Crown

STRADALE:

 

But under those circumstances you provided you werent racing so there wouldnt be any crime.  I think from reports it was pretty obvious they were racing. If it wasnt very obvious then I would guess they wouldnt have charged him w/ veh. manslaughter.

I agree it's a thin  line. 

 

Thin line indeed, but I think it's ok to charge him with manslaughter, if it turns out the Ferrari crashed by himself with no participation of the Porsche, that particular charge can be dropped. Leaving the scene is quite severe to, IMHO.

However street racing is not allowed because we know severe accidents happen.

If you participate in an activity that is known to cause deaths, you are at least partly responsible. Whether it is manslaughter or not has to be decided according to the details, but it has to be investigated.

Oh, the guy is scrwed.

http://mmajunkie.com/news/14271/driver-involved-in-death-of-tapout-founder-charged-officials-seek-help.mma

08 PORSCHE Turbo Cabriolet, 06 Ferrari F430,  04 Durango HEMI,  04 Harley FLHTCSE,  93 Harley FLSTN

Thanks Stradale for the update. At least now I understand why he left the scene.

did you see this?

"A Newport Beach Police Department officer who was on patrol the night of the March 11 crash witnessed Kirby's 1977 Porsche traveling at a high rate of speed next to Lewis' 2004 Ferrari. Kirby is accused of losing control of his vehicle due to the excessive speed, which allegedly caused him to collide with the Ferrari."

08 PORSCHE Turbo Cabriolet, 06 Ferrari F430,  04 Durango HEMI,  04 Harley FLHTCSE,  93 Harley FLSTN

STRADALE:

did you see this?

"A Newport Beach Police Department officer who was on patrol the night of the March 11 crash witnessed Kirby's 1977 Porsche traveling at a high rate of speed next to Lewis' 2004 Ferrari. Kirby is accused of losing control of his vehicle due to the excessive speed, which allegedly caused him to collide with the Ferrari."

 

Yes I did, if it turns out to be true, I think it is involuntary manslaughter.

STRADALE:

did you see this?

"A Newport Beach Police Department officer who was on patrol the night of the March 11 crash witnessed Kirby's 1977 Porsche traveling at a high rate of speed next to Lewis' 2004 Ferrari. Kirby is accused of losing control of his vehicle due to the excessive speed, which allegedly caused him to collide with the Ferrari."

        Maybe he got into a corner with his foot to the floor and lost it... The 930 is known to be a handful whent the tail comes out.

JoeRockhead:

STRADALE:

did you see this?

"A Newport Beach Police Department officer who was on patrol the night of the March 11 crash witnessed Kirby's 1977 Porsche traveling at a high rate of speed next to Lewis' 2004 Ferrari. Kirby is accused of losing control of his vehicle due to the excessive speed, which allegedly caused him to collide with the Ferrari."

        Maybe he got into a corner with his foot to the floor and lost it... The 930 is known to be a handful whent the tail comes out.

Sounds like it. 

08 PORSCHE Turbo Cabriolet, 06 Ferrari F430,  04 Durango HEMI,  04 Harley FLHTCSE,  93 Harley FLSTN

This was not underground racing from what I read, it was a chance encounter, just like Alan's scenario of flooring it away from a red-light which everyone has done.

And the lawyers that wrote this crap at the statehouse are wrong just as congress is usually wrong in what they pass.

A felony, and in fact a lot of questions put to juries involve the question of intent.

You ever heard of "malice a forethought"?

Organised underground racing you might have a case, MIGHT, might not, because no one intends to harm anyone else for private gain or evil intent.

There was no criminal intent here so NO CRIME, no felony.  (dwi does complicate it but I am talking about this assuming he was not drunk, and for all cases were alcohol is not involved)

Thanks to mythbusters we now know that that is impossible Nick. They tested that along with dropping coins off the observation deck of the empire state building.

At worst you would just knock some sense back into their heads and they would become independents. 

Though there is some question whether a gun shot directly straight up in the air would cause serious injury, no one questions a gun shot not exactly straight up will cause death.

In LA, reporting of guns fired into air causing death is fact and accepted as a dangerous practice. So, assuming someone killed, should they be charged with any crime?

nberry:

Though there is some question whether a gun shot directly straight up in the air would cause serious injury, no one questions a gun shot not exactly straight up will cause death.

In LA, reporting of guns fired into air causing death is fact and accepted as a dangerous practice. So, assuming someone killed, should they be charged with any crime?

--

        I saw a guy die in "The Mexican" in this fashion so it must be true.

Firing a gun for any reason should make someone responsible for the consequences of their actions. Guns aren't firecrackers. I would find it ironic for a liberal to celebrate in this fashion anyway.

Engaging in a race with another driver where that driver loses control of thier vehicle and dies doesn't make the other guy guilty of causing his death. If you lose control of your car and kill a pedestrian you should be charged with criminal negligence causing death, as they are an unwilling participant. Nobody elses foot was on Lewis' gas pedal.

Mythbusters:

Terminal velocity of a falling bullet

Adam built an acrylic wind tunnel (much like the one in the Penny Drop myth). Air was shot up through the bottom and a bullet was dropped into the chamber. The terminal velocity was calculated based on the speed of the air needed to make the bullet stop falling. They figured that the terminal velocity was 100mph (150 ft/s). The wind tunnel also showed that the most stable falling position for the bullets was on their side. 
Firing bullets at terminal velocity

The rigged up an air hose to an aluminum pipe to launch the bullets at terminal velocity (150 ft/s). Their first shot put a good dent in the metal door. Their next target would be a pig's head, just as soon as they got the amount of air pressure tuned correctly. A chronograph was used to measure the speed of the bullet and a solenoid valve was attached to the tube to control the air flow.

They fired bullets from the pipe into the pig's head and recorded it all on the high-speed camera. At 166 ft/s, the 9mm bullet bounced right off of the pig's head. The .30-06 bullet did only slightly better, piercing the skin and then bouncing off. 

It was looking like this was going to be busted, but, as it turns out, there is an international expert on falling bullets working in nearby Stanford. The expert, Dr. David G Mohler, told them about a case in Menlo Park where a woman sitting in a lawn chair was struck in the leg by a bullet that was fired into the air 1 1/2 miles away during a 4th of July celebration. Mohler recovered the bullet from her leg and the police were able to match the ballistics to a shooter.

Mohler also told them about a case of an elderly man in Alameda who was talking to his wife underneath a plastic corrugated roof in his carport. His eyes rolled up and his wife thought he was having a stroke. When they got to the hospital they found out there was a bullet in his brain and, unfortunately, he died.

"I know for a fact that bullets fired at a distance, returning to Earth, with terminal velocity, have the ability to kill people." - Dr. Mohler

This contradicted their findings so far, so it was back to the drawing board.
Mohave Desert testing

They figured out what was different from their original assumptions: the bullets in Dr. Mohler's cases weren't fired straight up into the air. They were fired at an angle, which meant that they remained spin-stabilized and on a ballistics trajectory.

It was time for them to figure out what would happen with real bullets fired into the air. They went out to the Mohave Desert, where they setup a rig to fire straight up into the air. They planned to fire a bunch of bullets into the air and hopefully find at least one of the bullets where it landed. To maximize their odds, they stationed their crew in bulletproof listening posts.

They first fired bullets straight into the ground as a control:
BB: 3"
9mm: 6"
.30-06: 12"

Jamie fired a clip of 9mm bullets up into the air. 39 seconds later they heard the bullets hit the ground.

Adam: "I'm searching across the desert for a pencil-sized hole"

The first bullet that Adam found went only 2" into the ground and appeared to have hit the ground on it's side. The bullet had traveled 330ft horizontally. Jamie found another bullet hole almost identical to the first.

Jamie then fired the .30-06 rounds. Big problem: after 40 rounds fired into the air, they weren't able to hear any bullets land. The .30-06 rounds travel over twice as high, so they were simply traveling too far for them to find.

Adam brought out plan B: a balloon attached to an instrumented platform that could drop bullets remotely. The platform had a wireless video camera that fed an image of the platform, including the altitude gauge, down to Adam.

The bullets were dropped in a bundle from a height of 400 ft. The .03-06 made a 2" hole. The 9mm made a 2" hole as well, matching up perfectly with the actual 9mm bullet firing.

For the first time ever, they deemed this one busted, plausible, and confirmed. All of their tests, from the pig's head to the 9mm firing to the balloon, showed that a bullet fired perfectly straight up into the air is not lethal. However, it is also very difficult to shoot perfectly straight up into the air and, with the cases cited by Dr. Mohler, they have confirmed that people have died from bullets falling from the sky.

That being posted - I would say that anyone firing at an angle is playing russian roulette with innocent people and a gun's main function being deadly force, the shooter had the intention to harm innocents - therefore criminal,

Firing straight up can not kill and though stupid would expose the shooter to severe civil damages but not criminal penalties.

But any gun owner knows it is a lethal weapon whereas a car is not.

Any car owner knows that a car can be a lethal weapon especially driven at high speeds on public roads. That is why CA and other states criminalize speed racing. They need to deter dangerous conduct and not only evil intent.

Shooting a gun into the air that kills someone though rare should be punishable as as involuntary manslaughter and possibly second degree murder.

nberry:
If I go out a shot a gun in the air celebrating Greg and Alan becoming liberals, should I be charged with anything if my bullet falls to the earth and kills someone? I did not mean to hurt anyone and was only celebrating that Alan and Greg finally became enlightened.

--

 

Time to bury me into the ground if I ever become a liberal again.  Because at that point, dementia and Alzheimers will have set in.  The last time I rooted for a liberal was Walter Mondale.  Hell, I was only 15.  At that point, I didn't no shit about the real world.  Since then, I've grown up and matured, finished school, got a job, married, divorced, married, kids.  Started to use more logic in my thinking, tried to avoid double-standards, and just be honest.  But I digress...       

As you can see Nick, you can't criminalize stupidity no matter how hard some people try. All the laws in the world can't protect society against a moment of bad judgment. Based on the 2 previous DUI's the surviving driver is probably going away for a long time. The other guy lost his life. Hell, in California you can get life for stealing a chocolate bar if it's your 3rd offense, can't you?

nberry:

Any car owner knows that a car can be a lethal weapon especially driven at high speeds on public roads. That is why CA and other states criminalize speed racing. They need to deter dangerous conduct and not only evil intent.

Shooting a gun into the air that kills someone though rare should be punishable as as involuntary manslaughter and possibly second degree murder.

--

 

Have you ever exceeded the speed limit in your Ferrari, Nick?         

racerx:

JP - how would you ever determine that?  impossible. People can't even agree in NFL games on challenged call replays with 5 different camera angles. Plus the road could have curved sharply or sand on the porsche lane could have caused lack of traction.    Nope the moment they both made the decision to race there - a bad decision - they both were responsible for their own outcome.

 

How could I determine that?....I just read that the Porsche came in contact with the Ferrari.

Accident Reconstruction these days is quite accurate, so as of now, yes its hard to determine, but eventually there should be an answer. They will look into any and all determining factors. It is obvious that they were both speeding. The speed limit I believe is 45mph there, which wouldn't casue that much Ferrari destruction if going the limit. I agree they both made the decision to race and should be responsible for their own outcome. If two people on a freeway get into an accident, and weren't speeding or racing or drunk, and one driver dies, I don't think the surviving driver should be responsible for the other's death. But since the Porsche driver was drunk and racing at the time, and if he did hit the Ferrari, he should be somewhat responsible, because a DUI and speeding/racing was involved.

SoCal Alan:

nberry:

Any car owner knows that a car can be a lethal weapon especially driven at high speeds on public roads. That is why CA and other states criminalize speed racing. They need to deter dangerous conduct and not only evil intent.

Shooting a gun into the air that kills someone though rare should be punishable as as involuntary manslaughter and possibly second degree murder.

--

 

 

Have you ever exceeded the speed limit in your Ferrari, Nick?         

 

 

I studiously comply with all speed limits regardless of the car I am driving

nberry:

I studiously comply with all speed limits regardless of the car I am driving

        Speed limit and "speed limter" are two different things!

It's all guesswork with most re-construction, I have watched all the stuff on Diana's accident and still no one knows for certain how it was caused.

No innocents involved, no criminal guilt for the death, dui is another story.

Eunice:

I am not a lawyer, maybe others in this forum will know more :)

Actually the concept you've explained applies to minor offences only. In case of crimes we have a kind of "mixed jury" = professional judge plus "amateurs" ("Schöffen"). Main difference to the US system is that the judge and the Schöffen decide together about both, guilt and penalty.

As for illegal streetracing: the German Federal High Court decided just some months ago, that one can be accused of involuntary manslaughter if participating in such "race" if another participant gets killed in an accident.

An (unspoken) agreement between the participants á lá "I agree to eventually get killed in the course of the race" is null and void from a legal POV.  After all duells are also illegal

Thanks PJ - how many Schöffen, and are they randomly chose average citizens or more state paid judges?

What constitutes a race? what if RC and a few buddies take a leisurely 175 mph drive down the autobahn and someone makes a mistake, what then?

@racerx: I just think that depends on how good the defendands lawyer is

However, I always thought the Schöffen have only minor influence over the judgement.

The main difference is that in the U.S. there is common law, while here written law is interpreted.

Here is an english article about the german justice system:

http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-5013.html

Eunice, just to correct a misconception. Many of our written laws are as a result of common law. Many are not. Typically in most cases written laws are what are applied. Occasionally, when a fact situation arises which is not covered by our written laws we turn to common law, if available.

If not, often common sense prevails.

nberry:

Eunice, just to correct a misconception. Many of our written laws are as a result of common law. Many are not. Typically in most cases written laws are what are applied. Occasionally, when a fact situation arises which is not covered by our written laws we turn to common law, if available.

If not, often common sense prevails.

 

Thanks for making this clear. I have no opinion wether common law is actually the better system or not.

Here laws are made by parliament (I know that's a simplification), and if you do something that is not covered by a law, you theoretically have the chance of getting away with it. (Most prominent case in that regard was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes )

In common law, you have piles and piles of precedence cases, which sometimes overcomplicate trials.