In 2005 outside of a military base in Germany a group of gang members who were also on active duty military service accidentally killed a new gang member during a beat down gang initiation. The point is the individual asked for the beating. He was literally asked point blank before the beating started, are you sure you want this. He was asked again after the first blow knocked him to the ground. Once he said yes again the whole group beat him for 6 minutes. This resulted in his death from injuries the next day. The leader of the gang was eventually caught and sentenced to 22 years in prison for 2nd degree murder.
and legally that consent means nothing. He may have willingly subjected himself to the beating, but that does not make the beating or his resulting death legal.
Depending on local law, I could see it being first degree murder. The assailants planned to inflict serious bodily harm and a homicide resulted.
Looking at the Federal murder statute, however, I would tend to think it is the definition of second degree murder.
ETA: my heart truly bleeds for the poor, poor gang member who was railroaded into a long prison sentence. I fear for the future of criminal syndicates in the military if this type of prosecution is allowed to stand. This injustice ranks just below the fact that you can’t actually buy anything for a nickel anymore - just try! It’s like totally impossible!
Good responses. I’d go for reckless endangerment but if the consensus view is something more serious than that I have to recognize I am a minority opinion.
Just to be clear, these were all Americans, in the US military, and therefore subject to US law? There’s no way that Germany could claim jurisdiction? Yes, I read the article, but it was pretty brief.
Actually, it sounds like he got off easy, unless military codes have significantly changed, because when I was in, you weren’t allowed to be in a gang, or any kind of “private militia” (ie, the loons in the woods with stockpiled weapons who think the government is evil), or any group on a list of “terrorist organizations,” which at one time included PETA, because it believed in committing crimes to make its point, even if the crimes were things like trespass. He’s lucky that gang activity wasn’t used as a precipitating felony to make it felony murder.
When he gets out, he’s going to be a felon with a dishonorable discharge. He’s permanently screwed. He might as well be on the sex offender list.
Deaths in the boxing ring and in MMA are sanctioned, licensed, monitored by doctors, etc, so there is no more culpability there than there would be if a linebacker broke a running backs neck in a tackle and killed him.
I’d say 2nd degree murder is the appropriate charge. There wasn’t an intent to kill the victim but the group (including the victim) were engaging in dangerous conduct. If a group of people beat somebody up for several minutes, death is a reasonably likely possibility.
The two answers = not necessarily and possibly. The short answer is whatever the SOFA says. No I’m not hearing voices from my furniture. I’m not that crazy… yet. It stands for Status Of Forces Agreement and it covers the negotiated details of how to deal with forces stationed in another country between the host and the country providing the forces. I don’t know the details of the applicable SOFA and too lazy to look. UCMJ always applies but so does double jeopardy; if a service member is tried for a crime in a civilian court they can’t be tried for the same act under UCMJ.
In this case it looks like the US retained jurisdiction. The new convict in question was sentenced in US Federal Court (and the story identifies him as a former Airman.) The other sentences referenced mention a military proceeding. Maybe Germany didn’t have jurisdiction or maybe did and deferred to a US military prosecution since the victim was a US service member.
During my time in the US military and stationed in Germany, the US Armed Forces had sole jurisdiction for crimes where the perpetrator and the victim were both US military member. That was my understanding of the SOFA at the time.