What would the legal ramifications be to a suicide’s next of kin if a bystander were accidentally killed in the process? For example, say someone jumped off of a tall building, but upon impact ended up taking out some poor schlub who was just walking down the street? Would the surviving family members be liable? It’s fairly obvious the guilty party was in a state of mental duress during the commission of the act, would this allow for a temporary insanity plea? This assumes of course that there was nothing to indicate the act of taking out someone else was pre-medidtated as in a murder-suicide.
I read a story on some crazy news site that went like this. Guy wants to kill himself right? So he jumps off building. While falling this couple was in an argument and the husband shoots at the wife missing her and having the bullet go out the window which kills the jumper. So since he was going to die anyways the shooter is off right? Wrong because the police already set up a cushion for him to land on so he wouldn’t have died if he didn’t get shot. So the guy that did the shooting was charged. I will look for the cite, i think i found it on stubmle upon
IANAL - but it would seem that the only possible liability would be in civil court. Even then it would be against the estate of the suicide rather than the next-of-kin I would think.
I don’t see how there could be criminal charges, but the law being what it is I’m probably forgetting something.
Isn’t this a famous hypothetical scenario for law students? I’d need a very very reliable cite before I believe it actually happened.
I have to wonder if that isn’t apocryphal.
The shooter would not be “off” in any event – he’s in big trouble for attempted murder (in some degree) of his wife, at a minimum. Perhaps for unlawful discharge of a firearm, reckless endangerment, etc.
I’m also thinking he may be guilty of murder under the felony-murder statute (if you’re committing one felony which is not intended to result in the death of X, but X dies as a result, you are potentially guilty of murder of X).
Finally, given that people have fallen from 20,000 feet and survived, the presence or absence of a cushion should not be dispositive of whether the shooter is in trouble for causing the jumper’s death. At the moment the bullet hit the jumper, he was fully alive, and could (for all we know) have remained so even after impact without a cushion.
I’m pretty sure it would be ruled an accidental death by the coroner with no charges being laid. Why put anyone’s family through that kind of shit?
Snopes says its false.
You have to specify what you mean by “liable.”
There is no chance that a family member could be held criminally liable in any way for the act of their self-destroying family member. This would amount to (imprecisely speaking, but more or less) a totally unconstitutional bill of attainder or corruption of the blood. (I suppose if the suicidal person were a minor or had been declared incompetent and the family member appointed a conservator or guardian, there could conceivably be some neglect-of-duties criminal charge against them). But the family member will never be criminally guilty as a proxy for the suicide, so the defenses that might be available to the sucide (had he for instance survived), such as temp. insanity, are irrelevant.
As a WAG, if you are talking about civil liability, the suicide’s estate could arguably be the subject of a wrongful death claim, and (if as postulated above, there were some theory that the family had knowledge of his state of mind and a duty to the bystander), might also be charged with some species of negligence.
Thanks Huerta, civil liability is actually what I had in mind here. Of course there’s nothing preventing anyone from bringing on a civil suit against anyone else as our litigious society shows, but would a civil suit against the estate have any liklihood of succeeding if there was no prior knowledge of the suicide’s intentions?
It’s a classic we’ve covered in law school/university. Then again, German legal education is quite different from the American one - much more theoretical and aimed at bringing things into an abstract system, and less focused on precedents.
Wasn’t that the opening scene in Magnolia? In the movie, though, the people having the argument were his parents. They always waved the gun around during arguments, but it was never loaded. He got so distressed and depressed by all the arguing he decided to load the gun hoping one would kill the other. When he jumped off the building he bacame, as they put it in the movie, an accomplice in his own murder.
Probably (WAG). The estate sort of stands in his shoes. If he owed debts the minute before he died, they are chargeable against the estate. So if he incurred a (potential) debt by inflicting wrongful death in the moment before he died, no reason that wouldn’t be chargeable against his estate.
N.B. that this is quite different from charging it against his family members (even if the depletion of the estate means that they get less money). Absent some special circumstances, I cannot see a wrongful death claim brought directly against a family member.
Not quite. It didn’t hapen for real, it was a hypothetical story told at the meeting of American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Read the full story here.
I don’t see any reason why family members - simply because they are related* - should be liable for any crime or consequence of a person’s actions. If a husband drives drunk and causes an accident, should his wife and children be charged for being in the car? **
- If they helped him commit the crime or damage, then they are liable as partners in crime, not as relatives.
** There have been a few cases when a wife knew her husband was drunk and going to drive; IIRC, the judges tend to lean toward that the wife, as adult, should not get into the car, and try her best to stop the husband from driving. She isn’t required to call the cops (because of that “right not to testify” among spouses), but if she gets knowningly into the car of a drunk driver, she can not receive damages afterward.
Even if there was a long history of mental troubles - as opposed to out of the blue, as many suicides come to families, who later have to live with the question “why didn’t I see the warning signs earlier?” - I cannot imagine that the family is obliged to recognize in every instance that the person is a danger to himself/others and should therefore be committed, even against their will. Because how far does that obligation go - only family, or also close friends? Workplace colleagues ? (They may see the person longer than the family).
What I’m wondering is, what if the would-be suicide doesn’t actually die but accidentally kills (or injures, whatever) the bystander? Could he be criminally charged for something? I guess that in jurisdictions where attempted suicide is a felony, as it traditionally used to be, he could be charged with felony murder as described by Huerta88, but I believe that suicide has been decriminalized in most Western jurisdictions. So what could happen?
Well, he could be charged directly with some form of homicide (because he killed a person). Probably a flavor of manslaughter.
Probaby reckless endangerment too.
It will vary jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
So I was pretty much right? Go me!
As Huerta says, he’d get charged with some form of homicide, like this guy: 404 Not Found | wbir.com