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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   30312 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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It was a nice case of jury nullification, which of course it a nice tool to counteract the absurd practice of piling charges that is perverting the justice system.

The real criminal is the MTA - they chose to make the subway and the public transit unsecure. If they had put the safety and comfort of the passengers, if there were people to respond there wouldn't have had a need for vigilantism.

I think that Daniel Penny contributed substantially to the death, but we can't be put in a situation in which to evaluate how crazy a crazy is before the bystanders have to intervene. A stabbing could take a tenth of a second.

I think this is the right decision for the charges that were brought.

Also what is the idiocy of the American justice system that allows civil law suits for criminal matters? Talking about the one filed by his father (also - if you have a father, how the fuck are you homeless, i would really like to hear said father on the stand about the relationship with his son)

I dont see how this is a case of jury nullification. From a reading of the medical records, its pretty hard to see that the state even carried its burden of proof on the most basic of questions: That but-for Penny's actions, Neely would still have been alive at the end of the encounter. That is even before the prosecution's difficult case in proving criminal recklessness and/or negligence given the chaotic situation and that the actual witnesses on the scene were pretty evenly split.

He was alive at the end of the encounter. He was pronounced dead in the hospital.

I called it nullification because the trial always hanged on if the jury would see him as good Samaritan or reckless vigilante. Not on the facts.

Assume that surfaced a lot of posts of him being storm front member or racist or whatever - do you think he would still have been acquitted?

He was pronounced dead in the hospital.

I didn't follow this part of the case closely so I'm not sure if this applies here, but it is very common for someone to be "dead" for all useful purposes, but we don't formalize that until they end up in front of the Trauma/ED team and they've given up.

I've seen the EMTs bring in someone on a LUCAS who was stiff and cold but until the doctor takes a look at them...other staff don't want the responsibility/documentation/risk of getting it wrong.

That's less jury nullification and more just how juries work. A NY jury is going to convict a white supremacist of murder of he's credibly accused of eating at Katz's while a patron nearby chokes on pastrami.

Also what is the idiocy of the American justice system that allows civil law suits for criminal matters?

Every Common Law jurisdiction allows this, see the recent McGregor case in Ireland, various cases in the UK etc.

A shared idiocy is no less idiotic. At some point the supreme court should empower the fifth to mean that for one event there should be only one trial and probably also limit the charges that can be piled on.

This creates a conflict of interest between the interests of the individual and the interests of the state, and it comes up much more than you think and probably has affected you at some point. Consider the following: A runs a stop sign, causing an accident that totals B's car. A policeman on the scene finds A at fault and issues a ticket for running the stop sign, the penalty for which is a $100 fine and points on the license. A pleads not guilty because he wants to avoid the points and it's customary for the state to agree to drop the points in exchange for a guilty fee where the defendant only pays the fine. A enters his plea a week after the accident, and the court schedules a hearing for two months after the accident.

Meanwhile, B is without a vehicle and puts a claim into A's insurance company. She is relying on the insurance payout to buy a new car, which she needs to get to work. Since the civil claim is rolled into the criminal claim, however, the insurance company can't pay out until the ticket is resolved, which it won't be for two months. Furthermore, B now has to be ready to present evidence at trial since she doesn't know that A just intends to get a deal and may be arguing that he didn't actually run the stop sign. Plus, there's always the risk that the cop just doesn't show up and she's the only witness available to testify, so she has to show up lest the whole matter be dismissed.

So now B is stuck waiting months for an insurance payout that A's insurer would have just paid, and making things incredibly more complicated than they need to be.

Yeah, how does that work exactly? How does the father have standing to sue for the death of an adult child?

How far does this go. Can I sue for the wrongful death of a brother, a cousin, a distant relative, a friend, an acquaintance...?

You want some kind of civil wrongful death statute, otherwise someone who gets killed by a reckless driver or due to a defective product couldn't get money damages for it.

Wrongful death is a creature of statute, and as such the statute defines who has standing to sue. A rough approximation is that you'd have standing if you'd be entitled to inherit under the state's intestacy law.

In kind of "rough order," first the surviving spouse, if no surviving spouse (or if spouse doesn't sue), then the children, if no surviving children, then the parent, if no parents then dependents (not applicable here, dude was homeless...), and then if none of those, the executor/representative of the estate (again, not applicable here). Friend/acquaintance only applies if you qualified as their dependent.

I think Jordan Neely was batshit crazy and chose to live on the streets because of it.

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