Prosecutors Could Face Major Problems Treating Old Videos As Provocation Evidence | ChudTheBuilder

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Must provocation be personal and individual and time-limited? I can see the state trying to stretch the meaning.

[00:00:05]Yeah, I can see the state trying to stretch the meaning, too. I mean, the prosecutors will stretch everything to the breaking point to try to make their case. The counter argument would be exactly the kind of parameters you're focusing on here. Um for anything to qualify as something sufficient to have unlawfully provoked an attack on you, I would argue that And then and and and we get some of this from the from fighting words, which doesn't really the the concept the doctrine of fighting words, which doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the provoked force is lawful.

[00:00:34]It's not lawful. Fighting words only has to do with if you say certain words that could be characterized as fighting words, can the state make that a crime?

[00:00:41]That you said those words. Can the state criminally prosecute you for saying those words?

[00:00:46]Uh that's what fighting words mean. It's got nothing to do with whether or not the violence that results, that's provoked is is justified. It's not It's not justified. No one's arguing that provoked violence is justified.

[00:00:58]Uh but for purposes of provocation, words that lose you self-defense, yeah, I would argue that it it has to be intentional on your part, meaning it's focused. It's targeted. It's personal. It's individual. It It's happening right now.

[00:01:12]There's not some cooling-off period.

[00:01:15]It's not a past insult, a person you know, from days ago, the person still mad about or something that was said on social media, and then they meet in person. It's much akin to how how voluntary manslaughter works, right? You kill someone unlawfully intentionally, normally that would be murder, but if it's done in the heat of passion, again, we have the word provocation. If there was adequate provocation, if it occurs in the midst of a fistfight or the classic law school model is a guy comes home, finds his wife in bed with somebody else. Um if the killing intentional killing, unlawful intentional killing, is done in the heat of passion, we we we simply, as a matter of policy, say, "Well, we're going to treat that differently than a cold-blooded killing.

[00:01:58]Uh a hot-blooded killing, we're going to mitigate what would have been murder down to manslaughter. It It's the same kind of dynamic here.

[00:02:05]So, really what we're saying is your your provocation has to be the kind of adequate provocation that a reasonable person would understand could provoke a an immediate violent response, which involves all the factors you're describing here.