Quote:
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.
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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
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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.
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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]
Yes!
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