Criminal Law querie

[Guest]

I was just reading in the paper about 17 year-old murder suspect Scott Dyleski's recent arraignment. The article states "The teen faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted of murder and an enhancement of using a deadly weapon." So when does murder not involve using a deadly weapon? If it kills someone, isn't it deadly by definition? Or do you get years off if you manage to kill someone with a feather duster? Or perhaps the victim got a heart attack when somene threw a Nerf ball at him/her?

And what is meant by criminal negligence? Wasn't Dick Cheney criminally negligent in some way? Is it legal to shoot someone if you're a spaz? Or is he not being charged for political reasons?

[CT Dick]

I think your question is well founded. What ISN'T a deadly weapon if it kills?

 

According to law.com: a deadly weapon is "n. any weapon which can kill. This includes not only weapons which are intended to do harm like a gun or knife, but also blunt instruments like clubs, baseball bats, monkey wrenches, an automobile or any object which actually causes death. This becomes important when trying to prove criminal charges brought for assault with a deadly weapon. In a few 1990s cases courts have found rocks and even penises of AIDS sufferers as "deadly weapons."

 

"even penises!?!" Well, well.

 

Dick

[kjun]

By law, Cheney should have been charged for hunting without a hunting stamp. He had a license but no stamp. One of the penalties is that all of his guns would be seized and he would be forbidden to possess a gun. Nothing has been heard of this. So, it is a political thing

 

the Cajun

[TerryP]

>And what is meant by criminal negligence? Wasn't Dick Cheney

>criminally negligent in some way? Is it legal to shoot

>someone if you're a spaz? Or is he not being charged for

>political reasons?

 

Whether or not someone is criminally negligent is up to the Courts to decide. In the United States you have the concepts of criminal negligence, criminal recklessness, criminal endangerment, etc. This is not a simple matter. In most cases negligence is defined as the failure to do something that a reasonable person would have done, or donig something that a reasonable person would not have done, leading of course to damages to another party. Criminal negligence is a step above (or a step below, depending on how you look at it), and if I understand correctly, the prosecution would have to prove the simultaneous occurrence of both actus reus ("guilty action") and mens rea ("guilty mind").

 

Anyway, blah blah blah, to me this sounds like an ACCIDENT, not a crime. And of course we should avoid the political part of this conversation in this forum.....

[Guest]

Exactly. Even a pillow can be a deadly weapon (you can smother someone to death). How is it even possible to murder someone without a deadly weapon?

[Guest zipperzone]

>Exactly. Even a pillow can be a deadly weapon (you can

>smother someone to death). How is it even possible to murder

>someone without a deadly weapon?

 

Well you could push them off a cliff, hold their head under water, scare them to induce a heart attack, bury them alive, tie them down and let wild animals finish them off, disconnect breathing apperatus in a hospital. I can think of many ways that would not involve a deadly weapon. Even poison would probably not technically qualify as a deadly weapon.

[Guest]

> bury them alive,

>tie them down and let wild animals finish them off

 

I guess you have a point on some of these. I think it would be difficult in most cases, though, to bury someone alive or tie him down unless you had a gun pointed at him. But I would much rather be shot than burried alive or thrown off a cliff. Doesn't it seem like bad policy to encourage killing in more gruesome ways? I would think it would be better to add prison time for killing someone in an unnecessarily slow or sadistic manner...