The treatment for one illness may be fatally contradicted for another. So it is in medicine, and so in can be in law, specifically self-defense law. A classic example is the advice, \u201cSay nothing to police except \u2018I want to call a lawyer!\u2019 after you\u2019ve shot a criminal in self-defense.\u201d Not talking to police is great advice for criminals, but not the best for those who have just been required by circumstances not of their own making to use force in defense of themselves or another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a young instructor I shared the advice of attorneys and even judges to not talk to police\u2026until I became an expert witness in the late 1970s and saw how poorly that advice served those who had had to pull the trigger in legitimate defense of self or other innocent parties. In the early \u201880s I came up with the five-point checklist that I\u2019ve shared with students and readers since.<\/p>\n\n\n\n