Got a question for you folks as I cannot find any definitive answers regarding using grappling arts like BJJ for unarmed self defense in Hawaii.

The Deadly force clauses seem to focus on firearms but nothing that addresses using grappling arts in such an encounter. I'm talking about tackling an unruly assailant that has come to blows and using a pin to keep them on the ground and neutralized. I'm good at armbars and I'm confident I could rip somebody's knee right off, but even I wouldn't rely on those movements. Then there's the question of using chokeholds (both airway and blood circulation), to my understanding there was the case with the visiting marines at a hotel where one of them used a chokehold, killed the man, and they got the book thrown at them. So are chokeholds not safe to use as a private citizen in blue Hawaii, even if the use was justified?

So far, I'm guessing mounting and controlling the assailant may be my only option here if that's the case. I've watched enough videos and have done mma style rounds where I would "knife roll" with a few of my partners from BJJ class to have an awareness of weapon retention, I will keep practicing those. If outnumbered BJJ wouldn't be my first move. So any BJJ practitioners from these forums care to shed some blue Hawaii wisdom regarding using your skills outside the mats in an altercation?

Is a choke hold a reasonable level of force against a non-lethal threat?

Tough question, since people die every year from "fists and feet."

Use a reasonable amount of force commensurate with the threat.

Nothing says it has to be equal force -- just don't escalate above a "reasonable" level.

If you have a taser, most would consider that above any hands-on response.  And, since it's considered "less than lethal," most reasonable people would have no problem with you using that against someone using their fists.

i don't think there's a formula other than the force continuum used by law enforcement. 

The more EDC items you have (pepper spray, pocket knife, firearm, ...) the more options you have.  if you want to use hand-to-hand combat and are confident you can dominate the threat, that's your call.  But a choke hold is illegal for cops to use, so that's probably a good legal baseline to consider.

i'm too young to die and too old to take an ass whooping.  i'm using whatever I can get my hands on!!

The HRS defines “deadly force” as “force which the actor uses with the intent of causing or which the actor knows to create a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm.”  It doesn’t explicitly define “serious bodily harm,” but I think that generally includes loss of eyesight, permanent loss of function of a limb, and permanent disfigurement, possibly among other things.

Do you believe that a choke hold “create(s) a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm”?

I think an argument could be made in court that because you asked the question here, you DO think a chokehold creates a substantial risk, but it would be up to the jury to decide.

I think if you could prove that you were trained in the proper application of chokeholds, the difference between a blood choke and an air choke, how long you can hold a blood choke without causing permanent damage, etc. you might be able to successfully argue that you were justified in using a chokehold in response to a non-deadly force threat.  Better have a shit hot lawyer, though.

The HRS defines “deadly force” as “force which the actor uses with the intent of causing or which the actor knows to create a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm.”  It doesn’t explicitly define “serious bodily harm,” but I think that generally includes loss of eyesight, permanent loss of function of a limb, and permanent disfigurement, possibly among other things.

Do you believe that a choke hold “create(s) a substantial risk of causing death or serious bodily harm”?

I think an argument could be made in court that because you asked the question here, you DO think a chokehold creates a substantial risk, but it would be up to the jury to decide.

I think if you could prove that you were trained in the proper application of chokeholds, the difference between a blood choke and an air choke, how long you can hold a blood choke without causing permanent damage, etc. you might be able to successfully argue that you were justified in using a chokehold in response to a non-deadly force threat.  Better have a shit hot lawyer, though.

+1 on this.

The real answer is that it is complicated with only a short section of law saying what someone can do. There are just so many variables that come into play but ultimately the standard in court is reasonableness. So take an assailant and a good Samaritan trying to stop the assailant. Were the Samaritan's level of force reasonable to what the assailant was doing/threatening to do? You could deliver a single controlled and reasonable blow but the assailant could trip, hit his head on a curb, and die. In such a case you would be investigated as a murder suspect but later likely cleared if it was seen as reasonable.

Cops here used to be able to use blood chokes in non deadly force situations but they banned that after some people died on the mainland from bad application. But it doesn't stop average citizens from using it. The first question is whether the situation is such that force is justified, a second analysis would be whether that level of force is justified, a third analysis would be whether it was applied reasonably. So can you justify choking someone in self defense (or defense of another)? Was a choke reasonable given the threat they posed? Did you use that choke reasonably? (meaning don't hold the choke for 5 minutes after they black out)

I know a guy who on video here used a hand hold type crapling move. He trains in BJJ and grappling.

No charges brought to him as he used it as the good samaritin stopping a moped theft.

But same guy was busted for running a chop shop and got no jail time. Prob narc'd on bigger fish. So maybe he wasnt charged due to that as well.

Then if 1 does use a choke type hold, if HI does a NYC on a train and would charge u if the bad guy dies.

Sent from my SM-G991U using Tapatalk

Not a lawyer but I was following a self defense trial recently, and the judge seemed to put a lot of thought into extenuating circumstances. It also depends on who the prosecutor is, the political climate, etc.
My non-professional observation is that when you kill somebody in self defense in this state, even if it seems perfectly reasonable it's still basically like rolling the dice.
I'm going to do what I have to do to get out of those situations, and hopefully it doesn't make anyone raise an eyebrow.

Our justice system is broken.  It doesn't protect the innocent nor does it provide justice for the victims.

It's a system that convolutes the laws if one has enough money to hire the best of the best.

IDK if this is the thread for this, but it's somewhat related.

I'm glad OP said 1 on 1 because I know a lot of BJJ people who have the false sense of security that their martial art is king. Then I mention what if there's more than 1. BJJ would be the worst thing to use if there are more than 1 bad guy. They then usually respond with 90% of fights end up on the ground. But I reply 100% start standing up.

The question to ask yourself is say you don't use a choke type hold, but an armbar. Are you willing to snap someones arm? Then the downside to an arm bar is that their other hand is free to do what they want. So if they have a knife, you will get torn up. Which brings up my example of the guy I know. The bad guy was on his stomach and he held the wrist hold behind the badguys back. So it would be almost impossible even if he had a knife with his free hand to do anything. Add in the BJJ's guys full weight was ontop of the bad guy as well.  IMO, this would be a much better hold as not only his weight kept the guy down, but also pain compliance.  ANd if the good guy had to, he could bail faster than the bad guy can stand up.  And sice he was on top, he had full vision to see if any of his friends was going to come and help and he would be able to disengage and defend.  I don't remember if it was him or his brother, but 1 of them also trains in Muay Thai.

BJJ or grapling training is better than no training, but for most of the people I talked to who train BJJ again have that false sense of security.  It has it's place and time for self defense. In public, you may have to use it against 1 person, but you really don't know if they're alone or not. Staying or purposly going to the ground would be my last choice.

I've always found if you have the opportunity to get a solid strike to the nose, the fight usually stops immediately.

People's priorities shift when they see their own blood come gushing out.

Just sayin'.

IDK if this is the thread for this, but it's somewhat related.

I'm glad OP said 1 on 1 because I know a lot of BJJ people who have the false sense of security that their martial art is king. Then I mention what if there's more than 1. BJJ would be the worst thing to use if there are more than 1 bad guy. They then usually respond with 90% of fights end up on the ground. But I reply 100% start standing up.

The question to ask yourself is say you don't use a choke type hold, but an armbar. Are you willing to snap someones arm? Then the downside to an arm bar is that their other hand is free to do what they want. So if they have a knife, you will get torn up. Which brings up my example of the guy I know. The bad guy was on his stomach and he held the wrist hold behind the badguys back. So it would be almost impossible even if he had a knife with his free hand to do anything. Add in the BJJ's guys full weight was ontop of the bad guy as well.  IMO, this would be a much better hold as not only his weight kept the guy down, but also pain compliance.  ANd if the good guy had to, he could bail faster than the bad guy can stand up.  And sice he was on top, he had full vision to see if any of his friends was going to come and help and he would be able to disengage and defend.  I don't remember if it was him or his brother, but 1 of them also trains in Muay Thai.

BJJ or grapling training is better than no training, but for most of the people I talked to who train BJJ again have that false sense of security.  It has it's place and time for self defense. In public, you may have to use it against 1 person, but you really don't know if they're alone or not. Staying or purposly going to the ground would be my last choice.

I’d have to say it depends what kind of jiu jitsu training you’re doing. If you’re one of those that immediately drop to the ground and pull guard without any sort of stand up grappling/wrestling then yeah I can kind of agree with you. However I’d say that in the vast majority of “street fights” an average person stands exactly zero chance against an average/moderately trained jiu jitsu guy.

1 on 1 jiu jitsu guy wins 99.9% of the time. In a mob type situation I’d say jiu jitsu still outclasses anything else. A boxer who starts swinging will immediately get grabbed and overwhelmed and he’s fucked. Jiu jitsu guy atleast will be able to navigate a grappling ground wrestling type situation better than any other martial art except maybe wrestling.

I’d have to argue that jiu jitsu would be your best option for a majority of situations that you’d find yourself in a street right.

Thanks for the responses guys!

So far my biggest takeaway from the responses is, if you are going to use jiu jitsu as your non-lethal means of defense (when reaching for EDC items is out of the question in given moment) aim to control (the body) and isolate the limbs of said assailant to not only nullify the danger but prevent them from being able to fight out/or reach for weapons to use on you. Do not go straight to using chokeholds here, unless control and isolation is not enough and you can reasonably explain the need for using said choke (ie it was necessary to prevent serious bodily injury or death of yourself or another person). To add to that, while using said choke, do not hold on longer than necessary (I feel confident I have a grip on this concept, been training over 10 years).

The more EDC items you have (pepper spray, pocket knife, firearm, ...) the more options you have.  if you want to use hand-to-hand combat and are confident you can dominate the threat, that's your call.  But a choke hold is illegal for cops to use, so that's probably a good legal baseline to consider.

For EDC I do switch off between pepper gel spray and a tactical atomik bear pen during the day and my 1000 lumens tactical flashlight with a retention ring on the grip for nighttime carry.

With that, I also trained in boxing and a little muay thai, so I'm no stranger to both throwing punches and responding to said punches being thrown back at me. Most of my training these days consist of the grappling stuff, since that's what I can convince most of the guys to do with me. If classes are small I encourage and start all my rounds standing to work on the takedowns, I only intentionally play guard with smaller, weaker white-belt folks who don't pose a threat.

There's a vid of a guy using BJJ on a shop lifter or somethign in a super market.  He mounted the guy, so he wasn't on his back like when doing an arm bar.  He then used the guys own arm around his own neck and had the guys other hand trapped in that as well.  So there was no possibility of bad guy grabbing something like a knife from his pocket.  And since he was mounting the guy, good guy had clear vision if bad guys friends tried anything.

So like u stated, both arms were controlled or reduced the risk of the free hand grabbing a knife from the pocket.

The other question to prepare to ask yourself is if say you do an arm bar, are you willing to snap the guys arm?  My friends husband did cause someone tried to steal his moms purse. He doesn't train BJJ, but watches enough MMA to know how to do an arm bar. He ended up breaking the bad guys arm.  No charges were filed against my friends husband.

One good thing to remember is that here we have a duty to retreat if possible and safe to do so. That means that if a use of force situation went bad and the bad guy got seriously injured or died that someone won't just look at why you initially used force but also if you tried or could have tried to leave the encounter at some point.

Another thing to remember is to be careful about saying how much you know about martial arts after an incident. An attorney could twist your history of training against you in court. They could use it to suggest you should have known better or should have tried a different tactic. They could name some obscure tactic you don't know to try and make it look like you lied about your experience. Even with my 20 years in Judo I would not mention it if I used it and it resulted in someone's death or serious injury, unless advised to do so by my attorney.

One good thing to remember is that here we have a duty to retreat if possible and safe to do so. That means that if a use of force situation went bad and the bad guy got seriously injured or died that someone won't just look at why you initially used force but also if you tried or could have tried to leave the encounter at some point.

Another thing to remember is to be careful about saying how much you know about martial arts after an incident. An attorney could twist your history of training against you in court. They could use it to suggest you should have known better or should have tried a different tactic. They could name some obscure tactic you don't know to try and make it look like you lied about your experience. Even with my 20 years in Judo I would not mention it if I used it and it resulted in someone's death or serious injury, unless advised to do so by my attorney.

HI has a duty to retreat to complete safety before using deadly force.  With regard to non deadly force, once can use "reasonable force" without retreating first.

Keep in mind the use of deadly force law says "complete safety". Which is open to interpretation and how you articulate why u used deadly force.

HI has a duty to retreat to complete safety before using deadly force.  With regard to non deadly force, once can use "reasonable force" without retreating first.

Keep in mind the use of deadly force law says "complete safety". Which is open to interpretation and how you articulate why u used deadly force.

Minor correction… It says “with complete safety,” not “to complete safety.”  That is to say, if retreating would cause you any increased danger (e.g., if retreating would give your assailant a tactical advantage), you don’t have to retreat.

I would think one could retreat safely AFTER using deadly force.  Reason for using deadly force? So I could retreat safely.

I would think one could retreat safely AFTER using deadly force.  Reason for using deadly force? So I could retreat safely.

The point being that you cannot justifiably use deadly force unless you have no option to retreat with complete safety…