Poll of the Day > TN passes bill to make drunk drivers pay kid support if they kill a parent.

(+) Yeah! (+)

darkknight109 posted...

Also, I feel like you don't understand how murder/manslaughter works if you think that the civilians potentially ducking for cover makes a difference. The important part isn't whether or not they can avoid your attack (that's the difference between murder/manslaughter and attempted murder/reckless endangerment); it's whether or not you were deliberately trying to kill them at the time.

Again, for it to be murder, you have to knowingly and willingly be intending to cause death. That's the crux of the charge. If you killed someone because you were doing something really fucking stupid - like driving drunk - and you happened to kill someone, that's still a serious crime and your ass deserves to be in prison for a good long while, but it isn't murder, because at no point did you intend for someone to die because of your stupidity. Reckless disregard for safety of others and negligence are not the same thing as malice.

Third degree murder says "Hello"?
If what you say is true, why do people keep getting charged w/ murder just for punching someone when it ends up killing them?
How the fuck is plowing a vehicle into somebody while intoxicated less "intent" than a punch?

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/bouncer-to-be-charged-with-murder-for-allegedly-killing-man-with-punch-cops-say/3220974/

A bouncer at a Center City nightclub will be charged with third-degree murder for punching a man who later died of his injuries following an incident on April 16, police said Wednesday.

The punch occurred outside Tabu Lounge & Sports Bar on the 200 block of South 12th Street shortly before 1 a.m. that morning. Police allege that the bouncer, identified as 24-year-old Kenneth Frye, brought an intoxicated 41-year-old man outside and punched him in the face.

They have not revealed what exactly led to the punch. Third-degree murder is a charge issued in a killing that is not believed to be premeditated or involved in another felony crime.

Sources told NBC10 the man fell to the ground after being punched and was unconscious. He was taken to Jefferson Hospital where he was placed in the intensive care unit. On Sunday, April 24, he died from his injuries.

https://www.wxii12.com/article/winston-salem-police-man-charged-murder-after-punching-killing-man/38991934

Winston-Salem police said James King, 73, and Antuan Perry, 30, were arguing with each other while standing in a driveway on the 1000 block of West Academy Street just before 8 p.m.

During the argument, police said Perry allegedly punched King in the head, which caused him to fall, and hit his head on the concrete driveway.

https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/local/2018/01/11/can-single-punch-lead-murder-charge-vermont/1024414001/

In that case, Bradley Senna, 19, of Winooski "sucker-punched" David Hojohn, 54, in late August 2016 during an altercation involving a group of people, prosecutors have said. Hojohn fell to the pavement and was knocked unconscious. He died the next month from multiple blunt-force trauma.

During the hearing, Senna apologized to the court, the community and to Hojohn's family.

"I would have never thought that one punch ever could have ... killed a man," Senna said.

Senna's statement goes right to the heart of the legal issue raised during the course of his case. He was initially charged with aggravated assault, but the charge was upgraded to second-degree murder when Hojohn died more than a week later.

Vermont Law School Professor Robert Sand said that in general, the law tries to pair what someone has done with what might have been in their mind at the time. Sand formerly served as the Windsor County State's Attorney.

"We do, though, in the law sometimes say that if you do something and it results in a worse outcome than you anticipated, you're on the hook for that worse outcome," Sand said. "That's how, in the law and sort of in the policy that underlies the law, we can say that someone who only intended to inflict bodily injury ends up being criminally responsible for a resulting death, even though they didn't intend for that death to happen."

For a charge of second-degree murder, parties must show that a suspect acted with intent to kill or inflict great bodily harm, or that the person acted with a wanton disregard for the possibility that those things could occur. Sand said a second-degree murder charge can occur when a person intends to inflict bodily injury, but the person dies as a result of those injuries.

"That's not an uncommon basis for a murder charge," he said, speaking generally. "It technically isn't considered an intentional murder, but it is intentional conduct."

Just some recent stories from googling "punched death charged murder"

streamofthesky posted...

Third degree murder says "Hello"?
If what you say is true, why do people keep getting charged w/ murder just for punching someone when it ends up killing them?
How the fuck is plowing a vehicle into somebody while intoxicated less "intent" than a punch?

Unless you are getting into the car or driving with the intent of running people over it's not the same. Punching someone is generally intentional.

Blue_Thunder posted...

Unless you are getting into the car or driving with the intent of running people over it's not the same. Punching someone is generally intentional.

Intending to kill them with a punch generally is not intentional, though.

In every article I cited, the puncher explicitly did not intend to kill the victim, the prosecution acknowledged they didn't intend to and believed it to be true, and charged them with murder anyway.

streamofthesky posted...

Third degree murder says "Hello"?

Third-degree murder isn't a thing in most jurisdictions. The jurisdictions that do have it basically use it as a substitute for what most other jurisdictions call manslaughter (only three states in the US - Florida, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania - have third degree murder statutes).

streamofthesky posted...

If what you say is true

It is - instead of trying to cherry-pick examples, you could literally look up the definition of "murder" and the difference between that and manslaughter, which is a single google search away.

streamofthesky posted...

why do people keep getting charged w/ murder just for punching someone when it ends up killing them?

Because the prosecutor in the case feels that they can prove sufficient intent behind the punch to infer intent to kill. Or because they're charging the criminal with the worst crime they can in order to pressure them into a plea deal. Prosecutors can charge you with whatever they want; it's what you're convicted of that actually matters.

The other possibility is that you're looking at a state that does not separate murder into degrees and instead follows the Model Penal Code definitions, which codifies murder as any death that results from an intention to cause harm, manslaughter is any death that results from reckless conduct, and negligent homicide is any death that results from negligence.

But, again, punching isn't really a good comparable to drunk driving, because when you punch someone you unarguably mean them harm. Perhaps not death, but you are definitely trying to hurt them. But, in most cases, drunk driving has no intent-to-harm behind it. People don't get behind the wheel of their car drunk because they *want* to harm people; to the contrary, if they wanted to use their vehicle as a weapon, they'd be much better off driving sober so that they have full control of their actions for maximum damage. Most drunk driving accidents are from morons being stupid and thinking that they're much better drivers while drunk than they actually are; they're just trying to get home and rejecting that they are behaving dangerously. In other words, they are being reckless, not malicious. Under the law, that makes a big difference.

I'm all for that. Drunk drivers make conscious choices to drink and drive. They should be held accountable for any consequences of their actions.