[QUOTE=Bismark Tribune Article]
Kempenich said one should consider what might happen if someone panics when coming upon a group of people gathered along a public roadway. He said an unintentional tragedy may occur “if they’d have punched the accelerator rather than the brakes.”
[/QUOTE]
I feel the I understand the moral (or lack thereof) basis of this law, but perhaps Bricker or somebody with some legal chops could comment on whether a law like this would actually stand up in court. I am not clear if they are limiting the criminal or the civil liability, but I would guess the civil as an accident is not a criminal offense, right? I have no legal training, but it is hard for me how you can limit legal liability for maiming or killing a certain class of pedestrian. Would this law let me “accidentally” run down operation rescue protesters, or is it only oil pipeline protesters that are fair game? I thought that people who accidentally injure another while driving were already relatively protected against legal and financial sanctions. Are they not? Why is this law needed?
I thought about putting this in the pit or in MPSIMS, but on the off chance some debate on the sanctity of life starts I put it here in GD. Mods, please move it if you feel it is appropriate.
thread title is a bit inflammatory, but I don’t see any reason why a state legislature can’t say “Person X has no civil liability in circumstances such as _____”. Just for one example, Florida has done so in some cases where a defensive gun use (or really any defensive use of force) is found to be justified. See Florida statute 776.032:
ETA: This amounts to a giant middle finger to the Martin family’s hopes of suing George Zimmerman.
This bill could be considered reason #726 why ‘protesting’ by standing on the freeway is a shitty idea. Here is an instructional video for the TL;DR crowd.
And when the excited motorist, dazzled by all these signs waved in the air, presses down hard by accident, and plows into a group of policemen monitoring a protest, leaving them killed and maimed, this happy little politician can absolve him.
“Drive away and sin no more.”
This bill does not appear to affect the criminal code.
HB1203, introduced by
provides in pertinent part:
It goes on to amend existing code sections to make clear that where a sidewalk is provided and its use is practicable, it is unlawful for any pedestrian to walk along and upon an adjacent roadway; where a sidewalk is not available, any pedestrian walking along and upon a highway
shall walk only on a shoulder, as far as practicable from the edge of the roadway; where neither a sidewalk nor a shoulder is available, any pedestrian walking along and upon a highway shall walk as near as practicable to an outside edge of the roadway, and, if on a two-way roadway, shall walk only on the left side of the roadway; and any pedestrian upon a roadway shall yield the right of way to all vehicles upon the roadway.
Finally, it provides that a driver of a motor vehicle who unintentionally causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway is not guilty of an offense. This last may have criminal implications, but since it applies only to unintentional results, its criminal application is limited – as a general rule, a crime must be intended.
Huh. It sounds like this bill would absolve people who ran over school children crossing the street assuming the did not run a red light, stop sign, or ignore a crossing guard. Jay walkers also seem to be fair game. Bricker, do you agree?
It really sounds like this is a stupid and unneeded law that is being crafted to send a political message. I would bet there are already statutes and precedents that protect motorists of liability when they accidentally hit somebody walking down the middle of the street. Am I right?
ETA: I find it highly doubtful that somebody would face no legal repercussions after this law is passed if they ran through a crowd of protesters at speed. Bricker, since you have commented once, do you care to comment again on the hypothetical?
I’m going to go back to the subject line, and it’s a senseless question. By what I’d consider the standard definition murder is illegal killing, so if something is legal then it isn’t technically murder, and ‘legalizing murder’ is semantically nonsense. Some people label a legal killing they disagree with is murder, but here’s no legal issue with a state making it legal to kill in self-defense, in an execution, in military action, or for euthanasia, even though a lot of people will call some or all of these ‘murder’ depending on context.
So, putting aside what the specifics of this bill says, it’s definitely accepted practice for a state to legalize or decriminalize killing under some circumstances, which could be called ‘legalizing murder’.
On the civil side, the old rule (i.e., pre-modern common law) might very well have exempted the driver from monetary liability. The old rule was called “contributory negligence,” and it held that one party (the driver) could not be liable for a negligent injury if the other party (the pedestrian) was even the least bit negligent himself. So if the protesters were in or carelessly close to the road such that they were partly at fault, the old rule would have held that they receive no compensation for their injuries.
The modern rule that has taken hold in most states is called “comparative negligence,” and it requires the jury to apportion damages by apportioning fault between two negligent parties. So if the jury found the protesters to be 50 percent at fault in an accident, they could only recover 50 percent of the damages for their injuries.
Essentially, I think the proposed law would return ND to the old rule in the specific area of motor-vehicle cases involving an obstructed road.
All this goes out the window if the driver’s bad conduct is intentional.
Mea culpa. I don’t know about poisoning the well, but I do think that it could be considered trolling. There are several times it has served me well, but the majority of time it just gets in the way, this being one of those times. I am so fed up with politics in this country that I have an almost unconscious reaction where I am snarky and inflammatory when I create threads or reply to posts; granted I don’t think I am the only one that has this problem as I see the behavior in many other dopers… Still, I am rightly chastised I will try to refrain from this behavior in the future especially in GD…
I’m not Bricker, but so long as the driver did not intentionally hit the jaywalker or school children, why should the driver be civilly or criminally liable?
