If someone stood behind my car and would not move and I warned them I was going to back up, can I go to jail if I made contact with my car very slowly?

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If someone stood behind my car and would not move and I warned them I was going to back up, can I go to jail if I made contact with my car very slowly?

My ex wife was harassing me and would not leave me alone. Apparently a
neighbor saw this. I screamed at her to stop harassing me. She said
no. I told her I was leaving and she said then I’m going to have to
hit her with my car. I said please move, she didn’t and I backed up as
slowly as I could. She pushed back against the car and was yelling,
‘He’s hitting me with his car Someone call the 911’

Asked on March 28, 2017 under Criminal Law, Alaska

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 7 years ago | Contributor

Yes, you could be charged and convicted (and potentially go to jail) for doing this: you hit another person with your car. You had no legal right to do that because you were being verbally harassed, or even because she was preventing you from going where you wanted--the law does not recognize those as defenses to hitting someone, even slowly, with a vehicle, which is a form of assault. What you should have done is that YOU should have called the police and had the police remove or restrain her, and possibly charge her with harassment of one kind or another.


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