Dumb Grand Juries At Work
I heard this on the radio last week and it triggered the requisite amount of disgust. Then, I forgot about it but DWH reminded me. Seems a suspect got into a fight with a police officer. The officer was injured with a dislocated shoulder. He was prescribed painkillers. He died from a toxic reaction to those painkillers. Also, Obesity and emphysema were also contributing factors. The suspect has been indicted by a grand jury for murder.
October 4th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Eh… I can see how this happens. What if the guy had been shot in the leg, rushed to the hospital, but the doctor screwed up removing the bullet and he expired? Dead is dead, and if it is a result of a crime or treating injuries sustained in the crime, culpability falls on the criminal. Yeah, in this case it is goofy, but you have to split the hair somewhere. JMHO.
October 4th, 2011 at 10:31 am
Well hell. I farted this morning which a criminal smelled and decided to rob a bank where an officer tripped and fell hitting his head killed himself but not before shooting a bank customer and several children… I guess that makes legally responsible for all the deaths and a robbery..
October 4th, 2011 at 10:43 am
@JS… no, last I checked farting was not a crime. The criminal would be responsible for all the deaths that stemmed from the robbery, however. I know in some states that if two drug addicts decide to rob a drug dealer, and the drug dealer shoots one of them, the other adict/robber can be charged with murder since the death stemmed from the felony (armed robbery) they instigated. I’m not saying it always makes sense, I’m just saying that life is kind of messy and there is not always a clear line between the death and who is responsible for it and many states have laws that are written in a way that could include the scenario above. If the law says “death resulted from treatment of injury sustained during criminal act” or something similar, what choice did the grand jury have? Likewise, I can understand why the law is written that way, otherwise the criminal would always claim the death was due to malpractice and not the criminal act. Again, I ain’t a lawyer and it is just my opinion.
October 4th, 2011 at 10:58 am
I see that it’s an extension of the laws that have surviving crooks up on murder charges if one of their fellows gets killed by the victim, but when a police officer dies because of his own poor health, I think that’s stretching the point.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Everyone knows that DAs can get an indictment against a ham sandwich. They throw everything they can against the wall and see what sticks. Maybe they can get a plea bargain. A win-win for the DA.
October 4th, 2011 at 11:34 am
“reckless homicide indictment” sounds reasonable, “murder” doesn’t.
October 4th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
GD so it you sell a gun privately to another person and they commit a crime with it are you guilty of the crime because you sold it to them without a background check???
October 4th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
Standard: Quite right.
And I see from the link there that, to my surprise, it really was a reckless homicide indictment, not a felony-murder-rule murder indictment.
On the other hand, I doubt it’ll hold up – while the action that started it all might qualify as “reckless killing of another“, the connection to the death of the officer is very, very tenuous in the absence of a felony murder rule connection.
I bet he gets off on that one at trial, if the prosecutor even bothers to waste taxpayer money on that charge rather than the open-and-shut charges he also has on him.
(TN has a felony murder rule equivalent in their Murder statute, but it doesn’t include mere assault or resisting arrest – and in any case naturally wouldn’t apply to a charge of reckless homicide.)
October 4th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
GD another thing that bothers me about your position is say the policeman did not die now but died 20 years from now because he took these same drugs to relieve his shoulder pain. According to your belief the guy who hurt his shoulder could still be tried because there generally is no statute of limitations on murder… It makes your argument look even more like bullshit..
October 4th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
@JS… only on Law&Order is the manufacturer or seller criminally liable. All I’m saying is the law had to be written in such a way that if a criminal injured someone and then the victim died the next day the criminal could still be charged with the death. To encompass that possibility, it would probably have to include the situation in the story. I ain’t saying I like it and I ain’t saying I would convict the guy if I were on the jury and I ain’t saying I would go for that charge if it were up to me. Frankly, I agree with Sigi, it was symbolic and either won’t stick or will be plead WAAAY down.
October 4th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
@JS… , you are so right and clearly much smarter than me. How could I ever have been so wrong to hold an opinion different from yours.
October 4th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
John Smith – Your scenario is why we have juries to decide if the actual acts charged by a prosecutor are demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt to have occurred, and are subject to conviction under the existing law at the time of the actions.
Your argument would say that a person could club somebody in the head, putting them in a coma for 1, 2, 3, ….20 years before their death, and not be charged for that death.
October 4th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
What about the physician, nurse, and pharmacist who prescribed and provided the medication? It’s highly probable that this cop had at some point in his career seen a doctor before and been treated for pain. Was there no cross-checking of allergies and such? Was there a mistake in the diagnosis and/or prescription? Did the pateinet ignore safety warnings and take one too many of the pills?
What the hell. Charge each of them and put them all on trial. That will make the district attorney look even better.
October 4th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Mikee, the old standard was a “year and a day” – namely, if someone died of their injuries within 366/7 days of the event happening, it was murder. If they died one day later than that, it wasn’t.
October 4th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Don’t forget to charge the franchisee of the policeman’s favorite Krispy Kreme for complicity in his obesity.