Ok so I plan to re-write an Ace Attorney fanfiction, and my attorney's first case (bar exam) is a real case. One of the cruxes of the case is judging weather or not the defendant stabbed the victim. She admits that she did, but not with the intent to kill. The knife in question is described as a blade that causes minimal damage with a vertical stab and more damage with a horizontal stab. The vertical stab requires precise knowledge of where particular veins are etc. The idea behind the blade is it's designed to not cause bleeding/blood spray when used vertically. Of course if the blade is removed the bleeding starts, but until then the damage is minor other than the obvious thing of knife in leg. The victim is stabbed twice, and in typical Ace Attorney fashion, the truth is the opposite of what the court thinks.
What do you mean by vertical stab versus horizontal stab? A stab is usually viewed as a thrust, which are usually done horizontal to the ground or perhaps at a diagonal path. Vertical stabs might occur on someone's clavicle area I guess. Do you mean a slash or cut?
I mean the orientation of the stab itself, vertical ( cutting edges of the blade being up and down) does less 'damage' than horizontal (cutting edges of the blade being right and left) It's still a thrust I guess but the key point is the orientation of the knife's impact area.
I don't know, but I would think that would depend on the anatomy of the targeted area. In other words I don't know if the orientation of the knife would matter as much as the placement. I think fatter triangular blades (as opposed to flatter blades) that were common in older bayonets were banned because they were more likely to maim than quickly kill, but that may be wrong and would be different than what you are talking about.
I was thinking of having the 'first' stab wound be either the leg or the arm, considering her intention was to immobilize him rather than kill him outright. Of course the lethal wound will be somewhere else and she's a prime suspect because her fingerprints are on the knife.
So you mean the direction of the thrust would be essentially horizontal in both cases, but you are referring to the blade orientation being either '--' or '|'? There is no knife in existence that will consistently cause less damage/injury if the blade is oriented horizontally rather than vertically.
Does your defendant know anything about either law or self-defense? Weapons used in self-defense are never used with the intention of killing the assailant. The intention is to stop the threat. If the weapon of self-defense is a knife, it is virtually inconceivable that a stab wound to an arm or a leg would "immobilize" an assailant. You are, I believe, writing for a fantasy world so you can write whatever you wish. In this world that we live in, knives are a poor choice as self-defense weapons to begin with, and wounds to an arm or a leg (unless you get lucky and cut a femoral artery) are not going to immobilize anyone. It'll just make him mad.
Wouldn't a stab in the leg at least slow them down though? would be kinda hard to run with a knife jammed in your leg. (assuming the persuer is too angry to bother removing said knife) That was the intention rather than to imobilize them outright. The killing blow was made by the same knife by another individual (wearing gloves of course, so only the defendant's fingerprints were on the weapon)
Sounds like an ice pick or an awl. Stabbing down with such a thin blade would do little more than muscular damage and if stabbing the head, the blade would most likely bend or bounce off and just prick the skin covering the skull. The only real target would be shoulders which are too far from any organ for the blade to penetrate into the heart or even lungs. A horizontal thrust, on the other hand, could easily slide between a couple ribs and penetrate a lung or the heart. At the face, the pick would poke an eye and impale the brain or thrusting though an ear would, again, stab the brain. As long as the pick is left in place and not get jiggled, almost all bleeding would be internal, even if an artery was pierced.
Another thing to consider is that even if she didn't intend to kill, if the person dies anyway, that's manslaughter. If of course, she acted in self defense, it wouldn't matter anyway, if you are attacked you can respond with deadly force, assuming it is proportional to the threat to yourself. But even if such a weapon existed, it would have to be a well known weapon for the legal defense to work. If she were using an obscure weapon, most juries probably would just see 'deadly knife'. Also, in a knife fight, trying to immobilize your opponent is usually a bad idea. I guess if she's like a superhero it may make sense. But getting out alive in a knife fight is hard enough without trying to incapacitate your opponent. Which reminds me of the saying someone quoted on this forum: "Who wins a knife fight?" "The one that wakes up in the hospital."
The idea is that she is a government agent working undercover, the person (the victim) she was shadowing discovered her and blew her cover. She was under orders to incapacitate anyone who blew the cover, though they proved a bit stronger than her so she ran after jabbing him in the leg with the knife. Someone else came along to try and capture her but instead elected to frame her for murder. How the other guy gets away I'm not sure about that yet, but Ace Attorney generally handwaves details like this. You have to suspend your disbelief a lot in Ace Attorney, in one case you cross examine a parrot and find out relevant information to the case by doing so. Later on in the series you do the same with a dolphin. And in a later game A case of domestic violence nearly kills an innocent bystander. So the cases themselves aren't always well...grounded I should say. @SapereAude Is there a non lethal spot she could stab him that would cause him to falter greatly? You know, enough to take the wind out of his sails but not enough to kill him outright.
Despite what we see in movies (and from what I gather y'all see in computer war games) even most bullet wounds don't immediately stop an assailant. With guns, the only things that stop an assailant are exsanguination (bleeding out) and a shot that interrupts the central nervous system. A hit to the pelvic girdle with a bullet heavy/powerful enough to break the bones will take an assailant off their feet, but if they're armed they can still fight. With a knife, it's extremely unlikely that a single wound -- or even a half dozen wounds -- could cause sufficient exsanguination to stop an adversary quickly. Bleeding out takes time. It's also unlikely that a knife stroke could sever the central nervous system or break a pelvic bone.
I don't think there is a knife like you are looking for. We do have power saws to cut casts off that don't cut the skin. And fish fillet knives are stopped by special gloves as long as you don't make a vertical 'stab'.
That was me quoting one of my DIs. And as for the OP question, there's no such thing. The placement of the wound and angle in relation to that placement, plus depth, is going to be all that matters.
My first thought was an executioner's sword. One made to cut off heads. It has no use for stabbing, but it's meant to chop horizontally. It has a flat tip and here's more info about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executioner%27s_sword
First, I don't think it counts as self defense if she's running after a fleeing person stabbing him in the back. That looks a lot more like aggression and attempted murder. I mean, aside from the fact that she just stabbed him in the leg. But still, if somebody is running away from you and you're chasing them holding a knife and sticking it in them, it makes you the aggressor. Even if it was him a moment ago, once he turns to run and you give chase you can't claim to be a victim anymore. If she really wanted to immobilize him and was behind him, she could hamstring him in both legs, cut the tendons just above the knees on the back of the legs. He wouldn't be able to walk or run at all. Or she could cut the Achilles tendons behind the ankles, that would also immobilize, but it would be a lot harder to reach than the tendons behind the knees.
This brings up an interesting question for @naruzeldamaster, unrelated to the actual post. If she is acting in the capacity of a government agent, wouldn't that grant some immunity or at least some way to sweep it under the rug? Or did the government just hang her out to dry after the death?
Oh that is true. I missed that she was a government agent. Because I know the police have the right to shoot or use deadly force even against a fleeing suspect if they feel there's immanent danger to themselves or others, like if the perp has a gun and has been shooting random people. You can't just let them run away in a situation like that, or they'll kill more people.
She's a 'young' agent (I say young because it's young for real life, but in Ace Attorney we have gifted Spirit Mediums that are 12 years old) who's about 17, she's one of those 'white hacker' agents, sometimes she did field work that required her to shadow people. Obviously if the person she was shadowing knew she was following her and blew her cover. Her job is to ace out of the situation if her cover was blown, I was considering the arms/legs because it made sense (Xoic's suggestion of cutting the hamstrings actually sounds good!) and then the murderer would be wearing gloves and use the same knife to frame her. Obviously she can't really tell the whole story if she's a government agent, which creates a situation where she has to rely on an attorney to bail her out. The victim pursued her in what she perceived as an aggressive threat, though she fully admits her inexperience causes a lapse in judgement. (to be fair she IS 17, child prodigy, work face or not)
Cutting a hamstring would certainly be an "inconvenience." You do know where the hamstring is located, right? I'm senior citizen with a heart condition, a bad back, one artificial hip and another waiting in the wings, and I get winded just walking to the mailbox. I'm pretty sure I would have no trouble preventing a 17-year old girl, no matter how athletic, from shlashing my hamstring.
Possibly, I might come up with a reason she could overpower an adult then. It's lazy, but what about her being some kind of super soldier, something more along the lines of Captain America. (though maybe not quite as strong, but certainly enough to be considered 'super' human) The hamstring is those tendons behind the knees aren't they? At least that's what a previous post implied.
Yeah, I'm thinking if he's running away and she's running behind him she could slash one while he's running. She'd have to get really close though, or have a really long knife. I don't know though, if she times it right his leg would be back and she just leans forward and slashes at full arm's length. Seems like it would work. Maybe it takes a lot of strength to slash a tendon? I guess it depends on how sharp the knife is. She wouldn't need to slash both hamstrings. If one leg is disabled he isn't going to be running. He's going to be laying on the ground in something like a fetal position howling.
