Minnesota’s “Good Samaritan Law” does obligate one to act. Violation is a petty misdemenor. I’m not aware of anyone who has actually been prosecuted, but it’s possible in theory.
If one makes an attempt and survive but with injuries, some health insurance policies have an exclusion for self-inflicted injuries (although it’s rare). A person I know cut herself; her friends walked in on her doing it and forced her to go the ER to get stitches and she wound up with a bill over $1000.00
This doesn’t sound right to me. Surely you can try, and fail, to kill someone and be charged with attempted murder, can’t you? Also, if the crime is “completed”, why would they charge you for the attempt, and not the actual act. Also, I’ve never heard of a killer being charged with both murder and attempted murder after killing someone, sit it would seem the charges would more or less mutually exclude each other.
You and me both, Foggy. I was 5150’d about a month ago and was shocked at how badly the whole situation was handled. I was talking to a counselor on my company provided help-line while I was on medical leave for depression. It was around 2:30 am and couldn’t sleep and I had been drinking, but not to any black-out levels. We started out just talking about circumstances and medical history. The counselor eventually got around to what I think were a scripted series of questions.
Counsleor: Are you thinking about harming yourself or others or damaging property?
MonkeyMensch: No.
C: Have you been having suicidal thoughts?
MM: Yes, but none of them are actively suicidal. I always tend to characterize my thoughts along the lines the lines of George Bailey, from It’s A Wonderful Life: I wish I had never been born.
C: If you were to commit suicide how would you do it? (This was the loaded question, no pun intended.)
MM: I’d get a shotgun with no. 6 shot and put it in my mouth. You see, no. 6 shot is large enough to lacerate the brain tissue and yet not large enough to create an exit wound.
(This is just stuff I know from knowing anatomy, physiology and shooting shotguns. The specifics apparently raised every red flag in this moron’s book. His next questions made sense, however.)
C: Do you own any firearms?
MM: No, none at all.
C: Do you have access to firearms or ammunition?
MM: No. I’ve never owned a gun of my own and don’t have any ammo.
C: Do you have thoughts of harming yourself, or others or property tonight?
MM: No. Not at all. Like I said my thoughts are wishing I had never existed, not killing myself now.
Here’s where he covered the HelpLine’s ass…
C: Hang on a moment…
MM: Are you calling a mental health professional?
C: Uh, yeah.
Now the only place in my apartment with good cell reception is right by the slider overlooking the parking lot.
At this point C calls the Sheriff’s Department and tells them that someone at my address is thinking about suicide by firearm. We talk a bit more and I get to see five (count 'em, five) sheriff’s patrol cars (code 2, no sirens) pull up next to and eventually into my parking lot. I’m flabbergasted. Six deputies all pile out and while I’m still trying to talk to the counselor on the phone I start trying to answer the questions the deputies are throwing up at me. In the middle of the deputies is this 19 year old with a shotgun and bandolier ready to fire at me, in case something “bad” happens.
Senior Sheriff’s deputy: Are you MonkeyMensch?
MM: Yeah?
SSD: How do you get into this building?
MM: You don’t. It’s a secure building. What do you want?
SSD: We got a call about a potential suicide and that’s why were here.
(By this time I had lost the call to the counselor, so my attention was fully devoted to the cops.)
MM: OK. But I’m not actively suicidal, as I told the counselor. I also have no firearms or ammo up here, is that clear?
SSD: Yeah, that’s fine we’d just like you to come down here to talk to us.
You can probably guess what happens from there. It involves protestations of no active intent, handcuffs, asshole deputies (there are some) and dorks at the ER. N.B. that there is an ER three blocks from my house but they drive me half an hour’s drive away to some OTHER ER that has the contract with with the county.
I learned a few things, though. Don’t talk to deputies if it can be avoided. NEVER open the door to a deputy who does not have a warrant on his or her person. Don’t use the EAP network. They have incompetent staff who will cover their own asses at your expense. Thanks.
The Straight Dope. According to Cecil, attempted suicide was a crime as of 1963 in 6 states.
I had a friend who told a customer service rep for his satellite TV company he might as well kill himself because he wasn’t getting any reception (for an NHL playoff game) - a short while later the local police (who they had called) showed up to check on him.
Right, but I was talking about Suicide specifically.
Tripolar’s link states that there were or are 6 states which criminalize attempted suicide, never heard of that myself.
I suppose rethinking it, if you attempt to kill yourself and you fail, it is tantamonut to a person needing a mental health evaluation, and as we already have discussed about mental health holds, it would give the police the right to hold them and give them help.
Makes sense in that regard.
Kind of like holding a drunk under a so called protective custody with no charges until they sleep it off.
That may fall under the so called “Community Caretaking” function of a ruling decades ago. However, several years ago, the SC ruled the police could enter a home without a warrant if anyone inside was in imminent peril.
It’s similar in other jurisdictions. But this doesn’t preclude legislators from passing separate legislation criminalizing “attempt to X” which, in the case of X, supersedes the general rule covering attempts.
Neither have I, though that’s not to say such a law couldn’t exist. There are certainly examples from non-criminal law where attempted suicide incurs a penalty but suicide does not. One example is Roman Catholic canon law, which stipulates that certain rites and sacraments are denied to attempted suicides; suicide is not similarly penalized (and in fact is not mentioned at all—earlier revisions of the code did contain penalties for suicide, such as denial of funeral masses and burial in church cemetaries, but they have since been repealed.)
There was a time, probably long before 1963, when the bodies of successful suicides were charged with murder and hanged on a regular basis.
It was a very effective punishment. The recidivism rate was zero.
I would doubt it as well. That’s why I said, even if it was a crime, nobody treats it that way, so it is just a semantic point.
Ask me how I know. It can be placed under disorderly conduct or drunk and disorderly.
I was charged with it in 2008. I was taken right to the jail and put under watch with a Kevlar vest and no help other than observation in a cell that had guards that could see through the glass (ie watch me go to the bathroom, change my sanitary napkin, ect).
I was put in regular population (community) directly after I spoke with counselors at the jail. They knew I was just at a bad point and shouldn’t be in there.
I plead no contest as I just wanted help and for it to all go away…it didn’t and it doesn’t even when you get help.
I got the help I needed (by my own accord other than first visit) was fined and had to undergo some probationary period, after the preliminary psychiatrist deemed me sane.
I am better, but still at this point stupid websites have this on record. Even if you get everything expunged (I have not, because it doesn’t matter, your mugshot is on all those websites), you will be blackmailed and extorted if you want to clear your name.
I was charged while sitting in my home, at my own dining table, and went willingly thinking that I would get HELP, not a charge that would hurt me for the rest of my life (employment, credit, ect)
I still got help, but I will pay for that this day and all the days till I do die.
That doesn’t really tell a good tale of things for people that have mental health issues at all. I am glad I am better in my life, but I can’t imagine what others that didn’t get help must feel like…if they even feel at all anymore.
I disagree. I do not know how you attempted suicide, but since it is not a crime in Ohio, the attempt of is not.
Ohio has a mental health hold statute like any other state, the actus reus itself of attempted suicide must be coupled with another element, the two are not of similar import.
Saying that you’re going to kill yourself is a crime?
If you’re the pilot of a commercial jet who announces this over the intercom, then yeah, I think it should be considered a crime.
Or at the very least, a reason for all passengers to get free passes for any flight in the continental United States.
I would think that violates some federal aviation law, as inducing panic on an aircraft or such.
Not quite true, says this former insurance agent whose license has lapsed and who hasn’t done any continuing education in years. :D. If the policy holder commits suicide within the first two years of buying the policy, it won’t pay, but after that it should.
Life insurance must be paid for suicide after two years (one year in N.D. and Colo.). I believe it was probably in the sixties or seventies when policies could no londger exclude suicide indefinitely. The idea is that most people don’t plan their suicide more than two years in advance, and in any case the needs of the beneficiency for the proceeds don’t change based on cause of death.
However, insurance can exclude Accidental Death (double indemity) coverage for death caused by suicide. So if you accidentally commit suicide your survivors may be SOL. 
Is there a difference between accidental suicide and accidentally getting yourself killed? E.g. if you accidentally drive off a cliff and die due to the poor state of mountain roads, is that an accidental suicide or just an ordinary accidental death?
The latter. Suicide is an intentional act.
And those two-year policy exclusions would tend to reward very patient people.
I had a friend who was a huge hockey fan, whose (satellite?) TV service crapped out on him in the middle of some big playoff game…while talking to their customer service reps he said he might as well kill himself if he couldn’t watch the game (joking - but he was an “intense” sort) - they called the cops, who showed up a short time later (letting themselves in through his open front door, IIRC) to check on him.