phoenix helicopter crash - death liability?

[Bork]

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i have watched tons of law and order, and I know that doesn't make me an expert, but the first thing I thought of was Jack McCoy saying, "If that guy wasn't trying to evade the police, those pilots would still be alive"

So yeah, I think his actions directly correlated to the deaths of others. Just like if he almost hit a car, and it jerked out of his way, and ran some person over and killed them, the person driving isn't responsible, it's the person who is causing the huge distrubance.

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No they are not equivalent. Driving recklessly and causing people to crash, is not the same as having helicopters which are following you crash into each other. One is a reaonably forseeable result, the other is not. People aren't morally or legally responsible for unforseeable flukey deaths 'caused' by their actions whether those actions are good or pure evil.

The fact that the chopper pilots would still be alive had he not stolen the car doesn't matter, because killing chopper pilots is not something he could have forseen when he tried to evade the police. If you want to give moral responsibilty whenever there is a death which would have not occured if not for some immoral act then you will be handing out a lot of guilt in absurd cases.

Say I am trying to sell you a car and lie about the car so you will buy it. You call up your friend to co-sign and on the way over he gets distracted while text messaging some hooker and crashes into a pole and dies. OMG I MANSLAUGHTERED HIM OBVIOUSLY. No.

[Sponger.]

Ok what if I get pulled over when I'm driving drunk and when the officer tells me to get out of the car for a sobriety test I piss myself in plain sight of the camera mounted on the dash of the police car. The video is then posted on youtube and someone chokes on their own vomit and dies from laughing so hard.

Should I be liable for his death then too? I mean what the [censored] where does it [censored] stop?

[pergesu]

What if I stole a car and news helicopters were following me, and some dude at a nuclear plant was watching it, and it was so sensational that he stopped paying attention to what he was doing and accidentally dumped nuclear waste into a nearby river, and some kids were playing in the river and turned green, and then aliens from a nearby UFO noticed there were other aliens around, but when they approached the "aliens"-formerly-known-as-normal-kids they realized they looked a lot like enemy aliens, so they zapped the kids with subatomic particle rays, and then they called their headquarters to call in an intergalactic death strike on Earth so as to exterminate the rival alien rogues that seem to have found a good hiding place on earth (but who really happened to just be kids squealing in terror because they turned green, just like their mothers told them they would if they didn't eat their veggies)?

You can't seriously hold me accountable for all of that.

[tuq]

pergesu,

That's a pretty sweet analogy and after seven minutes of soul searching I believe you are NOT ACCOUNTABLE!

[Sponger.]

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You can't seriously hold me accountable for all of that.

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Well since your actions caused the death of everyone on the planet I think you'll end up being ok.

[pokergrader]

I just talked to my brother-in-law who is a lawyer and he said it is a close case but he is taking the side that it will be the dude will get convicted of felony murder, however he said it can go either way.

I was trying to defend the guy, but apparently felony murder is a pretty cut and dry crime, and as long as they could prove there is a reasonable expectation that a helicopter would follow a high-speed chase, the dude is guilty (he made this point in more specific terms, but I don't remember what they were).

He is a pretty inexperienced lawyer though, so I'm not sure if his theoretical point of view is what actually happens.

[snagglepuss]

ill probably book action against him being convicted of felony murder if anyone would like to take some action. will look into it further if there is some serious interest

[pirateboy]

Didn't read the thread, but I live in Arizona at a news station, so this was insane.

The criminal had stolen two water tanker truck thingies.

[Aloysius]

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Pilots - help perform the public service of reporting the news;

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I agree with others, and feel that's where Bobman's argument falls apart the most. (I believe he's playing devil's advocate, and I also think it's close enough and not super cut and dried, where it merits some discussion).

If the local / national news were an official governmental agency or something, sure, this argument makes some sense but they're a for-profit business, and that's their primary motivation for sending the copters at the end of the day.

There's the notion that the news is performing a public service, and it is regulated by governmental agencies... somewhat mitigating but I don't think enough to tilt the judgment.

Though it's very understandable why people in Phoenix are going after this guy.

-Al

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
I just talked to my brother-in-law who is a lawyer and he said it is a close case but he is taking the side that it will be the dude will get convicted of felony murder, however he said it can go either way.

I was trying to defend the guy, but apparently felony murder is a pretty cut and dry crime, and as long as they could prove there is a reasonable expectation that a helicopter would follow a high-speed chase, the dude is guilty (he made this point in more specific terms, but I don't remember what they were).

He is a pretty inexperienced lawyer though, so I'm not sure if his theoretical point of view is what actually happens.

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Define "reasonable expectation." I don't think it's hard to refute that every flight from police is not foreseeable as something that would 1) attract a helicopter, 2) attract multiple helicopters, or 3) have anything but a very tiny chance of being associated with multiple helicopters crashing together, and 4) actually in any way causing a crash between multiple helicopters.