# What was the Crown Attorney ('District Attorney') thinking? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 1, 2010, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746 "2010-10-01T16:52:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/21 "2010-10-02T20:32:25Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Yes. But she was hunting bear! What about the bear’s right to self-defense? 😛 Well, it’s Canada, so I don’t think there’s a right to bear arms. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/22 "2010-10-02T20:46:53Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > In brief, a woman and her husband were bear hunting. Ain’t nothing like a nice juicy Canadian true crime mystery. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/23 "2010-10-02T20:48:43Z")
> [@amarinth](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > Yes. But she was hunting bear! What about the bear’s right to self-defense? 😛 > > Well, it’s Canada, so I don’t think there’s a right to bear arms. You mean arm bears. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/24 "2010-10-03T07:23:35Z")
> [@](#): > > It seems that, in mistaking him for a bear, that he was leaning over and was probably side-on to her. Doesn’t exactly suggest that he posed an imminent threat, or that the figure was charging at her in a manner suggesting an attack. She should have spent more time working out what the fuck she was shooting at. > {snippage} > i can understand how someone might mistake a human for a bear at that distance in very dim light. What i can’t understand is why she felt the need to fire, without spending more time making sure she got it right. I am not a hunter, BUT: I know that you don’t shoot unless you know exactly what you’re aiming at, and you are confident that you can make a clean kill with one shot. Hunters or shooters should also know EXACTLY what lies beyond the target, whether it’s more woods, or an empty field, or a new housing development. I also wonder why the hell the guy wasn’t wearing some safety orange clothing. My husband wears camo clothing when he hunts, but he also wears a hat and vest in safety orange. I think that the woman should have been prosecuted, and if she did shoot him (and there’s not much doubt that she did indeed fire the fatal shot) then she should serve some time for it. Yes, I’m sure that she’s devastated, but how many times have people shot other people, or a cow when they think they have a deer or bear or whatever in their sights? We prosecute people for all sorts of criminally negligent behavior, and I think this is right and proper for a civilized society to do. Little kids often do things carelessly, and say “Sorry!”, and then think that since they’ve apologized, everything is mended. The same principle applies here. Yes, she’s sorry, but she’s negligent, and supposedly she’s a rational adult who could have foreseen that shooting at an ambiguous target isn’t a good idea. If you want to carry and fire a weapon, you need to take responsibility to see that your targets are legitimate targets. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/25 "2010-10-03T16:31:03Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > [@amarinth](#): > > > > Well, it’s Canada, so I don’t think there’s a right to bear arms. > > You mean arm bears. Nah, she got it right - the arms were belonging to the bears. And nicely done, **amarinth** - golf clap. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/26 "2010-10-04T01:32:21Z")
Generally speaking an “accident” which will excuse a person in these circumstances is an outcome that is not reasonably forseeable (there are other components to the concept, but they are not presently relevant). Suppose you sneak up behind someone and go Boo!. They react with such startlement that they reflexively fling their arm out which in turn knocks someone else in front of traffic, to fatal effect. Although there is a causal nexus between boo! and death, it is so attenuated or remote as to be almost certainly considered an accident (leaving aside all the other problems in such a case). “Accident” does not have the commonly ascribed meaning of “an outcome that was unintended”. Accident =/= “I didn’t mean for it to happen”. If you play touch football in the office with the boss’s Ming vase as a consequence of Friday night high spirits, and it gets smashed, the mere fact that you didn’t intend that it smash does not make the breakage an “accident”, although that is the language that someone in that situation will try to use. It was entirely forseeable that the vase would break in those circumstances. Bear in mind ordinary negligence (of the sort that will get you compensation if someone doesn’t mop a floor at the supermarket quickly enough and you slip, or of the sort involved in the standard motor vehicle fenderbender) won’t get you put in prison. It’s got to be of a higher order than that - “criminal” negligence. That said, the nature of firearms is such that being negligent in their handling has such a high chance of causing death or very serious injury that it is usually not difficult to establish criminal negligence when someone gets killed due to misadventure with a firearm. The phrase in s219 of the Canadian Criminal Code is “wanton or reckless disregard for the life and safety” of others. I understand that the governing Canadian authority on criminal negligence is _[R v Waite](http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/1989/1989scr1-1436/1989scr1-1436.html)_, although I defer to Canadian lawyers on this. The above is not legal advice, and law about these things is jurisdiction dependant. In particular, the rules about motor vehicles and driving deaths can be quite different from what I have outlined above. On another note, I have prosecuted people for pretty much the exact scenario mentioned in the OP, in circumstances just as heartbreaking. One case I can remember involved three 18 year old schoolboys who were best of mates “borrowing” dad’s gun without permission to go tooling around in the bush for shiggles. No malice at all, but one kid kills his mate. Off to prison, amidst tears and regrets, despite forgiveness from the dead kid’s family. The law takes killing a person, even if done negligently, very seriously indeed. Manslaughter is still a very serious offence. **Karl’s** subjective idea of what is criminal is not shared by the law, although it clearly was by the jury that acquitted the accused in the Canadian case. For mine, I would have thought the acquittal was much more surprising than a conviction would have been. But juries are not entirely predictable creatures, and I have no idea why they did what they did. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2010, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/27 "2010-10-04T01:55:35Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#): > > The law takes killing a person, even if done negligently, very seriously indeed. Manslaughter is still a very serious offence. **Karl’s** subjective idea of what is criminal is not shared by the law, although it clearly was by the jury that acquitted the accused in the Canadian case. For mine, I would have thought the acquittal was much more surprising than a conviction would have been. But juries are not entirely predictable creatures, and I have no idea why they did what they did. Apparently judges are also unpredictable creatures. This trial was not conducted in front of a jury; the decision was made by a judge alone. > [@](#): > > Judge LeBlanc concluded after the nine-day judge-alone trial that Ms. Harshbarger’s explanation was credible. “I find that what Mrs. Harshbarger shot at, she had good reason to believe was a bear,” he said. > > The judge concluded she fired some time between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., when the light was fading but it was still within the half-hour after sunset in which hunting is legal. > > He cited a pathologist’s evidence that Mark Harshbarger was leaning forward when he was hit by the single shot that ripped through his abdomen, killing him on the spot; that he was walking along a deeply rutted logging trail overgrown with deceptively tall grass; that his zigzag movements could well have been mistaken for that of a black bear because he was wearing dark clothing and no hunter’s orange safety gear. > > \ > > Judge LeBlanc cited the testimony of a hunting-safety expert who said hunters are responsible for verifying their targets. But he also said that when all the circumstances of that night are considered – including the fact that her husband had gone into the brush with another man but emerged alone when his hunting guide stopped to urinate – he was not convinced Ms. Harshbarger was criminally negligent. ETA: [Link](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/atlantic/woman-cleared-in-husbands-hunting-death/article1737320/) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/28 "2010-10-05T21:08:28Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Did she gut him and tie him to her fender? Yes; shortly thereafter it hit her that a bear wouldn’t be wearing Levi’s and a Pendleton, and she knew she’d made a terrible mistake. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/29 "2010-10-05T21:43:25Z")
> [@noel prosequi](#): > > **bear in mind** … booooooo!!! ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2010, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746/30 "2010-10-07T02:47:41Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Clearly, she was reckless. And stupid. My point is that locking her up for four years (minimum) serves no purpose that I can see. How is anything made better, or anything or anyone helped by having her sit in a cell for the next 4+ years? > > ETA: I guess what I’m trying to say is that she is no criminal in my mind. If I get shitfaced, get in my car, and run somebody over, I go to prison. How is anything made better, or anything or anyone helped by having me sit in a cell for the next 5 years? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-crown-attorney-district-attorney-thinking/555746.md?page=1)