Scenario: Your best bud has decided to do himself in by ingesting something along the lines of New And Improved DRAINO-Now With Battery Acid!, something for which there would be absolutely no chance of surviving. He won’t live, but he is in the worst agony you can possibly imagine…and you have the means to instantly end his long agony via gun, aluminum baseball bat or what have you.
Now, if you so decide to cut his agony short, has he committed suicide? Have you committed murder? Both? Neither?
Not looking for a legal opinion here-just how you see the situation personally.
I went with neither. At best, because the cause of death wasn’t the stuff he ingested, it would be an attempted suicide. The killing would be a mercy killing, imo.
I went with suicide but now I wonder if I should have checked the “something else” option. I think it would be more assisted suicide rather than suicide on his part (or murder on mine).
Since the friend wouldn’t have survived I say he committed suicide and I committed euthanasia.
There’s a legal argument that points to murder. Let’s say a man jumps off the Empire State Building , presumably with the intent to commit suicide. Halfway down during his decent, I shoot him in the head, killing him instantly. I am charged with murder because I prematurely ended his life. Jury nullification would probably get me off with a light or no sentence.
Clearly a suicide, in intent and effect. I merely applied some anesthetic (in intent and effect).
Again,
Mercy killing.
This is an ‘interesting’ thing that happened a few days ago.
I expect that each girl shot herself, but if they had shot the other instead - would one of them be charged with murder?
I would see it as murder. As gladtobeblazed rightly points out, my bud was going to die anyway, but I dunno, in my mind I’m killing him before the New and Improved Draino kills him.
New and Improved Draino? That is just NAST. I’d probably whack him with the bat on principle for choosing such a horrible way to go. WTF man? You couldn’t just roast some nice charcoal in your car w/ the windows rolled up?
I’d say if it wasn’t suicide (on his part), it was by the slimmest technicalities.
For my part in it, I’d call it a “mercy killing,” not “murder.” To paraphrase DC comics, the Drano killed him, I just stopped him from suffering.
Suicide IMO. There are many cases of suicide by cop. In those cases, it is clearly a suicide, not murder by the cops.
I’d call it murder and attempted suicide.
Neither.
Mercy killing for which I’d have to accept the consequences for if I carried out the act.
Except that the cops are usually forced to react as such. In this scenario you, on the other hand, decided on your own to do the deed.
I voted for “both” but I like this answer better.
My reasoning was that the death was begun by the ingesting of the poison and would have been the cause had the interloper not stepped in. Stepping in is murder (okay, maybe assisted suicide or mercy killing or euthanasia) in that “I” killed someone else intentionally. A dictionary definition includes “unlawfully” as part of the set of things at work in a murder, per se. Where the killing takes place may figure in to that part of the puzzle. The “with malice aforethought” component may or may not apply, but even if it doesn’t “second degree murder” would still get my vote in the OP’s scenario.
The suicide interruptus idea has some validity.
I put murder…but that doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong.
I said neither. It’s clearly a mercy killing. Murder is done out of malice. Mercy killing is done out of compassion.