Legal Responsibility for Words

[Deleted member 21794]

Ms. Carter did have knowledge that a young man was in the act of committing suicide. Did she not have any legal obligation to inform authorities in a timely manner, at a bare minimum?

I believe she would only have a legal obligation if she were a health care professional. My wife is a health care professional and has told me she could loser her license if it could be documented she came across a situation where someone needed medical help and she chose to walk on by. I think that her being licensed would mean those who aren't are under no obligation to intervene.

 

[Zam-Zam]

I would say, no, honestly. There is no legal obligation to witness a person drowning and call for help - unless you were in a position like parent/child where you had a duty of care.

Morally - she did of course have an obligation. She was as wrong as wrong could be.

But, this is one of those times in my opinion where the law does not have to live up to our moral codes. I do not want to create the legal standard where we have some sort of criminal legal obligation towards intervening in dangerous/bad situations for each other.

I'm no attorney, but there is an item in the law known as "depraved indifference":

To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/

Whether Ms. Carter's inaction meets the threshold criteria I suspect is a matter for law enforcement professionals, but believe a case could be made.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

I would say, no, honestly. There is no legal obligation to witness a person drowning and call for help - unless you were in a position like parent/child where you had a duty of care.

Morally - she did of course have an obligation. She was as wrong as wrong could be.

But, this is one of those times in my opinion where the law does not have to live up to our moral codes. I do not want to create the legal standard where we have some sort of criminal legal obligation towards intervening in dangerous/bad situations for each other.

I think you're alluding to, if not directly making a slippery slope argument. If I were walking down the street and saw someone ODing on heroin, I'd probably just stand there and watch them die. I am morally opposed to stopping people from killing themselves- drug addicts in particular. I am peeved that we spend so much money trying to save people who are hellbent on dying. What's next? We get prosecuted for not stopping some stupid kid from jaywalking on a busy street?

 

[Deleted member 21794]

I'm no attorney, but there is an item in the law known as "depraved indifference":

To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/

Whether Ms. Carter's inaction meets the threshold criteria I suspect is a matter for law enforcement professionals, but believe a case could be made.

I believe Ms. Carter's actions go beyond indifference. Didn't she actually encourage the poor schmuck to commit suicide?

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Examples?

#HuntRepublicans, #HuntRepublicanCongressmen

 

[freyasman]

I'm no attorney, but there is an item in the law known as "depraved indifference":

To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/

Whether Ms. Carter's inaction meets the threshold criteria I suspect is a matter for law enforcement professionals, but believe a case could be made.

I don't know in this case; the times I've seen the "depraved indifference" charge used, were in cases like someone not bothering to tell sexual partners about having HIV, shit like that.

 

[Arkady]

I've told a few people to go kill themselves, and while it might not be very nice of me, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if one of them ever actually did.

I can't specifically recall having said such a thing, but wouldn't be at all surprised if I had. I suspect that a large portion of this country could be guilty of "involuntary manslaughter" based on having urged violence by other people, either against themselves or against others. A legal rule that would make serious criminals out of a large portion of the population (even if most of us will never be charged, much less convicted) isn't a good rule.

 

[Arkady]

I too am pretty close to a free speech absolutist as well, and I disagree with the verdict as well for the same reasons.

I actually hate the kind of grand standing of the prosecutor in this case, to go for that level of charges. I despise judicial activism and I am a strict constitutionalist - and believe in general the law on the books needs to be interpreted from the perspective of those who wrote it in the time that they wrote it. If they would not have conceived of texting a person to convince them to die when the statute of involuntary manslaughter was written - then what she did does not fall under that statute. We have to make our legislators do the hard work - of actually legislating these complex issues. Not let them off the hook by simply reinterpreting the law as we see fit. That to me, honestly violates the concept of notice. A person should know if their conduct is illegal. Not have a law reinterpreted to make something illegal because we now find ourselves morally incensed at their actions.

I do think that a case could be made for harassment. That is already a recognized exception to free speech. Maybe a separate count for each bad text - no concurrent sentencing and giving her the max - may have gotten them close to where she will get with involuntary manslaughter. I disagree with making "cyber-bullying" a crime for the same reason. We already have harassment. THAT is already the criminalization of using speech to harm another person mentally. That has a well established standard. If the speech does not rise to that - then I disagree with making some other law or some other charge

But, in addition to my free speech issue - I absolutely disagree with holding one person accountable for the actions of another. She is not a dr. She is not responsible for his mental health. She has no obligation to look out and care for him. It wasn't her responsibility to have to call 911 and report he was suicidal or try to stop him.

Morally, I think it was incredibly wrong for her to encourage him and to not stop him.But he chose his path. He chose to date her. He chose to text with her. People get in unhealthy relationships all the time.. and I don't think that means the other person is now responsible for the bad decisions of the other person in the relationship. I don't like that kind of precedent because to me it is creating some sort of standard of duty of care.

There's a saying that hard cases make bad law. The idea is that setting precedent based on extreme cases tends to result in bad precedents that can have unintended consequences on more normal cases. I think this is an example. People were morally outraged enough by her conduct, since it went way beyond a toss-away line that he should kill himself, that a lot of people really wanted her punished. They can't picture themselves behaving in such a cold-hearted manner, and so they want the law spindled as much as needed to see her behind bars. But I'm like you in that I want it to be clear whether something is legal or not ahead of time, rather than worrying that brand new principles of law will be invented to punish you if your actions bother people enough.

I agree with you, in general, about "cyber-bullying" -- that it should be handled under the framework of harassment. However, I'd acknowledge that the particularities about online interactions might require more statutory guidance about what constitutes harassment in that context. For example, if you were to follow someone around all day in the real world yelling insults at them, that would be harassment. What about if you follow them around online doing the same thing? It might be treated as being the same, since it's just the question of that virtual world versus the regular world. But it's also different, in that a person can simply log off. Is it more like getting annoying letters in your mailbox, where you can simply not open anything coming from a particular person if you want to ignore it? There are new issues inherent in the context, so it probably makes sense for lawmakers to provide some guidance about how old legal concepts should be applied in the setting, rather than leaving that to the courts. That said, I do worry that in the process of setting those rules, they'll narrow the range of free speech.

 

[Arkady]

I agree. If a person is so incompetent that they are mentally suggestible like people who suffer from mental retardation are.. then they too should have a guardian who exercises control, etc. Then we are back to locking up the mentally ill in facilities. Its either/or in my opinion.

Strange to find ourselves in agreement, but that's the same way I was thinking about. If a person is in so mentally disabled by depression that he can't withstand an ex-girlfriend making pro-suicide arguments, then he ought to be treated as incompetent by the law overall. That doesn't have to mean locking the person up, but it would mean the kinds of guardianship we have with children, old people with advanced dementia, severely mentally retarded people, etc.

That's another of the "slippery slopes" I worry about here -- that it would actually worsen the stigma for mental illness, by sending a signal that those dealing with a depressed person have heightened legal risk with regard to that person. For example, I'd be less likely to want to hire someone with a history of depression if I thought that I might go to jail if I pushed him too hard at work and he killed himself.

 

[Bugsy McGurk]

#HuntRepublicans, #HuntRepublicanCongressmen

Hashtags? That's it?

Weak.

 

[Arkady]

Ms. Carter did have knowledge that a young man was in the act of committing suicide. Did she not have any legal obligation to inform authorities in a timely manner, at a bare minimum?

Ordinarily, the answer would be "no," since there's not ordinarily a legal obligation to be a good Samaritan.

In law school we dealt with a bunch of similar scenarios to grapple with the concept. Picture three scenarios, in each of which there's a child trapped in a well, after having fallen down into it:

(1) You're the child's babysitter, and the child fell into the well when you weren't watching. You spot the child in the well, but don't help and don't tell anyone.

(2) You're a stranger who happens to spot the child in the well. You don't help and don't tell anyone.

(3) You're a stranger who happens to spot the child in the well. When asked if you've seen the child, you say no.

In the classic common law analysis, you'd be guilty of a crime in the first and the third scenario, but not the second. In the first, you owe a duty of care to the child, because you were the babysitter and because it was partly your fault the kid ended up there. In the third scenario, your actions hampered search efforts, giving rise to liability for you. But in the second, you simply didn't act, and traditionally the law lets you do that.

The judge in this case tried to get around that, in this case, by arguing that she was the one who put him in harm's way, by telling him to get back in the car, and thereby she acquired a duty of care to him, and should have gotten help. But I wouldn't be surprised if she wins the appeal, because she didn't really put him in that car. He did. She just advised him to get into it.

 

[marvin martian]

No clue what you were trying to say there.

It's ok, we know.

 

[Arkady]

I believe Obama also told Democrats to "get in their faces", "if they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun", "whose ass to kick", "gearing up for a fight"and other rhetoric that promoted violence. And with the context being he was talking to leftists who are already known for being violent, one would have to be extremely dishonest to say it wasn't violent rhetoric.

There's rhetoric that plays on violent imagery (like Palin's cross-hairs, or saying we're going to smack down our opponents in the next election), but if reasonable people wouldn't regard it as actually calling for violence, that's not even morally wrong, much less legally. That's why I defended Palin from attacks over that cross-hair imagery, all those years ago.

Picture two different scenarios:

(1) An NFL coach gives the team a pre-game speech where he says "we're going to war" and "let's kick their asses." Then, during the game, one of his players seriously injures the opposing QB with a dirty play.

(2) An NFL coach promises to pay any fines the league puts on any of his players for unnecessary roughness. He even puts a bounty on the opposing QB -- offering a bonus to anyone who knocks him out of the game, Buddy Ryan style. Then, during the game, one of his players seriously injures the opposing QB with a dirty play.

In the first case, that kind of rhetoric is pretty standard in the NFL, and no reasonable person would have understood it as incentivizing efforts to injure opponents. In the latter case, the rhetoric is extraordinary, and crosses the line from metaphor/hyperbole to actually inciting criminal behavior.

Everything I've heard from Obama falls more in the first category. It's common-place rhetoric you could find from major politicians of both parties, which traffics in metaphors of violence. Nothing terribly interesting there. By comparison, when Trump promised to pay the legal bills of anyone who beats a heckler at one of his rallies, that's not something I'd ever heard before from a major politician. That was no longer a metaphoric reference to violence. It was a promise to protect people from some of the legal consequences of ACTUAL real-world violence.

 

[connieb]

I'm no attorney, but there is an item in the law known as "depraved indifference":

To constitute depraved indifference, the defendant's conduct must be 'so wanton, so deficient in a moral sense of concern, so lacking in regard for the life or lives of others, and so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime. Depraved indifference focuses on the risk created by the defendant’s conduct, not the injuries actually resulting.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/depraved-indifference/

Whether Ms. Carter's inaction meets the threshold criteria I suspect is a matter for law enforcement professionals, but believe a case could be made.

I disagree. That is a standard of recklessness in your actions. You have no legal duty to act to save people unless you already have a duty to care and that is stuff like parent/child.

I could see you drowning and walk away and face no charges. Now if I acted like I was going to save you and because of that other people didn't, then maybe. If I through recklessness or deprived indiference created the situation then yes. But I would have needed to create the reason you drowned. For instance sending you out in a boat I knew was not sea worthy without telling you.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

There's rhetoric that plays on violent imagery (like Palin's cross-hairs, or saying we're going to smack down our opponents in the next election), but if reasonable people wouldn't regard it as actually calling for violence, that's not even morally wrong, much less legally. That's why I defended Palin from attacks over that cross-hair imagery, all those years ago.

Picture two different scenarios:

(1) An NFL coach gives the team a pre-game speech where he says "we're going to war" and "let's kick their asses." Then, during the game, one of his players seriously injures the opposing QB with a dirty play.

(2) An NFL coach promises to pay any fines the league puts on any of his players for unnecessary roughness. He even puts a bounty on the opposing QB -- offering a bonus to anyone who knocks him out of the game, Buddy Ryan style. Then, during the game, one of his players seriously injures the opposing QB with a dirty play.

In the first case, that kind of rhetoric is pretty standard in the NFL, and no reasonable person would have understood it as incentivizing efforts to injure opponents. In the latter case, the rhetoric is extraordinary, and crosses the line from metaphor/hyperbole to actually inciting criminal behavior.

Everything I've heard from Obama falls more in the first category. It's common-place rhetoric you could find from major politicians of both parties, which traffics in metaphors of violence. Nothing terribly interesting there. By comparison, when Trump promised to pay the legal bills of anyone who beats a heckler at one of his rallies, that's not something I'd ever heard before from a major politician. That was no longer a metaphoric reference to violence. It was a promise to protect people from some of the legal consequences of ACTUAL real-world violence.

Oh I totally agree. I saw the exchange in question as veering off from the actual OP topic at hand. I think it was a diversion into whether certain rhetoric could be considered violent. That said, given the rise of leftist violence coinciding with Obama and his violent rhetoric, I think it's reasonable to at least consider whether there is a link between the two.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Hashtags? That's it?

Weak.

Translation: Crap, you got me.

 

[Jen]

I believe Obama also told Democrats to "get in their faces", "if they bring a knife to the fight, we'll bring a gun", "whose ass to kick", "gearing up for a fight"and other rhetoric that promoted violence. And with the context being he was talking to leftists who are already known for being violent, one would have to be extremely dishonest to say it wasn't violent rhetoric.

But of course, Lefty IS "extremely dishonest".

 

[Arkady]

Oh I totally agree. I saw the exchange in question as veering off from the actual OP topic at hand. I think it was a diversion into whether certain rhetoric could be considered violent. That said, given the rise of leftist violence coinciding with Obama and his violent rhetoric, I think it's reasonable to at least consider whether there is a link between the two.

Has there been a rise in leftist violence? What evidence is there that there's been an increase in it?

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Has there been a rise in leftist violence? What evidence is there that there's been an increase in it?

Baltimore, Dallas, Ferguson, Alexandria for starters. It used to be a list like this took place over a course of a decade or more instead of a few years.

 

[freyasman]

Baltimore, Dallas, Ferguson, Alexandria for starters. It used to be a list like this took place over a course of a decade or more instead of a few years.

You forgot Berkeley