criminal lawyer, just any lawyer, just a criminal lawyer. But unless we see a criminal lawyer around us, we do not provide any information. Why? because every mistake at this stage, every statement that goes too far at this stage can be and in practice is used against us. Remember that after the shooting, to put it colloquially , you will have time distortions and impaired judgment. And even partially forget some of the events that took place as a result of stress. Time disruptions will almost certainly occur, and this means that even if you try to help the police there in good faith, to explain something, you won't even be able to check what exactly you said, but they have to write it down. Save. Save. That would be half the trouble, but now the police come with recording devices and everything you say will be recorded. That's why it 's extremely important what we do in this block in the first 10 minutes immediately after arriving within this hour, because it will influence what will happen in the coming years. If we provide explanations in an incompetent manner, the proceedings against us may last for years . What procedures might these be ? Well, everyone says it well. This could be a criminal proceeding, because it is criminal law, so everyone thinks that it can only apply to criminal proceedings. And that the court will determine whether the scope of this necessary defense has been exceeded or not, and that this is how the case will end. Absolutely not. because let us remember that in parallel, or rather not so much in parallel, but immediately after the end of the criminal proceedings, although they may last in parallel, but as a rule immediately after the end of the criminal proceedings, the family of the person who was shot and suffered damage to their health or died, may pursue claims for compensation or damages from us. And now there is such an exclusion, there is actually an article that says that if someone has attacked the peace of a home, then in such a case the liability for damages or compensation is either limited or excluded. But it really is so. Case law indicates that these amounts awarded in civil proceedings can constitute as much as 10% of average claims for compensation or damages. So, for example, not 200,000 but 20,000, right? or the average such compensation claim or the scope of compensation for health damage does not reach PLN 150,200,000. It doesn't matter whether it 's 150,000 or 15,000. But generally speaking, we must remember that if we make mistakes in those first 10 minutes or those first few minutes when we are obligated to provide first aid and we fail to provide it, it may affect the proceedings, even civil proceedings. Because someone, for example, as a result of injuries sustained, may have more or less permanent consequences, which his family or he himself will later pursue, even though he was the attacker, will pursue in civil court. The exception, as I said, there is an exception here, namely the exception regarding peace, uh, violation of home peace, where you can't violate home peace and then claim damages, but in other groups of this, uh, this necessary defense that we mentioned, that could already be the case. Well, please note that we mentioned that the court may find that there was an excess of necessary defense, this general principle, but because someone acted in a state of particular agitation and a particular sense of danger, it is decided not to impose a penalty. Yes, at the criminal level, there is a waiver of punishment, but this does not change the fact that the general principles of civil defense were violated, which means that compensation or action is due. So it's not such a flat structure as it's often presented on the internet and so simple, I would say, to answer what are the consequences of this exceeding of civil defense, because they are, as you can see here, ladies and gentlemen, very multi-elemental . It all depends on the situation, on how we behave in the given situation. So, to repeat, first of all you have to remember that there are these three quantifiers of necessary defense. Then there's the first minute. Someone is disabled, you must help this person. Then you call 112, then you unload your weapons. You go to the police with clean hands, so to speak, so as not to carry a weapon, Lord God, because you can become a victim of police action. Then, um, you should expect that within that first hour you'll be, you might be handcuffed. To be expected. You can't be surprised by that, right? Later, you may be questioned initially, and I would suggest not to answer anything and only then will the proceedings be continued, or the prosecutor's office will discontinue them, or the court will make one or another decision. and then one can theoretically expect civil proceedings. Yes, this is very, very valuable knowledge, especially now in these times when we know the situation, both that and our, uh, war is beyond our borders, and also the situation, let's not hide it, illegal immigration, which can also affect the fact that crime in Poland will only increase. also the question of how the war will unfold and what will happen when the war ends and what will happen afterwards. So we are vulnerable, we are simply vulnerable and it is worth knowing our rights and how we should behave. So thank you very much for this episode. I think viewers will draw the right conclusions from this and we will know how to behave in a dangerous situation and immediately after it. Thank you once again, Professor, for your kind words and for the studio visit and stay tuned for the next episode.