phoenix helicopter crash - death liability?

[tuq]

Slightly unrelated, but I like the term "ghetto bird" to refer to police helicopters. I took it one step further and created my own term, "sky pig".

[Blarg]

Sky pig is a pretty darn good one.

[eviljeff]

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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.

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one of the worst "didn't read the thread" posts I've seen

[patbuddha]

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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

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In the case of a car chase a reasonable expectation would be limited to incidents that are most likely to occur. In a car chase it is reasonable to expect that any vehicle involved in the pursuit will collide with other vehicles, objects, or people. It is also reasonable to assume that such collisions could result in a chain reaction whereby a collision with one object causes that object to collide with another. This is most likely the idea of causation contemplated in the Arizona statute.

The other problem with trying to assign liability to the guy who was being chased was that there was an intervening cause. This being the negligence of the two helicopter pilots involved in the accident. They hit one another, not because the guy caused a chain of events as described above, but because in trying to vie for a better view of the event they did not look out for one another.

The third problem with this case for the state is that in order to get a conviction, a jury has to unanimously agree with their argument. Given the division of opinion on this, how likely is it that they could get that?

[pokergrader]

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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.

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He made it seem that it would be more likely than not to prove it was reasonably foreseeable that news helicopters would follow the car chase, and added that if news helicopters aid the police in searching for the car (which he thinks they do), it would be even easier to make the connection.

He also said that how the helicopters crashed makes no difference, whether it was pilot negligence or not.

This provides a good example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_...rative_example

Notice numbers 7 and 9. A person is killed during the bank robbery by a random person, who is guilty of murder. However, since his action was due to the bank robbery, the robbers are also guilty of felony murder. So in this helicopter instance, it is possible that the pilots are guilty of negligence and the perp is guilty of felony murder.

[BeaucoupFish]

News helicopters are not in pursuit of a crime. They are there to cover it from a safe distance.

Also (and I do not mean this to sound quite as disrespectful as it will sound), but in ground pursuit, roads are small, narrow and dangerous, and the sky is, well, pretty big and open.

[pokergrader]

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News helicopters are not in pursuit of a crime. They are there to cover it from a safe distance.

Also (and I do not mean this to sound quite as disrespectful as it will sound), but in ground pursuit, roads are small, narrow and dangerous, and the sky is, well, pretty big and open.

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By definition the choppers are in pursuit of the crime, and whether the pursuit is safe or dangerous has no bearing on the felony murder argument.

[BeaucoupFish]

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News helicopters are not in pursuit of a crime. They are there to cover it from a safe distance.

Also (and I do not mean this to sound quite as disrespectful as it will sound), but in ground pursuit, roads are small, narrow and dangerous, and the sky is, well, pretty big and open.

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By definition the choppers are in pursuit of the crime, and whether the pursuit is safe or dangerous has no bearing on the felony murder argument.

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Well, 'by definition', news helicopters cover the news, and should be doing so from afar.

Ok, how about this: a journalist gets an anonymous tip that something is "going down" at the circus, some illegal animal smuggling say by a well-known villain. He follows the lead, and see's the illegal activity. While covering the lead, the journalist gets lost in the stables and is accidentally [censored] to death by a horse. Is the villain responsible for the homicide?

[pokergrader]

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News helicopters are not in pursuit of a crime. They are there to cover it from a safe distance.

Also (and I do not mean this to sound quite as disrespectful as it will sound), but in ground pursuit, roads are small, narrow and dangerous, and the sky is, well, pretty big and open.

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By definition the choppers are in pursuit of the crime, and whether the pursuit is safe or dangerous has no bearing on the felony murder argument.

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Well, 'by definition', news helicopters cover the news, and should be doing so from afar.

Ok, how about this: a journalist gets an anonymous tip that something is "going down" at the circus, some illegal animal smuggling say by a well-known villain. He follows the lead, and see's the illegal activity. While covering the lead, the journalist gets lost in the stables and is accidentally [censored] to death by a horse. Is the villain responsible for the homicide?

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Is that reasonably foreseeable? I don't think a jury would think so.

However, in a large city I think it is possible to convince a jury it is reasonably foreseeable that news helicopters would be following it a high speed car chase.

That is the argument my lawyer friend told me. I can't really argue anymore about the ins and outs of felony murder because I'm not a lawyer and I don't know them. It is very possible there are all sorts of other rules that apply, but I don't know them.

I agree and think the whole thing is unfair, but at least a jury will get to decide.

[pirateboy]

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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.

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one of the worst "didn't read the thread" posts I've seen

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QFT [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]