I can talk about it now what I've learned from a friend's experience

The trial is now over and I can talk about what happened. Overall it took a year from beginning to end and a whole bunch of stress and heartache in between.

I live in a gun-friendly state. Long story short my friend was working experienced somebody road raging on him was not able to get away. Attempted to call the police was not able to get through and took out of firearm as a last resort while driving. He tried to go into a police station. There was nobody there small town. Once police did make contact with my friend they told him he did nothing wrong even gave him his gun back. Told him to have a nice day.

6 months later district attorney sent my friend a love letter saying he's looking at assault with a deadly weapon. 7 years incarceration. Lawyered up cost $10,000 for retainer and about $300 an hour for an attorney. Going to court with travel expenses on top of that as well as investigator costs. Total ended somewhere 15 to 20 thousand to prove his innocence.

We found out part of the problem was a cop who was putting pressure on the prosecutor due to a back story that happened a few years ago with this cop's relative. It involves my friend as a victim.

Took the jury about 30 minutes to come back with not guilty. My friend is going through civil rights attorneys to figure out the next steps.

AlexanderA said:

Key missing piece: did the other party (the "road rager") display a weapon? If not, it would be hard to show that your friend's life was in imminent danger, thus justifying him to draw a weapon.

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Yes that's the thing he tried to shove him off the road. My buddy tried to stop or accelerate quickly. None of which worked to get away. The business my buddy is in also has access to a lot of cash. He had no idea if the guy was trying to rob him or not.

It's crazy too, but I also learned you don't automatically get to bring the other person's history into court. This guy wasn't supposed to be driving. Also had multiple charges for weapons violations and was on parole. I'm not kidding during the last year waiting for trial. This guy took his father's prosthetic leg and beat his mother with it. Not good when the states star witnesses in all orange.

Blue Jays said:

My sense is were I dealing with a crazed roadrager…my main focus would be driving the vehicle.
I would be working the hands-free dialing to get in contact with police dispatch one way or another.
Drawing a weapon, while inside a moving vehicle, would be a very, very distant third-place option.

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Please see my description above. There was no phone signal, they have his call logs showing attempts to call 911, the area he was in had no service. He was driving 75, and against someone focused on stopping him or disabling his vehicle. He tried to both slow and stop to let the guy go, and tried out running him, both of which didn't work.