What about charging them with a terrorism related charge. There have been arrests made of various “cells” that never got beyond the talking phase.
Thanks for the personal insults. I asked because the major tenor in this thread is “ha ha practical joke”, not “attempted murder”. It’s the reaction of the dopers in this thread in addition to it being called a misdemeanor that utterly surprises me.
Do we know that the DA looked at attempted murder? Given that half the people in this thread find this amusing, and given that the rednecks are white and targeted hikers (who might be considered weirdo hippies in Utah, I don’t know) maybe the DA said “misdemeanor” without bothering further.
That’s why I asked your opinion, because the attitude of several others in this thread is different.
I admit that I made an assumption (silly of me, I know) that the basic idea of what constitutes murder (an attempt, a felony) would be roughly similar in all states, according to basic common sense and basic structure of law, so that a person traveling from one state to the other doesn’t have to consult the whole book of law to know which actions are punishable and which not, but could instead rely on basic common sense for the major parts and only need to look minor things that change like building permits, speed limits or noise restrictions.
But if in your system each state can define murder any which way it likes, then I will try to remember that next time.
Given the state of your justice system, with its history of huge injustices (e.g. the huge disparity in charging and sentencing between whites and blacks, or that women serve double the time for violent crimes than men, the many pre-trial deals, the wildly different charges for the same crime depending on who the accused is), I see no reason for your belief that the prosecutors looked at the whole penal code and for some reason couldn’t apply attempted murder or attempted serious bodily harm and only found misdemeanor.
In a reasonable system, that would be laughed at and dismissed, given that they set the traps on hiking trails. You don’t trap animals on hiking trails (even if the animals are smart enough to use them during the night).
Over here, it would of course also be a violation of hunting laws to hunt animals with these kind of traps, but I gather that hunting laws are very lax in the US.
You seem to be utterly misunderstanding quite a few posts, then. No one is laughing about this, or thinks it’s funny. Which posts gave you that impression?
You must have not read all the posts detailing that there is no such charge in the state of Utah. Or not read the sentence in the linked article in my OP where it said that authorities were convinced they might not be able to charge them with anything stronger, which implies that they want to and have considered it, but that they would not be able to secure convictions.
Apparently you haven’t read any of the thousands upon thousands of posts about the Trayvon Martin killing on the Dope, because it’s been discussed at length that the state of Florida has not criminalized homocide, except when it’s unlawful. It’s a key point of those discussions that the definition of “murder” varies from state to state, sometimes in ways which seem counter-intuitive to many.
Good point. These were basically low-tech versions of an IED - a trap to harm or kill anyone coming by.
Was this a national park, a state park, a local park or what? The ranger was USFS so I was wondering if it was federal land and thus potentially subject to federal jurisdiction.
constanze, if you don’t want people insulting you, first off, stay out of the fucking pit. Second, stop doing that shitty thing that people keep telling you not to do: insulting America and talking about how great Germany is. And third, stop assuming you know things you don’t know, like how the American justice system works.
And, serious question: do you have trouble understanding English? Because mhendo is right: your interpretation of what he said was very, very wrong. I’m usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, and even I can’t figure out how you got that out of what he said.
What?
No-one has been saying that this was only a practical joke. A few people have been making jokes, but that’s just the usual gallows humor that you get in almost any thread about a serious topic around here. I bet if you polled everyone who has contributed to this thread so far, asking for a serious answer, not one of them would laugh this incident off as a practical joke.
This is just silly. Firstly, in Utah, hikers are not just “weirdo hippies”; heaps of people in Utah hike, including large numbers of the white, Mormon conservatives who make up a large portion of the state population. The natural environment is also a big tourist earner for the state, and no-one, from the governor on down, wants potential visitors driven away by the threat of being decapitated by a spiked rock.
Second, the article quoted in the OP said that the prosecutors were concerned that, considering no-one was injured, a misdemeanor might be all that they could charge. Also, some people have suggested that the DA might be in the process of working out how to charge the pair with more serious offenses. As this story says:
So, they were arrested and booked into jail on the misdemeanor charges. That allows the DA to get them into custody. But there’s nothing to prevent the prosecutor from adding other charges down the road, if that is appropriate.
I really don’t think anyone else here has a different attitude.
If you placed the murder statutes of the 50 states side by side, and looked at how they work in actual court cases, i’ll bet you’d find a whole lot of similarities. It’s true that states set their own penal or criminal codes, but for most crimes, especially the “big” ones like murder, they tend to rely on very similar legal principles to define the crime, to determine its elements, etc. A lawyer with criminal experience like Bricker or Oakminster could probably talk more knowledgeably about this than i can.
Look, you’ll get no argument from me that there are plenty of problems within the United States criminal justice system. Hell, just last week i read a compelling book about the ways in which the war on drugs disproportionately impacts poor communities and people of color.
But that’s no reason to run around looking for a conspiracy, or for incompetence, whenever a case doesn’t quite conform to your expectations. Remember, my first contribution to this whole conversation was when you said:
Firstly, a parking offense is not the same as a misdemeanor. A parking offense is an infraction for which you can be cited. It is not (generally, at least), a crime for which you can be arrested.
Secondly, you suggested that these two should be charged with murder. I suspect that, even in your country, with its undoubtedly superior system of justice and its concern for equitable treatment, a person cannot be charged with murder if that person did not actually cause a death. I could be wrong; it’s possible, i guess, that your criminal code allows for a charge of murder in a case where nobody actually dies. I’d be pretty surprised, though.
Also, even backwoods, redneck states with lots of hiking trails and lots of refugees from Deliverance, tend not to have laws on their books such as “setting a deadly trap with malice aforethought.” Similarly, New York does not have a specific statute entitled “sticking someone’s feet in concrete and making them swim the East River.”
OK, the swingy rock thing looks like it might hurt, could be deadly. But “head level” in this case appears to mean “head level if you’re crawling through this little opening on all fours.” And since it swings on the outside of the structure it’d be more likely to hit you in the ass as you went in, unless you were already inside and coming out. That’s a lot different from what I was expecting: a beach ball-sized rock with friggin’ spikes that would swing across a hiking trail at about 5-6 feet off the ground.
And as for the trip wire I was expecting more of a man-trap pit. The spikes in that case were so visible and in the open as to be ridiculously obvious.
Misdemeanor short-sighted stupidity resulting in potentially dangerous situations. Whack their pee-pees with a splintery stick and make them spend a couple months observing trauma admissions in a big city hospital so they can get a better idea of what serious injuries look and feel like.
Reckless endangerment sounds about right.
Kids, don’t try this argument [del]at home[/del] in court!
Though we can only hope their defense attorney ignores that advice.
I hope and pray there’s a felony that these guys can be charged with. Preferably one that enables the state to lock them up for a long, long time.
I don’t get what the crawl through portion is all about. And the ‘fence’ of piled wood. This some kind of obstical course or something?
Is this perhaps a “native/non-native speaker” misunderstanding where you’re being misled by the idiom in the thread title?
In American English, to say “Ha ha very funny” almost universally connotes sarcasm. It’s what you say when you DON’T think something’s funny at all.
About this big.
Who changed my thread title?
Quarrymen.
Only one other person has mentioned conspiracy, and it strikes me as likely that it’s the only felony charge that could stick. The problem with attempted murder is that there’s a crime against a person involved, and there’s no person involved in this case. Had the trap been triggered, and someone narrowly averted death, then attempted murder might be a possible charge. The glory of conspiracy is that all it requires is an agreement to commit the crime, and an overt act in pursuit of committing the crime – selecting a victim isn’t necessary:
[QUOTE=Utah Code 76-4-201]
For purposes of this part a person is guilty of conspiracy when he, intending that conduct constituting a crime be performed, agrees with one or more persons to engage in or cause the performance of the conduct and any one of them commits an overt act in pursuance of the conspiracy, except where the offense is a capital felony, a felony against the person, arson, burglary, or robbery, the overt act is not required for the commission of conspiracy.
[/QUOTE]
My mistake – the overt act isn’t necessary.
Probably the same guy who moved your cheese.
Hard time in the barbers, in one case.
Provo and the Quarrymen.
Update: The local TV station posted an interview with the Forest Service officer who found the booby traps. The article gave further insight into the geniuses who were arrested.
So now we know specifically what kind of wildlife the traps were intended for – wild boars and bunnies.