The large size of the threat 'justifies' the beating: it is self-defence

No to the conviction for negligent excess of self-defence, but the mitigating circumstance of legitimate defence must be recognised for the motorist who enacted a beating with a knuckle-puller when he felt threatened by the large size of his 'adversary'. The Supreme Court thus upheld the defendant's appeal against the Court of Appeal's decision to convict him of culpable excess of legitimate defence and threat. The story is in line with the harsh law of the road.

The complainant had reacted with a 'f*** you, you don't know who I am, I'll kill you, I'll catch you and I'll change your features' to the offended party's complaints about his driving. The next step was to stop the car in an adjacent street, where he was joined by the victim. The beating had been triggered after the threatened driver had opened the door of the defendant's car, in a sudden move, as if to hit him. For the assaulted man there was a prognosis of 35 days due to injuries caused by apunching improvised with a bunch of keys and a kick to the chest. At the basis of the territorial court's verdict was the large size of the beaten interlocutor, which, combined with his sudden and aggressive attitude, had "in some way rendered excusable the exceeding of the proportion between offence and defence", so that the violent reaction of the plaintiff was framed as culpable excess of self-defence. The Supreme Court, however, went further, overruling even the opinion of the public prosecutor's office, which had asked for the appeal to be dismissed: it annulled the conviction on remand, finding that the defendant's behaviour constituted legitimate defence.

The judges of legitimacy recognise a decisive weight to the strength of the offended person. The Supreme Court recalls, first of all, the difference between negligent self-defence and self-defence. The former occurs when the disproportion between offence and defence is the result of an inexcusable error of perception, whereas there is self-defence when the error is excusable. The Court of Cassation recalls the case of the conviction of a man who was found guilty of culpable excess for hitting his attacker with a machete, also in the head, who had punched him. In the case examined, "the imposing size of the offended person" and his sudden and aggressive behaviour should "lead to the affirmation," the ruling reads, "of the existence of thejustification cause of self-defence and not of culpable excess, which, by its nature, presupposes the existence of a fault that takes the form of an inexcusable error.

And so the myth of the 'gentle giant' is dismissed.