It's just like slinging crack rock - first one's free.

After that . . . not so much.

You can just send the bill to the county as my little gift to them for not paying me. ;)

Regarding drinking too much water, it seems to me that while we know, and have discussed it at some length on GC, a fairly large percentage of the general public would be shocked to find that this can be deadly.

What you've got to realize is that it takes A LOT of water to cause an electrolyte imbalance that will lead to cardiac arrest. Most members of the general public cannot even fathom drinking that much. That's why these news stories do cause a media circus. They're rare-like plane crashes.
First time I heard about it was an article in Runner's World where a woman overhydrated with water and collapsed and died during a marathon.

looks like the radio station fired several people involved with this incident...
 

Regarding my earlier thought about people not knowing about potential dangers in drinking too much water, I was talking about it in our network control room last night, and nobody there (all college graduates and pretty bright people) were aware that this could happen.

Re the DJ's involved and their comments -- pretty cold.

I don't know this station, nor have I ever heard any of their "personalities" on the air -- so I don't know if they could be considered "shock" jocks, but some folks on the air these days are way over the edge.

Amazing, The people signed a waver!:confused:

A nurse called in and said it could be bad, but they signed a waver?

It was bad and the women died.

It is sad what people will do to win items?

Survival of da fittest!!!! :confused: :) :p

NaturAl Selection is Failing! LOLol! :rolleyes::mad::confused::)

TEH DARWIN!!! IT DOES NOT WORK!!!!!!

I was thinking of that incident in Chico when I heard about this.. EVERYONE in the country let alone those in California ALL Heard about the hazing incident ESP. those in media... Those DJs KNEW there coudl be harm. :rolleyes: :confused: My friend heard the broadcast and said that there were nurses and docs. calling in saying it was dangerous.

The description of the tape here looks bad, but I wonder, if everybody there heard it, really why should the DJs be more responsible for stopping the participants than the participants themselves, in a criminal sense, at least?

These are people who aren't in the care of the station; they are voluntary contest participants.

Imagine

A: "Hey, you want to be in my dumb contest?"
B: "Sure."

Someone else: "That contest could hurt you.

A: "You want to be in my dumb contest?"
B: "Sure."

Why is A more responsible than B?

It amazes me that anyone who knew of a water intoxication death would allow people to guzzle enough water to kill themselves but it still seems goofy to say they were more responsible that the folks who chose to do it. Can one of you legal folks explain it?

I think it's interesting that at first they had to wait between bottles of water. It seems to me that they could have safely done this dumb-incredibly-poor-taste contest simply by making it about how long people could wait having consumed a uniform amount of water.

I totally agree that the contestants themselves should hold themselves accountable.

If the DJ's were talking about water intoxication, and people were calling in about how dangerous it might be, but in the end, they still competed, why is it the station's fault?

I realize they are the ones who created the contest in the first place, but given all the feedback about it, the contestants still went ahead with it to win a stupid game console.

Well, here's one thing to consider from a professional broadcaster.

On air radio stations are licensed by the Federal Government to operate in the public's best interest.

As I said early in the thread, it isn't likely that the FCC's mandate would specifically cover something like manslaughter, but the licensee of the station should be operating in the public's "interest, convenience and necessity," to quote the original Communications Act.

It is not in the public interest to run a contest that endgangers lives.

That makes sense, but under those circumstance it seem more appropriate to suspend the station's FCC license because they generally failed to deliver on that mission.


And I agree that the contest was stupid, but how could you reconcile the purpose you've given with the crappy alcohol ads, fake weightloss product ads, and random lewd but safe contests stations run generally?

Recent reports have shown that the D.A. is investigating manslaughter charges.

(what did I tell y'all?)

Uhh, prosecutors would charge Mother Teresa with manslaughter.

Typical criminal defense lawyer :)

I'll admit, it's in the news, so prosecutors will be hot to charge whoever with whatever so they can grab headlines and hopefully get better jobs.

Looking at the elements, there's a case here for *at least* negligent homicide. A deal will be made.

Kevin,

Again I admit up front that my info is based on wikipedia, but when I look up negligent homicide, there's either an expectation that one party be expected to provide care to another, like patients in a nursing home, or an expectation that the person accused failed to excercise the reasonable amount of caution that the average person would use.

Since the dangers of water poisoning seem to me to either A) be unknown by a large section of the public or B) explained in this case by help care professions to the DJs and the participants, and all continued to proceed, I don't get why the station is the responsible party.

Can you explain it to me?

When people are convicted, there's usually also been a failure to seek appropriate professional help after the fact, which doesn't seem to be the case here.

It varies from state to state. I'll admit, I have absolutely no idea what California's law is on this, nor do I care to look it up. I live in Oklahoma, so that kind of knowledge would just go into my brain and probably push something useful out :)

Negligent homicide in my understanding is essentially any time negligence is the cause of a death. Negligence has 4 elements. First, you have to have a duty of some sort to the victim. In this case, the radio station could easily be said to have a duty to not cause harm to the participants of its contest. Further, there are reports that people had warned the radio station's producer that this was dangerous. He proceeded with the contest. I think you can make a solid case for that element. I'm glossing over some of the particularities, I know, but that's it in a nutshell.

Next, you have to have a breach of that duty. Easy. The station's duty was to not harm its contestants, and it harmed the contestants.... so there's the breach.

Next is proximate cause. The radio station would have to have somehow caused the injury in question. Now, sure, the woman was the one who drank the water. She did it of her own free will. However, but for the station's contest, she wouldn't have been chugaluging that water. There's no intervening, unforeseeable harm to supervene, none of that. The cause of the death was the drinking of the water which was the object of the contest put on by the station. The causal chain is about as long as we have in a car accident. There's proximate cause. Easy.

Finally, there must be damages... a pointless question to ask in a criminal investigation. That's more civil tort stuff which probably doesn't even come in here. If it did, she's dead. That's pretty damaged. End of analysis :)

___

At any rate, my understanding of the doctrine is that generally negligence plus a death caused by that negligence equals negligent homicide. There are all kinds of exceptions, I'm sure. The Wiki article seemed to be pretty bad.

Most states do require more than regular tort negligence to get to criminal negligence. Most express that "something more" is required, but few define what that is. Some states require gross negligence, some require a high risk of death or serious bodily harm. It really does vary.

That said, the wiki article is terrible.
____

Since the dangers of water poisoning seem to me to either A) be unknown by a large section of the public or B) explained in this case by help care professions to the DJs and the participants, and all continued to proceed, I don't get why the station is the responsible party.

Can you explain it to me?

When people are convicted, there's usually also been a failure to seek appropriate professional help after the fact, which doesn't seem to be the case here.[/QUOTE]

And even if it was for injury, if there are any successful criminal charges, you cannot waive a criminal act.

Kevin, please correct me if I am wrong.

It was a case of where a person died, true.

It was not premetitated for a person dieing.

Now it comes to the attention of the Station DJ's being called and telling them they could cause damage which they ignored as a waiver was signed.

Now, where is the culpability for a true crime? Stupidity?:( Yes!

Would it possibilty of a misdomeaner or a felony?

Just a guess, misdomeaner and being stupid. Of course they have been fired but what justice should be meted out?

I don't think you can have a killing be a misdemeanor.

As far as premeditation, that's not required for manslaughter. It's not even required for all forms of murder (e.g., felony murder).

On your first point, I agree. I think the station's license should be pulled.

On the second, though, it isn't within the expertise of broadcasters to know if something like alcohol, over the counter drugs and stuff like that is safe. Even though, in some cases, everyone knows better. It took decades for the government to ban cigarette advertising even after fairly clear links to cancer were discovered. I'm also not saying that some stations will not do pretty much anything for money. I've not been in commercial, on air broadcasting for a while, but I seem to recall there there were some free speech issues claimed by some advertisers who were denied air time.

I don't remember what they were and I don't remeber how those issues were resolved.

http://www.nbc11.com/news/10762819/detail.html

According to the story link above, a wrongful death suit will be filed. The attorney for the family of the victim says it wants to make an example of the "shock jocks" involved who allegedly knew of the dangers involved and made jokes about the situation.

And that may be the key point of the case.

"They were told and ignored"!

But, I do not think it was until recently that the fact of water poisoning has come to light?