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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32956 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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He used the appropriate level of force. People forget it wasn’t just him - he had help from two black men who also thought this guy needed restraining. Are they guilty of aiding in murder? Why is no one calling for their arrest? This is a rhetorical question - I know exactly why they aren’t

BLM was calling for the arrest of all of them. Consistent, if wrong.

Didn’t see that, got a source?

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/man-dies-on-subway-chokehold-incident/

I stand corrected. I’m impressed with their consistency.

"This is absolutely devastating. Should have never happened. We have been pleading with MTA and state to put in social workers, deploy them into the subway system," Jack Nierenberg of Passengers United said.

And right away I’m amazed at their absurdity. Beyond parody

  1. Perhaps, but nevertheless Neely's criminal history is irrelevant.

  2. The others did not cause Neely's death. If anything, they made it less likely that Neely would die, by reducing the need for Penny to use great amounts of force.

On your 2nd point - did they really?

If the marine restraining Neely was in the wrong and jumped the gun, intervening on Neely's behalf would have made it less likely that he dies. Instead, they enabled the marine.

I'm very much on the side of the marine and the men who assisted, but you cannot so neatly excuse the 'extras' from culpability if you see Neely's death as a grave injustice. If you're going to be pissed at the marine, you should be pissed at the others.

Saying "Actually, the other two men could have potentially saved Neely's life by helping restraining him" is a disingenuous redirection from the obvious racial dynamics at play. That may have pull with you, but I'm betting most people who are even aware of the incident don't even know there were others involved.

We could investigate the reasons behind that state of affairs as well, but the answers will also lie in that general direction.

intervening on Neely's behalf would have made it less likely that he dies.

Well, yes, intervening on Neely's behalf would have made his death even less likely, but that is not the standard.

If you're going to be pissed at the marine, you should be pissed at the others.

Again, I don't see why that is the case. As I said, they did not cause his death. Perhaps if they had known that what the ex-marine was doing was dangerous they might have had a duty to stop him, but we have no reason to think that they knew that.

Saying "Actually, the other two men could have potentially saved Neely's life by helping restraining him" is a disingenuous redirection from the obvious racial dynamics at play.

My entire point is that the racial dynamics are NOT obvious, because their is another, very important difference between Penny and the others: Their actions.

Actually from a legal perspective you’re wrong - helping restrain someone so that they can be more effectively executed makes you an accomplice. Once again, I ask why no one is calling for these people to also be prosecuted, when Chauvins fellow officers who didn’t even touch Floyd all got heavy sentences?

No, in New York, as in most places, an aider and abettor must share the intent of the perpetrator:

Section 2 of the Penal Law makes a principal in the crime charged any person who "aids and abets in its commission". It does not, however, make one a principal merely on the basis that, in retrospect, we may say that in an objective sense this person was helpful or of use to the actual perpetrator of the crime. There is a subjective element as well. As one legal scholar has pointed out, "An aider and abettor must share the intent or purpose of the principal actor, and there can be no partnership in an act where there is no community of purpose." (1 Burdick, The Law of Crimes, § 221, p. 297.) That intent is required for one to be held liable as a principal on the basis of his having aided and abetted the perpetrator of the crime of murder was pointed out in People v. Monaco (14 N Y 2d 43) where this court said: "In the absence of some statutory synthesis of intention which makes out any homicide to be murder, intended or not (such as Penal Law, § 1044, subd. 2, in respect of a person engaged in felony), whether a homicide is committed `with a design to effect' death depends on adequate proof of such a design by each person charged." (14 N Y 2d 43, 46; emphasis supplied.)

So you think Penny’s intent was to kill a homeless person on the subway that day? Interesting. What evidence do you have for your belief?

I don't know where you get the idea that I think that, because I don’t. He obviously didn't. He intended merely to render him unconscious. In fact, it was you who implied that he intended to kill him; you said, "helping restrain someone so that they can be more effectively executed makes you an accomplice."

The point is that you were wrong when you say that merely doing something that assists someone in committing a crime makes one an accomplice. It doesn't.

"helping restrain someone so that they can be more effectively executed makes you an accomplice."

That’s the argument from the pro punishment side which is who I was originally arguing with but it looks like it was a different user. I don’t believe it was an execution

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