Lex, an act of omission is as bad as an act of commission. I dove into the Texas Statutes yesterday (or the day before). Under state law, I could find the unlawful homicide statutes were: Murder, Capital Murder, Manslaughter , and Negligent Homicide. The Murder statutes list those specific crimes for which the death penalty is authorized…
Lex, an act of omission is as bad as an act of commission. I dove into the Texas Statutes yesterday (or the day before). Under state law, I could find the unlawful homicide statutes were: Murder, Capital Murder, Manslaughter , and Negligent Homicide. The Murder statutes list those specific crimes for which the death penalty is authorized, and if the victim is not one of the people mentioned or the actor is not incarcerated, the death penalty does not apply. Manslaughter is defined as "reckless" and Negligent Homicide is defined as "negligent".
Reckless is defined as "knowledge of and conscious disregard" of conduct that could lead to injury or death, where Negligent is defined as where an actor "should be aware" that his conduct could lead to injury or death.
I would say that as agents of the government, the Texas "patrol" at the very least exhibited "reckless" behavior, but to my mind, the failure to act to prevent the event is a more intentional act. In my mind, I'd charge murder, but settle for a manslaughter plea.
Lex, an act of omission is as bad as an act of commission. I dove into the Texas Statutes yesterday (or the day before). Under state law, I could find the unlawful homicide statutes were: Murder, Capital Murder, Manslaughter , and Negligent Homicide. The Murder statutes list those specific crimes for which the death penalty is authorized, and if the victim is not one of the people mentioned or the actor is not incarcerated, the death penalty does not apply. Manslaughter is defined as "reckless" and Negligent Homicide is defined as "negligent".
Reckless is defined as "knowledge of and conscious disregard" of conduct that could lead to injury or death, where Negligent is defined as where an actor "should be aware" that his conduct could lead to injury or death.
I would say that as agents of the government, the Texas "patrol" at the very least exhibited "reckless" behavior, but to my mind, the failure to act to prevent the event is a more intentional act. In my mind, I'd charge murder, but settle for a manslaughter plea.
I'd buy that as long as the plea included at least five years of active prison time guaranteed.
I didn't look into the sentencing guidelines for Texas.
I haven't either. I was just speaking hypothetically. Sorry I wasn't clear.
No worries. As a former cop/use of force expert, I am always more interested in the street level applications than the global outcome-based ones.