Tough Moral Quandary

[Elixir]

I'm still inclined to put the parents up as "most responsible parties". I just tend to ascribe blame to the adults who are expected to take care of their kids. Not the kids.

The good ole 'blame the parent' crap. In our household, I was the well behaved student, my sister was the get into trouble student. But then again, every other household, the siblings are identical in behavior.

Yep
I'm very big on parental responsibility.

Very big on adults taking responsibility for the outcome of their actions in general, really.

I suppose that makes me a conservative. I'm okay with that.
Tom

Nah that makes you an arm chair parent. Are you at least a pet owner?

Horses have taught me SO much. Just over the last 27 years of owning, learning to raise and train them.
And dogs, from very early.
I don't opine a lot on the parenting of humans, but am readily critical of the outcomes produced, lol.
I do try to keep in mind that even the best trainers and "gentlers" don't always overcome all their canine or equine charges' problems.
Humans? Outa my league.

 

[bilby]

I get what you're saying about intent. They didn't intend to kill the young man, but that's exactly what the charge of involuntary manslaughter is about. It's not about intent. It's about a person's careless or inappropriate actions that resulted in someone else's death. We may not like or agree with the law, but that's my understanding of it. Not having intent is exactly how its's defined. It's about someone's careless or inappropriate behavior resulting in the death of someone. If it was intentional, they would have been charged with manslaughter or worse yet, murder.

I take it a bit further though. You throw a punch, there is absolutely no intent in causing death. Driving a car isn't the same, as you are in charge of a 2500 pound machine that'll kill people if you hit them. A fist? The liability isn't the same. Prosecution has discretion to press charges.

A few years ago, after a spate of well publicised cases in Australia of people dying after being punched just once, this became a hot topic here. Various laws were changed; I don't recall and am too lazy to look up the details, but I do remember that there was plenty of advertising of the fact that "one punch can kill"; The liability absolutely is the same, and if people expect that a single punch cannot cause death, then they are sadly mistaken in their expectations.

The law shouldn't (and as far as I am aware, doesn't) include ignorance of the risks, as a mitigating factor in cases of involuntary manslaughter.

Involuntary manslaughter already assumes a lack of intent to kill. The fact that someone is dead is sufficient to dismiss the idea that the actions weren't sufficient to lead to death. All that remains is ignorance, and saying "I didn't know one punch could be fatal" is simply not a defence in law, any more than saying "I didn't know hitting someone with my car could kill them" would be.

It's your responsibility to know what the worst case scenario is. If you're ignorant of the maximum damage a car can do, you shouldn't drive. If you're ignorant of the maximum damage a punch can do, you shouldn't throw punches.

 

[RVonse]

More detailed article:

Self-defense or manslaughter? Brothers to go on trial for Ethan Liming's death

DeShawn and Tyler Stafford will go on trial for Ethan Liming's death after a fight in the I Promise School parking lot. The brothers claim self-defense.

news.yahoo.com

I was looking at this as an unfortunate accident resulting from the actions of stupid teen boys until I read this:

DeShawn and Tyler continued to hit and kick Liming while he was on the ground.

As Liming’s friends tried to get him into his car to take him to the hospital, Jones began punching them and took their cellphones, throwing them to the ground and breaking them.

Tyler and DeShawn argued with Liming’s friends, who ran from the scene. Tyler got into Liming’s car and drove it to the west end of the parking lot. He parked the car, took a cellphone from it and threw it to the ground, breaking it.

Tyler, DeShawn and Jones left, leaving Liming lying on the pavement. None of them called 911; one of Liming’s friends alerted police.

The aforementioned changes everything IMO. Were it not for the stealing of the car, smashing of the phones, and lack of aid to the injured (if true) I would have said the victim caused his own death by instigating this debacle in the first place. No one should have even been charged with anything and it was an accident.

But the lack of help to the victim changes everything IMO. That's like passing someone on the side of the road who is seriously bleeding out and stopping not to give aid but to take their phone.

The group who had the water pistols should be charged with manslaughter for causing this event in the first place. And the ones who stole the car and phones should be charged with a hate crime. They wanted him to die.

 

[RVonse]

Nah that makes you an arm chair parent. Are you at least a pet owner?

Yeah.
Similarly, I think all adults should take responsibility for the outcome of their behavior. Sorry to upset you with my conservativism.
Tom

But parents can be responsible but their kid can still turn out to be shit. The point being you can not blame anyone (even a parent) for a kid that goes bad.

I agree with Jimmy H. and have seen many times a parent who raises 2 kids exactly the same yet one turns out good and the other goes bad. How does that happen with a responsible parent?

 

[TV and credit cards]

More detailed article:

Self-defense or manslaughter? Brothers to go on trial for Ethan Liming's death

DeShawn and Tyler Stafford will go on trial for Ethan Liming's death after a fight in the I Promise School parking lot. The brothers claim self-defense.

news.yahoo.com

I was looking at this as an unfortunate accident resulting from the actions of stupid teen boys until I read this:

DeShawn and Tyler continued to hit and kick Liming while he was on the ground.

As Liming’s friends tried to get him into his car to take him to the hospital, Jones began punching them and took their cellphones, throwing them to the ground and breaking them.

Tyler and DeShawn argued with Liming’s friends, who ran from the scene. Tyler got into Liming’s car and drove it to the west end of the parking lot. He parked the car, took a cellphone from it and threw it to the ground, breaking it.

Tyler, DeShawn and Jones left, leaving Liming lying on the pavement. None of them called 911; one of Liming’s friends alerted police.

The aforementioned changes everything IMO. Were it not for the stealing of the car, smashing of the phones, and lack of aid to the injured (if true) I would have said the victim caused his own death by instigating this debacle in the first place. No one should have even been charged with anything and it was an accident.

But the lack of help to the victim changes everything IMO. That's like passing someone on the side of the road who is seriously bleeding out and stopping not to give aid but to take their phone.

Yes, the disregard for human life by beating him after he struck him down is what bothers me.

 

[Gospel]

Why were they granted bail? It's common knowledge that judges have the discretion to deny bail entirely, particularly when individuals are perceived as a threat to society, a description that seems to apply based on the article. Furthermore, not only were they allowed bail, but the amount was also reduced - a decision typically influenced by the gravity of the alleged crimes.

It raises the question of the source of the article's information - was it derived from police reports? And if so, have there been any recent amendments to those reports? Bail was set at a substantial one million dollars per person (to my knowledge), a figure which seems to match the actions mentioned in that article. Moreover, the selective charging of only the individuals who were playing basketball, and not those who initiated the conflict, certainly seems peculiar. No accessory charges for assaulting people with water pellets, a crime leading to the death of a citizen?

Don't you agree that these factors indicate the necessity of scrutinizing the information presented in the article more closely? I'm not attempting to discredit the validity of the article in any way; rather, I am encouraging a broader consideration of information from multiple sources. However if your comfortable just taking one article and running it's not my business to stop you. Just say so.

 

[Gospel]

Nah that makes you an arm chair parent. Are you at least a pet owner?

Yeah.
Similarly, I think all adults should take responsibility for the outcome of their behavior. Sorry to upset you with my conservativism.
Tom

But parents can be responsible but their kid can still turn out to be shit. The point being you can not blame anyone (even a parent) for a kid that goes bad.

I agree with Jimmy H. and have seen many times a parent who raises 2 kids exactly the same yet one turns out good and the other goes bad. How does that happen with a responsible parent?

I'm fortunate that I succeeded greatly with all three of mine. I do have a fourth, but her upbringing was primarily handled by her mother, who is reasonably competent. However, this doesn't guarantee that the police won't be summoned concerning my children, and write up an embellished report out of personal bias which is then circulated online where folks lay in wait to have their moral compasses massaged.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

More detailed article:

Self-defense or manslaughter? Brothers to go on trial for Ethan Liming's death

DeShawn and Tyler Stafford will go on trial for Ethan Liming's death after a fight in the I Promise School parking lot. The brothers claim self-defense.

news.yahoo.com

I was looking at this as an unfortunate accident resulting from the actions of stupid teen boys until I read this:

DeShawn and Tyler continued to hit and kick Liming while he was on the ground.

As Liming’s friends tried to get him into his car to take him to the hospital, Jones began punching them and took their cellphones, throwing them to the ground and breaking them.

Tyler and DeShawn argued with Liming’s friends, who ran from the scene. Tyler got into Liming’s car and drove it to the west end of the parking lot. He parked the car, took a cellphone from it and threw it to the ground, breaking it.

Tyler, DeShawn and Jones left, leaving Liming lying on the pavement. None of them called 911; one of Liming’s friends alerted police.

Thank you. The original left me wondering why it wasn't considered self defense. Sounds like they didn't know when to stop defending.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I mean it's textbook involuntary manslaughter. What more is there to say? It's about as open and shut as it gets. They should be given every opportunity to come to understand the tragedy of what happened, and to understand how it can be avoided in the future, and if they don't again after that then repeat the process in a much more serious way.

There might be extenuating circumstances such as the provocation of the water guns absent a common understanding between the groups to engage in harmless shenanigans from time to time. Whether these rise to extenuation is doubtful; fisticuffs for wetness is not acceptable. We can on society expect more creative and nonviolent throwdowns.

This does not change the charge though, merely the punishment. This child needs to be seriously taught that fighting is not ever an appropriate response and drilled on more positive ways to react. All of them do.

They were shooting ice. I don't mind the use of force to stop that. But the second article shows they continued to use force once the threat was over.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

All children involved are potentially accessory to involuntary manslaughter for being involved in the fight. I should clarify that.

Indeed the children with the water guns are guilty of disturbing the peace and accessory to involuntary manslaughter no matter which way you cut it. Possibly also directly guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

They aren't being charged. The teens who were using the basketball court as intended are the ones being charged.

They should all be charged.

It's not a felony, no felony murder charge. You could charge the other two for shooting the ice but given what happened I doubt they will be.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We couldn't trust Zimmerman to tell us the truth. It has always boggled my mind how easily and quickly certain people chose to believe every word spoken by man with such a strong motive to lie.

Yeah, I still don't understand how Zimmerman ignoring the police dispatcher's instructions not to follow didn't establish him as the aggressor. Sure we all have a right to be out in public but we don't have the right to stalk someone in public.

The dispatcher had no authority to stop him. And the observed injuries clearly show Martin was the aggressor. Martin didn't want to be found and jumped Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a total idiot for being there but that doesn't make it not self defense.

 

[zorq]

We couldn't trust Zimmerman to tell us the truth. It has always boggled my mind how easily and quickly certain people chose to believe every word spoken by man with such a strong motive to lie.

Yeah, I still don't understand how Zimmerman ignoring the police dispatcher's instructions not to follow didn't establish him as the aggressor. Sure we all have a right to be out in public but we don't have the right to stalk someone in public.

The dispatcher had no authority to stop him. And the observed injuries clearly show Martin was the aggressor. Martin didn't want to be found and jumped Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a total idiot for being there but that doesn't make it not self defense.

I don't want to rehash Ice tea and skittles, but I will just say that I disagree with every sentence you wrote here except for the first.

 

[Gospel]

The dispatcher had no authority to stop him. And the observed injuries clearly show Martin was the aggressor. Martin didn't want to be found and jumped Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a total idiot for being there but that doesn't make it not self defense.

Non emergency lines are operated by fucking LAW ENFORCEMENT. So Law enforcement has no authority now. Glad to know.

Edit: Sorry, I misspoke (had another case in mind) Sanford 911 dispatch (which Zimmerman called) is operated by the Sanford Police. In the United States, all 911 operators are recognized as members of law enforcement.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The events that transpired should lead to dispassionate assignment of charges to everyone involved. There are claims of stolen cars and destroyed phones. That elevates the act to murder in a lesser degree or manslaughter in a higher degree, accessory, and grand theft, if this is indeed true, and accessory to involuntary to the other party.

Grand theft, yes. Robbery, yes. I'm not so sure on accessory to involuntary manslaughter, though.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

From what I can tell, the dead boy and his friends were….doing a stupid TikTok challenge. And the toys they used made realistic machine gun sounds.

I understand how adrenaline got triggered and how that over-rode common sense. Stupid, senseless actions that did not ( as far as I can tell) intend genuine harm, resulted in more adrenaline driven stupidity and led to an inadvertent death.

I think the adrenaline rushing through everybody’s veins, especially the basket ball players, and can I just add, the testosterone would have likely reduced awareness or concern for an injury that it is easy for arm chair critics to claim should have been obvious. In other words, everyone was angry and startled/frightened, although perhaps no one involved would consciously admit that even to themselves. The kids with the toy guns didn’t mean to hurt someone. The ball players likely just wanted to teach the dumb kids not to do something so stupid because someone could get hurt.

I don't even think it's testosterone, but rather street justice. The ball players understandably didn't like what was happening and I would call the original punch self defense. However, they wanted to teach a lesson and that goes beyond self defense. I'm not even sure there should be any charges about the death, but the beating/robbery/auto theft certainly warrant charges in my book.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'd just like to add that the 3 who were charged, were young, but they were still legally adults. Their ages are 19, 20 and 21. They may not have fully developed brains, but they are considered adults under the law and while I might see them as kids at my age, they really aren't kids. They are young men.

Emphasis on young.

And I need to add, according to one of the articles linked, the toy that shot the gel pellets made a realistic machine gun sound.

Now, when I was a kid, no one in a school yard in the US would have thought that sound was really a weapon being fired. Almost every boy I knew in middle school could do a pretty decent machine gun sound with just their mouth. (I was envious).

But today, we live in a world where people respond to perceived threats with heightened awareness/fear/fight/flight reactions. People are shot and killed by trained law enforcement for having something shiny in their hands, like a cell phone.

This tragedy is a result of out of control gun culture. And kids doing stupid TikTok challenges.

No toy could make realistic machine gun sounds--guns are incredibly loud, far beyond what a human voice can produce.

I don't believe they thought the guns were real, but the idiots with the guns were still guilty of assault and battery in doing it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The dispatcher had no authority to stop him. And the observed injuries clearly show Martin was the aggressor. Martin didn't want to be found and jumped Zimmerman. Zimmerman was a total idiot for being there but that doesn't make it not self defense.

Non emergency lines are operated by fucking LAW ENFORCEMENT. So Law enforcement has no authority now. Glad to know.

Edit: Sorry, I misspoke (had another case in mind) Sanford 911 dispatch (which Zimmerman called) is operated by the Sanford Police. all 911 operators in the USA are considered a part of law enforcement.

Dispatch has no authority to give you orders, they can only ask.

 

[Gospel]

Dispatch has no authority to give you orders, they can only ask.

That's not what my argument is about. I'm not disputing that. During the call, he vocalized his annoyance with individuals evading legal consequences for their actions, and even acknowledged pursuing someone—whom he suspected of criminal activity—despite being counselled against doing so by the dispatcher. I mean those are fairly clear indicators of an aggressor.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Why were they granted bail? It's common knowledge that judges have the discretion to deny bail entirely, particularly when individuals are perceived as a threat to society, a description that seems to apply based on the article. Furthermore, not only were they allowed bail, but the amount was also reduced - a decision typically influenced by the gravity of the alleged crimes.

It raises the question of the source of the article's information - was it derived from police reports? And if so, have there been any recent amendments to those reports? Bail was set at a substantial one million dollars per person (to my knowledge), a figure which seems to match the actions mentioned in that article. Moreover, the selective charging of only the individuals who were playing basketball, and not those who initiated the conflict, certainly seems peculiar. No accessory charges for assaulting people with water pellets, a crime leading to the death of a citizen?

Don't you agree that these factors indicate the necessity of scrutinizing the information presented in the article more closely? I'm not attempting to discredit the validity of the article in any way; rather, I am encouraging a broader consideration of information from multiple sources. However if your comfortable just taking one article and running it's not my business to stop you. Just say so.

Yahoo sourced it from the Akron Beacon Journal. I'll assume it is one and the same as the OP that requires a subscription.

I was wondering about the charges myself.

A fresher Yahoo article peeled from the Akron Beacon Journal

'Difficult case for everyone:' What we know about DeShawn and Tyler Stafford's trial

DeShawn and Tyler Stafford will go on trial for manslaughter in Ethan Liming's death in Summit County court this week. Here's what we know.

news.yahoo.com

So they went from this:

Police initially said Liming was knocked unconscious and “brutally assaulted.” The people who had been with the teen rushed home and called 911.

Police and paramedics who arrived found Liming unresponsive with severe injuries. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

To this:

Police arrested DeShawn and Tyler Stafford and their cousin Donovan Jones in Liming’s death on charges that included murder. They were held at the Summit County Jail on $1 million bonds.

A Summit County grand jury, though, in late July opted to indict the three young men on lesser charges.

The Stafford brothers’ most serious charge was involuntary manslaughter, rather than murder. Jones faced two misdemeanor assault charges.

Brad Gessner, chief counsel for the Summit County Prosecutor’s Office, said additional information came to light after the three men were originally charged that impacted the decisions of the grand jury.

"Those aren't facts that can be made public," he said.

An older but detailed article:

Family mad, defense attorneys pleased: 3 men facing lesser charges in Ethan Liming death

Three Akron men accused in death of Ethan Liming at I Promise School following gel gun prank indicted, two on felony charges, one with misdemeanors.

www.beaconjournal.com

So I suppose what was dropped was aggravated assault/assault charges (beating afterwards) perhaps in exchange for dropping some lesser charges against the other group. Speculation on my part.

I don't know where Liming and his friends are from but back in my day, you hung out in your own neighborhood. You venture into a neighborhood you don't belong and you do so at your own risk.

 

[Toni]

I'd just like to add that the 3 who were charged, were young, but they were still legally adults. Their ages are 19, 20 and 21. They may not have fully developed brains, but they are considered adults under the law and while I might see them as kids at my age, they really aren't kids. They are young men.

Emphasis on young.

And I need to add, according to one of the articles linked, the toy that shot the gel pellets made a realistic machine gun sound.

Now, when I was a kid, no one in a school yard in the US would have thought that sound was really a weapon being fired. Almost every boy I knew in middle school could do a pretty decent machine gun sound with just their mouth. (I was envious).

But today, we live in a world where people respond to perceived threats with heightened awareness/fear/fight/flight reactions. People are shot and killed by trained law enforcement for having something shiny in their hands, like a cell phone.

This tragedy is a result of out of control gun culture. And kids doing stupid TikTok challenges.

No toy could make realistic machine gun sounds--guns are incredibly loud, far beyond what a human voice can produce.

I don't believe they thought the guns were real, but the idiots with the guns were still guilty of assault and battery in doing it.

Thinking about it from a safe distance, I’m sure you’re correct. But being startled? Totally get that it took them a few which is why they initially ran and why they turned around: they realized it wasn’t real.