Morgenstern, are you now doubting that you can break a wrist bone? Apparently the Mayo Clinic thinks it’s possible. Perhaps you with your superior knowledge should enlighten them as to the unlikelihood this phenomena exists. It’s also fairly well known that poorly healing wrist fractures can lead to disability.
You seem to have a chronic problem with understanding normal conversational English. “Snapped off a wrist bone” is clearly “I severely injured a wrist bone leading to disability” and “charged with assault” could just as easily be “the police officer recommended he be charged with assault”.
Do you analyse and tear-down every conversation you have in real life like you do here?
There are a lot of “Ifs” in that statement. Bumping into someone isn’t the same as making them “fly and crash.” One side of the equation doesn’t fit the other.
BTW, If I was standing at a bus stop, I’d be extra attentive, knowing that I could end up in a traffic lane if I was careless.
You know, you can cook bullshit any why you want to. You can even serve it on fine plates, but you just can’t make the stink stop. And that’s the problem here, too much stink. Only in her case, I don’t think she’s a psuedologist, I think she’s confused about what the cops said and did.
True. I dunno, is there such a thing as “negligent assault”? Maybe negligent injury. I’m not a lawyer, that’s why when I need real legal advice or information in real life I hire an actual lawyer.
I don’t think a smallish person standing at a bus stop minding her own business being knocked off her feet by a much larger person running into her is bullshit. It’s entirely plausible.
Negligence requires application of the “but for” test. *But for *her inattentiveness, would she have been injured? Then, does that inattentiveness mitigate the defendants calculability? And cops arresting for a misdemeanor arrest is a stretch. They can generally arrest for felonies not committed in their presence, but, generally, not for misdemeanors unless they witness them. And I doubt an unintentional bumping amounts to a felonious act anywhere in America.
As someone who deals with the laws in New Jersey on a daily basis I can without hesitation say there is no way criminal charges could be filed in my jurisdiction. I’m in a different county so I don’t know the prosecutors there but I know it would be laughed out of court in mine. I take that back, it wouldn’t get past the sergeant to get to a prosecutor.
It would take search warrants. On tv they say “we need a search warrant.” The next second they have one. In reality search warrants are a pain in the ass. And it’s often difficult or impossible to get the information from phone carriers.* If I tried to get the zone prosecutor to set up a meeting in chambers in an investigation leading to a possible cellphone ticket I would probably be prohibited from ever talking to a prosecutor again. These types of inquiries happen during fatal accident investigations but rarely any other time.
many seem to think that cell companies hold on to data forever. Not even close. Some don’t keep text messages at all. Storage is expensive and sometimes the information you get can be sparse.
If you are stand in a place on the sidewalk where it is not unusual for people to stand (i.e., not the center of traffic paths) less vigilance is not unreasonable. If you put on a blindfold and stride down the sidewalk at normal speed, that is willful negligence. Burying his nose in his phone in this instance would not have been distinguishable from putting on a blindfold. Willful negligence is not different from intentional assault. Hence, I am not seeing anything wrong with the charge.
If you absolutely must focus on that little screen, step over there next to that building and get it done. If you have to be somewhere, put the phone in your pocket and get there.
The problem is that there is indeed a difference and frankly I trust Loach’s (a New Jersey cop iirc) opinion on whether charges are realistic in this case.
Drugs and alcohol can “solve” that problem for you.
If you strictly follow this analogy to it’s logical conclusion, it means that any blind person walking down the street at a normal speed is being criminally negligent and can be charged with a crime. The bar for willful negligence usually requires either reckless disregard or wanton indifference, which is a higher bar than staring at a phone.
You’re just making a claim and then saying that you’re not seeing anything wrong with the charge. You’re not taking into account what sort of actions it takes for one to get charged with assault and what actions would actually result in assault charges.
What does “willful negligence is not different from intentional assault” mean? What are you basing that on?
If a cop sees someone intentionally assaulting someone, I’m betting the chances of the cop intervening are pretty high. When a cop witnesses someone walking down the street while looking at his phone, the chances of the cop intervening are pretty low. It may be your opinion that there’s no difference, but in the real world there is.
In NJ it is possible to be charged with assault for acting recklessly (not negligently) but that’s with a deadly weapon. And beyond that we can not sign complaints for a disorderly persons offense (the term NJ uses for misdemeanor, don’t ask me why) that we don’t witness except under certain circumstances. Domestic violence for instance. I can’t help but think the OP is missing a piece of information or maybe the cop was misunderstood when he said she could come in and sign a complaint.
That answers the question of whether or no something done by accident can result in an assault conviction, but doesn’t necessarily answer whether or not what was described in the OP can. I doubt the 6’4", 230 pounds man (an estimate?) was acting recklessly by the definition given. I also don’t know if the incident happened in NJ.