If I pulled a gun on you and shot you, and then said “I thought it was unloaded. It was just a prank!”, Would you feel the same way? Why are you whining? Just have a good laugh about it. You may die but it’s okay, because I didn’t intend to hurt you.
Find me a jury that will actually buy that excuse.
Another update on this subject: According to my SO, newer defib devices actually will not work at all unless they first can detect no heartbeat currently in the patient. That sounds like a good idea. I can see an overly enthusiastic EMT using a device on a patient who is down but not out, so to speak.
Debaser, out!
So if Joe shoots and kills Fred, Joe should only be punished for what he *intended * to do, which was injure Fred?
Sorry, it doesn’t wash. When you assault someone with deadly consequences, you pay for it.
The idea that “I was just pranking, therefore I should get off” is something a lot of abusive people use. It is unacceptable and the consequences should be the same regardless of intent.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060125/NEWS04/601250318
Re: Degrees of Manslaughter
Although individual states las may vary, common definitions of the types of manslaughter are the following:
Voluntary Manslaughter: (This is the more serious crime) Either (1) with the intent to cause serious physical harm, a person kills another person, or (2) with the intent to kill someone, a persons kills another person, but does so acting under an extreme emotional disturbance sufficient to reduce the crime from murder. An example of the first might be someone who intended only to beat someone up, but he died. An example of the second might be someone who found his wife in bed with another man and enraged killed him.
Involuntary Manslaughter: A person recklessly kills another person. It seems to me that a trained EMT shocking a healthy person with a defibrilator would be exactly the type of recklessness that fits this definition.
I really can’t fathom how “EMT shocking someone” = “reckless or accidental.” Add on the fact that he had to be told to stop fucking with the defibrillator and then shocked someone anyway, and I can’t see any way to honestly claim he didn’t know what he was doing.
I’m not sure what the voltage works out to. The standard sequence of shocks is 200J, 300J, and 360J. Manual defibrillators, like the one idiot boy used can typically be set anywhere between 2J and 360J.
I also agree that the EMT in questions absolutely should have known that a defib could kill someone. They teach AEDs in CPR classes now, and it’s taught to those people. I can say with 100% certainty that this would have been covered in his EMT class- it’s part of the national standard curriculum.
To whoever asked, this will absolutely bar him from future EMT certification/employment.
Good. For the rest of his life, I hope.
That’s not “felony murder”. At least google it, for crying out loud. “Felony murder” in the US is where someone dies (perhaps as a result of your actions, depending on the jurisdiction) during a different felony.
What you describe could be any old murder or manslaughter - you can always be charged later if the victim dies as a result of your actions. This is a commonly accepted principle - indeed, was accomodated in one of the requirements in Blackstone’s famous definition of murder (that the death must occur within a “year and a day” of the original act).
Intent is important? No shit, Sherlock! What’s the relevance of this, though?
Also, there are quite a few crimes relating to the death of another person. Your formulation of “negligently kill[ing]…by accident” is not necessarily manslaughter. Many jurisdictions have offences called things like “negligent homicide”. There are also degrees of manslaughter in many US jurisdictions.
I’m just wondering about a thought process that goes “huh, this woman is driving a large, very heavy vehicle in which I am riding in the back. I think I’ll sneak up and give her a helluva shock!” Sounds like a runner-up candidate for a Darwin Award.
To clarify, that is not necessarily felony murder. It could be that the other circumstances of the killing lead to felony murder.
I hesitate to post so much on a topic without the experience of the US lawyer dopers, so I’ll bow out for now.
Actually, a separate felony is NOT required in Georgia. I've gotten used to us being weirdos when it comes to law.To split legal hairs, wouldn’t it be aggravated battery? After all, he couldn’t have assaulted her if she was turned away and didn’t know he still had the paddles until after she was shocked.
The first attempt, where she warned him to stay away, could count as an assault. Though it’s debatable as to whether that action flows into the second, lethal, one.
Can a judge sentence him so that he doesn’t get time off for “good behavior”?
This idiot deserves the full 10 years in prison.
IANAL, but it’s my understanding that it depends on the laws of the State. Typically, no.
Those newer devices are called AEDs, and they do the job automatically, once applied. They’re meant for the lay public, who may or may not have had some training in how to use them. They can certainly save lives, but they are not as flexible as standard defibrillators.
With a standard defibrillator, I can (and have) applied synchronized shocks to folks in Ventricular tachychardia with a pulse, and applied stacked unsynchronized shocks of increasing intensity to folks with recalcitrant ventricular fibrillation.
Paramedics, nurses, and physicians are trained in how to use that sort of equipment. We don’t want to be hamstrung by a programmed machine which can only respond in a limited number of ways.
Speaking as a health professional and someone who’s familiar with the criminal justice system, the guy was an idiot, and once he was told by his senior colleague to not fool with the defibrillator, but did so anyway, he became a criminal idiot. IMHO.
She wasn’t driving, she was a front seat passenger. (I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been the driver he’d shocked though.) The facts remain, that he was trained as an EMT, and had some inkling about how potentially dangerous the machines were, and he was also told not to touch her with the defibulator, yet he not only touched her again, he shocked her with it. That is malignent stupidity IMO.
Or the Terminator II. Wonderful for killing all those nasty internal parasites you’re afflicted with.
As the ad says, there’s no physics like metaphysics!
I’m afraid to ask you why on earth you know of that device, yet morbidly curious too. How did you find THAT?! :eek:
The zapper and proponents of zapping are a staple of the medical quackery circuit (sorry).
If you want to kill the parasites that cause all cancers and lots of other diseases, ya gots to zap.