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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   32469 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Thus the marine was fully justified in using non lethal means to subdue the threat.

Unless the marine knew about that criminal history (and note btw that a large number of those arrests were for things like turnstile jumping), they are irrelevant to the question of whether he was justified.

I'm not very sympathetic to "The actor couldn't have researched that specific information, therefore their decision couldn't have been affected by those facts."

As a simple example, imagine that the unknowable facts were completely different. In this hypothetical Neely has won the Carnegie Medal for civilian heroism, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, is a shoo-in for canonization as a Saint, and did every other good thing you can name. The marine still hasn't done any biographical research. Do you think that that background would be just as irrelevant as the real one?

I don't blame people for being correct even if their reasoning can't withstand strict scrutiny.

Yes, that background would very obviously be completely irrelevant. To quote the California Supreme Court:

the law recognizes the justification of self-defense not because the victim "deserved" what he or she got, but because the defendant acted reasonably under the circumstances. Reasonableness is judged by how the situation appeared to the defendant, not the victim. As the Court of Appeal noted, "Because [j]ustification does not depend upon the existence of actual danger but rather depends upon appearances' (People v. Clark (1982) 130 Cal. App.3d 371, 377 [181 Cal. Rptr. 682]; see also CALJIC No. 5.51), a defendant may be equally justified in killing agood' person who brandishes a toy gun in jest as a `bad' person who brandishes a real gun in anger."

People v. Minifie, 13 Cal. 4th 1055, 1068 (1996). That seems to me to be 100 percent correct, both legally and morally.

I'm more sympathetic to that argument when we have months of factfinding followed by days of debate on the minutiae of the event, like in a criminal trial. We don't usually have that much detail available, so we have to use something to fill in the blanks the rest of the time.

The flow of information from the "unknown" background to the actor isn't magic, it's just not explained in the text. For a more concrete example of how background characteristics can change the events in a way that aren't reflected in a description, consider:

Alice shot Bob after he approached her in the alleyway behind 1st street. She stated that she feared for her life, as he was carrying knives "in an obvious manner". Bob was a 23 year old male who...

The end. Everything else is background that she couldn't have researched (and even the age would've been a guess). Otherwise it might change your opinion that he:

A) ...had a history of mugging, a rap sheet as long as your arm, etc.

B) ...was a culinary student heading home from class.

I think that variant A was likely justified, and variant B likely wasn't. Do you think that both are, or neither?

You seem to be saying that because Alice is being so vague, we don't really know what happened. But, it is more likely that it will turn out that Bob acted in a way that would cause a reasonable person to be in fear of her life if Bob is person A than person B, fine.

But that was not the claim I was responding to. Rather, the claim made by OP was: 1) Neely had a criminal history; 2) "Thus the marine was fully justified in using non lethal means to subdue the threat." That is simply wrong, unless the marine knew of Neely's history, which presumably he did not.

Arriving at a correct answer through insufficiently rigorous reasoning is what is called "guessing". We discourage it in students, we discourage it in AIs (at least to the point where they guess so well as to be indistinguishable from reasoning). I damn well want to discourage guessing before you attack someone, too.

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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