Death after water drinking contest:

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

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?

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.

[UGAalum94]

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?

[Kevin]

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

(what did I tell y'all?)

[valkyrie]

Originally Posted by Kevin

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.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by valkyrie

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.

[UGAalum94]

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.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

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.

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]

[DeltAlum]

Originally Posted by Alphagamuga

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?

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.

[DeltAlum]

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.

[Tom Earp]

Originally Posted by DeltAlum

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?