...uh..what if someone calls someone a pedophile falsely, and the person commits suicide? What if the person also knows that the victim is a vulnerable individual, perhaps psychotic?

You guys have a strange idea of the law. By your reasoning any burglar who didn't mean to kill his victim should get off with burglary alone. If I take an illegal action (and a grownup bullying a child is assault, which is illegal) and that action directly results in a human death, and I was in a position to know it might and did it anyway, I am arguably guilty of "depraved indifference" and therefore manslaughter at the least. If I knew it well enough that it can be proven I meant to kill someone it's Murder One. It doesn't really matter by whose hand the act was done. People have been successfully prosecuted for driving others to suicide.

You're endowed with ESP? You know for certain that the woman who did the bullying didn't actually intend for this to happen?

The victim was 13, the assailant well over 21, the law makes provision for enhanced protection of youth as vulnerable parties in re contracts, sex, etc. Why not here?

Then perhaps her parents should have acted as such and gotten her the help that she apparently needed.

Terrible analogy, when a burglar accidentally kills someone, it is still the burglar's doing. When someone commits suicide, it is their choice and theirs alone, period.

All speculation.

Of course it does, it is called personal responsibility.

A travesty of justice caused by people (parents) unwilling to take responsibility for their own action (or lack thereof).

I don't believe in magic.

Irrelevant, this woman did not force her will upon this child. The girl chose to die.

Perhaps the girl's parents should have acted like parents and gotten her the help she needed. But no, they would rather let her die and then try to blame someone else. Typical.

__________________
"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

NFA JJG 42-95

Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

The operative word here is "directly".

If you get behind the wheel of a car when you're drunk, and you drive into a crowd of people and kill someone, the death is a direct result of your illegal action.

In the case being discussed here, there was no direct action performed by the adult which directly led to the teenager's death...

Which she will probably argue. I would disagree were I judge or juror.

If I know someone has a phobia of spiders, throw a large and hairy, but ultimately harmless, tarantula into bed with them, and they die of fright; you want to just have good laugh with them?

Let's say you know that someone has a family member in the hospital and you call them with false info that person just died? You wouldn't find that culpatory if they then committed suicide? (assuming they had good reason to believe you)

Additionally, adults in authority are routinely held liable for actions of children under their care. In this case they woman was not an appointed authority but stepped into the position by her actions, so she seems at fault to me.

Let's say some children come by your house, they ask if the downed power wires nearby are live and thus dangerous. You answer "of course not," and then laugh riotously as they're electrocuted. You shouldn't be arrested?

Another really bad analogy. In this hypothetical case, you have directly acted in a way to cause this person's death, albeit accidentally (presumably you weren't trying to kill them).

If they commit suicide over a family member's death then they are obviously mentally ill and did not get the help that they needed, nor did their family step in and help. No you are not culpable (but you are definitely a scumbag).

Yes she is an awful person. No she is not a murderer.


The sparks coming out of the wire wouldn't answer the question for them? How about the charred and burning grass around the wire? Again, only a complete shit head would do such a thing (and this lady certainly is that), but again a small amount of personal responsibility on the part of the children (and perhaps the parents in explaining to their kids the dangers of high tension lines) would prevent this tragedy.

Suicide is ALWAYS a choice made by the person committing suicide, period.

__________________
"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

NFA JJG 42-95

Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

Why is the first a bad analogy? How is the action of the woman, in posing as someone else to gain her victim's confidence and then acting in just the manner that would make a depressed person commit suicide, any less direct than throwing a spider into bed with them.

So..the mentally ill and those without helpful family are fair game for cruel pranks, as are small children who don't know the danger signs of downed wires (which don't often show any of the danger signs you mention)?

Look, if I take an action which I reasonably knew (or should have known) could have killed someone and they die because of it then I can be held responsible, whether it was the direct precipitate cause is irrelevant, otherwise the old argument "well I didn't kill them, I just contracted their death" is valid.

The question here is whether the woman could or should have known the girl might commit suicide. The prosecution has to prove this was a reasonable expectation, given the circumstances

No shit...

Are you going to start belching out idiotic "what if" scenarios?

Yep, I guess you are...

How did this woman step into a position of authority? That's a new one...

Absolutely not.

The reason, though, is that the little retards would scurry away before hearing "as long as you stay away from them".

Laughing is not criminal...

Out of curiosity, if I'm dating a girl, am I legally allowed to break up with her in your world, since this trauma could feasibly cause her to commit suicide? What if my friend asks me for relationship advice, and I tell him to dump the girl who eventually commits suicide? Clearly, he should be locked up for life, but what is an appropriate sentence for me? What if I don't know the guy breaking up with his girlfriend but I walk by him on the street wearing a shirt that says Carpe Diem? What amount of jail time is appropriate for my reckless wearing of a T-shirt? When you get right down to it, isn't everyone responsible on some level for everyone else's death? If I hadn't backed out of my driveway this morning at exactly 8:48 AM, my neighbor wouldn't have had to wait for me, and he would have arrived at an intersection a few seconds later than he did, and not caused a crash that resulted in a fatality. I could have averted this tragedy by not recklessly going out with friends late last night, causing me to oversleep and making me directly responsible for a car accident three towns over.

Or rather than establishing precedence for the craziness that I proposed above, perhaps we should limit (as I believe the law does) charges of responsibility for death to cases where a reasonable person would expect his actions to result in death or great personal injury of another person. Releasing bees into the room of someone known to be allergic to bees would certainly qualify, but no reasonable person would expect someone to "die of fright" from an encounter with a spider.

__________________
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Because nobody 'makes' anybody else commit suicide. The person committing suicide chooses to do so of their on volition (see the theme here?).

Not fair game, however punishing person X for something that person Y chose to do is a travesty.

Perhaps these signs are not always present, honestly I can't claim to know certainly. What I do know for certain is that when I was a child my mother warned me about ALL downed lines, and I stayed away. Lo and behold I have not been electrocuted!

Agreed.

In this case you did (would do ) something directly to end their life, you hired a hitman!

As I stated earlier, I do not believe in magic and as such I see no possible way that she could have known what this poor little girl may or may not do.

Absolutely, and I do not believe this is a possible task for the prosecution.

Mr. Drake, I am beginning to believe that we may just have to agree to disagree on this one. Please let me know if I am mistaken.

__________________
"Bring the boys back home!"--Pink Floyd

NFA JJG 42-95

Free People/Free Markets

Following the Path of the Beam

This was an adult taking advantage of the fragile emotional state of a teenager.

We have statuatory rape laws for the same reason. An adult, who knows better, doesn't get to screw around with a child and then say "oh, well, she did it, not my fault."

At least with statutory rape (which I do not support as is, btw) there is physical contact between the two. In this case, it's pretty much a free speech issue. Just because the kid killed herself doesn't mean we need to go on a witch hunt trying to blame it on someone other than the kid.

__________________
If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

That's just sick. A 15 year old deserves protection from a vindictive adult out to cause her harm. There are separate laws for adult on children crimes for a reason.

And why the hell would you not support statutory rape laws? That statement alone makes me think you're absolutely cold.

No. An accurate parallel would be if an adult emotionally picked on a kid, the kid went home and masturbated, and you charged the adult with sexual molestation.

__________________
"Jesus said: I have cast fire upon the world, and behold I guard it until it is ablaze."
Gospel of Thomas

Shocking that a diehard Obama supporter would want to excuse a mother who heckled a teenager to death. So much for the moral high ground.

I bet you'll stick by this murderer saying "that's the letter of the law" the same way you'd stick by Pelosi refusing to practice democracy by bringing the energy bill to a vote and not see your own contradiction.

But I guess saving the planet is more important than protecting teenage girls.