In this hypothetical scenario, a man sets up a bunch of remote-controlled gun turrets on top of buildings in heavily populated areas, ostensibly to hunt pigeons with. He controls them over the Internet, aiming at the skies and plinking away pigeons from his armchair.
It just so happens that the turrets can also aim lower, towards the ground, and can shoot at pedestrians.
One day the man gets fired from his job (maintenance at the shooting club) and loses it, and he posts the logins for his turrets all over the Internet. Within a few hours, word spreads and random kids are shooting people with these turrets. The man never originally intended to harm people with them, and he never encouraged people to shoot other people, but he did release lethal weaponry for the public to use.
The closest analogy I could think of is distributing random handguns to people, or perhaps leaving an arsenal in a poorly secured warehouse of some sort and then advertising their presence and inviting theft.
What might the man be charged with? Does it matter where he installs these turrets – in random cities, the countryside, near federal properties, etc.? Does it matter how heavily secured his turrets are?
He’s doing a bit more than just providing people with information about where the guns are and how they can control them. He is providing the infrastructure through which they control them - the motors that cause the guns to swivel and elevate or lower, the cameras through which people can sight the guns, the software that make it all work, etc, etc. The people controlling the guns couldn’t do what they do without his active and continuing support, it seems to me.
If this is a jurisdiction in which the felony-murder rule applies, I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some felony in what he is doing, in which case he is looking at murder. Otherwise, in most jurisdictions wouldn’t be be looking at at least manslaughter? There has got to be some criminal negligence in putting this stuff in the hands of the unfiltered public, and criminal negligence resulting in death is manslaughter.
It seems like a charge of criminally negligent homicide would fit pretty well. I imagine the guy could also be charge in conjunction with violation of noise ordinances and prohibitions against discharging firearms in urban areas, though those pale in comparison.
This could parallel the Pit Bull controversy. If a person deploys Pit Bulls, for benign purposes, he is also responsible for any harm done by them when not under his control, but with presumptive awareness of such potential harm. .
I had to run. The URL for that page is Section 102A Infernal machine; possession; definition; notice of seizure - Massachusetts Statutes , not exactly the same as what popped up at the end. Some places or dictionaries define an “infernal device” or an “infernal machine” as one involving explosives, but I think most places have a broader definition, as in the Massachusetts example cited. I don’t know how widespread these laws are, but I have gotten the impression that they’re pretty common, and that part of the reason is to provide a method of charging people who knowingly construct a harmful device that doesn’t neatly fall into already proscribed categories, and aren’t using it carefully. If I make a big badly-constructed pressurized container and leave in in the Town Square, and it shatters and throws off shrapnel that injures a lot of people, I’d expect to be charged under this kind of statute.
Read your own link carefully. “any device for endangering life” means any device that was designed to be primarily employed for endangering life. Otherwise, an automobile would be an “infernal device”. And a step ladder and toaster and a rock. The word “for” here implies purpose and intent.
If I were on the jury, and given those facts, I would conclude that posting the passwords to remote-controlled firearms mounted in Manhattan to everyone on the Internet is an act of depraved indifference to human life, and absolutely vote to convict of second degree murder on those grounds.