I disagree strongly with that. An act can be immoral and condemnable even if it’s legal.
Unless you ment “condemned” strictly from a legal standpoint.
Thank you for a reasoned analysis of the evidence at hand.
A quick comment: Bricker does not deserve the calumny being heaped on him here. But he does deserve some. At absolute minimum, I cannot see how anyone with even my layman’s knowledge of the law who could view this and not see in it grounds for a “wrongful death” tort, given the evidence of the tape and the known outcome of the boy’s dying. No, it may not be grounds for a murder or even manslaughter conviction. It might be grounds for criminally negligent homicide, given the circumstances: if the boy is in their custody, they are obliged to know any relevant medical issues before administering whatever discipline they seem to feel is needed. By parallel, making a healthy 16 year old boy do a five-mile run may be legitimate practice on the part of a phys. ed. teacher. Making a healthy 16 year old asthmatic boy do the same thing would be abuse, pure and simple, on grounds I don’t think I need to explain. Bricker focused on the people decrying “They oughta string those guys up for murder” – but in doing so, needlessly painted himself in a corner over reasonable legal consequences for an institution having custody over a youth, or employees of such institution authorized to use force over youths in custody. If he’s going to represent himself as an authority on the law on this board, it’s incumbent on him to take the whole law into account. And willy-nilly, that’s what he’s done: set himself up as an authority in a specialized field here. I’ll trust Podkayne on an issue of stellar evolution or Johanna on an issue of glottochronology, because they’re experts in those fields – but they better not be palming some fringe interpretation off as the consensus wisdom of experts in the field. Likewise, Bricker has the option of expressing an opinion as a layman, or of functioning as an authority on the law. But not at the same time.
As said above legal is not the same as moral. If the law demands a rape victim be executed for fornication, does that make it right ? Of course not. I’ll condemn any behavior I think is wrong, legal or not.
Did you miss this, Poly?:
Great. What I thought was a punch to the solar plexus may have been them grabbing him. Can’t tell from the video. I hope they have better eyewitnesses.
Actually, you’re not even arguing against my point. I never claimed that the camp was called “Panama Whatever County Sheriff Torture Camp”; that was a snarky name I gave to it because I dislike its principles and its apparent disregard for the sanctity of life. Apparently I was unclear about that. My apologies.
To Point 2: I don’t claim to be the most knowledgeable guy around, but I’ve never heard of these programs. Nor had I ever heard of the words “boot camp” used to describe anything other than Basic Military Training. Terrible sample size, I know, but this Doper was misled.
Apparently you missed this part of my post:
“Anything resembling” means that it’s not police/military/sheriff training, it just has a strong resemblance to it, as you alluded to with the phrase “with military-like rules” in your same post which I quoted earlier.
Let’s take this point-by-point.
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I don’t feel our military is sacred, or that the boys can do no wrong–quite the contrary, in fact. Why my political opinions, of which you’re rightfully ignorant, have been dragged into this I don’t know.
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I don’t feel that any words or institutions are “owned” by the military. See 4.
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I got the point quite well, thank you, and that’s not what I’m arguing about–although why 14 year olds need a county boot camp instead of, say, a prison school with a more modest physical education program, escapes me. I don’t agree with the methods used by the instructors, nor do I agree with the existence of the institution in question in the first place.
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The words “boot camp” may be used by some people–hell, maybe a lot of people in 30 states–to refer to these institutions, but I’ve never heard anyone in California or Arizona, the states in which I’ve lived my adult life, talk about these. I didn’t know they existed. Shame on me for being ignorant, I guess, but my point is that the way I see it “boot camp” is more universally understood to mean “Basic Military Training”. I for one opened this thread expecting it to be about a 19-year-old soldier-in-training being maimed with a sack of dimes.
I find it outrageous, but I certainly wasn’t participating in a pro/anti-military argument. I related my experiences in basic military training because I thought they were relevant to the discussion–I may have been wrong, but I wasn’t trying to make a pro- or anti-military point, although I guess if I had to pick one side it’d have to be anti-. My whole point is that to me “boot camp” means “basic military training” and I for one felt that I was misled. I can only conclude from the evidence presented to me that I was wrong in saying that “boot camp” exclusively means military training, but I still feel that that’s what it’s usually taken to mean.
That said, I feel like I’m fighting an uphill battle that’s really not particularly important in the grand scheme of things, and that I’m not doing much here except distracting from the main point, which is–as you say–that a young child has died in a scenario that is massively wrong in every way. Thusly, I hereby withdraw and resolve to spend no more of my or anybody else’s time arguing about the phrase “boot camp”.
How about making a previously healthy-seeming sixteen year old boy with a previously undiagnosed heart murmer do the five mile run?
The standard is what you know, or reasonably should know. If the parents fill out a medical form and don’t indicate a medical history that raises alarms, a phys. ed. teacher does not have to run his own EKG on every kid he pushes to run the five miles.
Well, as I’ve said many times before, my expertise is in criminal law. I certainly have a law-school understanding of the world of civil liability, but I will equally well yield to someone with a stronger background on the relevant principles. I don’t think there’s anything here that’s subject to that debate. The dispute here seems to be on the facts, though, not the law. If you tell me that the camp knew of the kid’s medical condition and still acted as they did, that changes the equation considerably. Under those circumstances, they would almost certainly be civilly liable, and even manslaughter would not be a reach. (Murder is still a reach).
But – so far as I know – we don’t have any evidence that would allow the inference that the camp knew.
My point exactly.
If we could add some testimony in from someone, anyone, who saw the thing and could add some context, some definitive statement about what was happening… then we can fairly reach inferences for which there is simply not any basis now.
Pushed, or forced?
Show me the PE teacher who still has a job after treating a student the way this kid was treated.
Why wouldn’t the “eggshell skull rule” apply?
CMC fnord!
Sickle Cell Anemia affects 12% of the African American popultion. This is no secret. I am quite sure this boot camp has a fair number of African American “participants.” I am also quite sure that the activities with the highest probability for triggering a sickle cell event are practiced frequently in this boot camp. It is also no secret that extreme physical exercise can cause a sickle event. If the proprietors of this boot camp and their agents were not aware of the victim’s condition and the activities that trigger an episode, they certainly should have been. A civil cause of action certainly exists here, even if a criminal one does not. Negligence, possibly Gross Negligence could certainly be successfully argued.
(emphasis added).
The PE analogy can’t be pushed too far. The boot camp was obviously much tougher than a high school PE class would be.
The rule doesn’t create liability. You still have to show that they acted negligently. The classic eggshell skull examples presuppose a negligent incident that has far more dire consequences than the tortfeasor ever intended. When you start with a negligent act, the mere fact you didn’t know the victim was unusually vulnerable doesn’t save you.
Here, we need to show that the actions of the camp guards were negligent in the first place, and what you know, or don’t know, is relevant to that question.
From your own cite:
1 in 12 is 8.3%, not 12%. And that’s for sickle cell TRAIT, the broad category that doesn’t imply the presence of the actual disease. The percentage of people that actually suffer from sickle cell ANEMIA, in which they have TWO genes for the disease, are obviously far fewer.
Let me make my point more clear. If the law of Florida allows for boot camps, and it is an approved policy, in compliance with their administrative law, then the officers cannot be condemned as individuals if they were acting under the color of law. In this case, making the kids do push ups, yelling at them etc…
As for the law itself, yes, of course I agree with you that we can disagree with it. But, there is a process for that change. The men and women following that law should be punished. Of course, there are circumstances, when the law is clearly immoral, but this is not such a case.
Nonetheless, I don’t think this is a good form of punishment and it is certainly not rehabilitation.
So, I was not trying to say you cannot condemn the act, just not the people following it. If this were true, every person that followed a law I did nto agree with could be “condemnable”. For example, if I did not agree with laws that say gays should not get married. Does that mean that the clerk working at the courthouse is “condemnable”? Of course not.
Now, if the officers used excessive force and were abusive, that is another story.
I understood your point. I still disagree with it. Even though the officers were acting in a manner that may have been legal, I still feel they’re personally condemnable.
To use an extreme example (and I hate to Godwinize this, and I’m not trying to insult you–you’re one of the more level-headed people here and I like your posts…), look at the Nazi extermination camp guards. They acted in accord with the laws of their country and the will of their government–would you still say they’re not personally condemnable?
The officers in that camp were not coerced into taking that job. They could quit at will. But they didn’t, and instead chose to participate in a system which I consider immoral. I consider them personally accountable. Do I think they should be strung up or tried for murder? No, for a variety of reasons–not the least of which is that I don’t know much about the legal systems. But I do view them as acting immorally. In practice all this means is that an anonymous stranger on a board full of self-righteous wankers is spouting off his ultimately meaningless opinion. But I’ve never let that stop me in the past. 
But then that would have been illegal…
What is lost in my error is that, regardless of numbers, sickle cell affects a disproportionately higher number of African Amercans. It should be obvious that higher trait=higer incidence of the disease. I don’t know, but I can certainly imagine that this camp inducts a comparitively high number of African Amercians. Also, it is reasonable to expect the camp to assess the health of every member it inducts given the nature of the camp. That the guards should have known of his condition and continued to deny him medical care that was immediately available, especially when the victim displayed clear signs of fatigue and physical exasperation, is grounds for tort action, at a minimum
I can and will condemn people who cooperate with a law I consider evil. If, say, America goes over-the-top fundie and new laws demand the execution of all homosexuals, Jews, Catholics and scientists, I will most certainly condemn anybody who cooperates with such a law.
While this is correct, it affects [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000527.htm]one in five hundred African Americans:
So if one out of 500 African Americans have it, and symptoms usually occur after 4 months of age, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to expect guards to know how to diagnose the disease in an adolescent who hasn’t previously shown symptoms.
This is not to say the guards acted appropriately. I’ve not watched the tape, and I probably won’t. But I don’t see this as nearly as common as you’re suggesting.
Daniel
Oy vey.
corrected link.
Well, I read the autopsy report, and the report says he died from complications of Sickle Cell Trait, not Sickle Cell disease. The findings were also consistent with him not being beaten to death; aside from some small cuts on his head and some mouth lacerations, his body was not touched.
From this site:
However, Florida is one of the 40 states that routinely tests newborns for Sickle Cell Anemia, so if he was born in Florida (or one of 39 other states, most of them southern), it might be possible to go back in the records and see if he was tested and if his guardians were negligent in informing the “Boot Camp” that he had Sickle Cell Trait.
Is it reasonable to expect penal agents to test all inmates for Sickle Cell Anemia or Sickle Cell Trait, and then never allow anybody who tests positive to ever be in any kind of stressed situation or engage in exercise that might cause an attack? I would not want to be responsible for figuring out this policy.
Well, at least I learned another lesson in the power of suggestion. I honestly can’t tell if he took a shot to the ribs or not.