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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32498 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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So I guess then you're of the opinion that the ex-Marine whose actions led to Mr. Neely's untimely demise should be charged to the full extent of the law? After all, Neely was merely ranting, and while it's a common feature of schizophrenics, isn't inherently dangerous. To assume that such behavior was indicative of a violent tendency was unreasonable. Neely did have a violent past, but unless Penny can demonstrate that he had prior knowledge of this violence (and he almost certainly can't), his actions weren't justified any more than if he had perpetrated them upon an arbitrary person.

After all, Neely was merely ranting, and while it's a common feature of schizophrenics, isn't inherently dangerous.

Is it? Have you been polling schizophrenics for their proclivity to rant? I suppose we should assume 90% of the top level posters here are schizophrenics yeah?

From what I've read so far, Neely was walking back and forth yelling at nobody in particular that he was hungry and thirsty and that he didn't care if he went to prison and he was ready to die. He then aggressively threw his jacket onto the floor. I could be mistaken, but I was under the impression that that this is the kind of behavior that is usually reserved for the mentally ill and intoxicated. You can call it ranting, raving, or whatever, but it's certainly not normal and is certainly distinct from going off on tangents in a space specifically dedicated for the purpose. News reports indicated that Neely was schizophrenic and I'm assuming that that influenced his behavior, but I'm no psychiatrist.

He had an open warrant for punching an elderly woman in the face. Also he had 44 prior arrests. Also multiple people have come forward to say he had tried to victimize others in crimes that went unreported. This is unsurprising, most crime is unreported, so anytime a criminal gets caught doing something, it’s safe to assume he has done it multiple times before. This means Neely probably victimized hundreds of people already, through acts of trying to kidnap a teen girl to trying to push people into the tracks (attempted murder). Thus the marine was fully justified in using non lethal means to subdue the threat. The fact he had an anomalous reaction, likely to due to drugs and an unhealthy lifestyle like George Floyd, isn’t the marines fault in the least.

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.

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

  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.

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.)

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