Legal and ethical question

B

butch50

New member
Legal and ethical are not always snynomous, so this requires a two part answer.

Hypothetical situation - you, and you alone, are being threatend with imminent death, you have a gun, you know positively that you can shoot and kill the assailaint, but that the bullet will, not may, but will go through the assailant and kill an innocent bystander behind the assailant. Since this is hypothetical just assume that the parameters are there.

1. Is it ethical to save your own life at the expense of an innocent bystander?

2. Is it legally deensible to do so?
 
You are responsible for every bullet that leaves your gun. Unless he is already indiscriminately killing bystanders, no, I don't think you have the right to do that.

I don't know what would happen legally, IANAL, but my guess is that most any jury is going to find you guilty of at least manslaughter.
 
Hypothetical but plausible. Can you imagine how hard of a decision it would be to make in a split second under pressure? Scary.
 
Legally, if you kill a bystander, whether shooting through the BG or missing the BG, it is the BG that is charged with hitting them (unless you are doing something really stupid).

As for whether or not to shoot, the only absolute is that if you do not shoot, you die. You do not have time to debate ethics, analyize every person in the background, wonder if you can hit a bone in the BG to prevent over penetration, go for a head shot instead of COM shot. If you are going to carry a gun for self defense, then you need the mindset to use it or it becomes a liability instead of an aid.
 
Legally, if you kill a bystander, whether shooting through the BG or missing the BG, it is the BG that is charged with hitting them (unless you are doing something really stupid).
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How is that?

EDIT: I just find it hard to believe that if youmiss the BG, and kill someone that had no involvement, that you'd get off free. If you can provide a case, I'd like to see it.
 
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Legally, if you kill a bystander, whether shooting through the BG or missing the BG, it is the BG that is charged with hitting them (unless you are doing something really stupid).
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A reference to just one case where a bad guy is responsible for a citizen's bullet would be great. Just one.
 
1. Is it ethical to save your own life at the expense of an innocent bystander?
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Well, you have automatically made the supposed situation so unreastic as to make any advice about it useless.

Here's another situation. You are in the water, clinging to a plank which can support only one person. Another person is with you. One of you is sure to die.. it's either him or you. In that case, ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL it would be moral for you to push him off the plank, causing him to drown.

That's if all other things are equal. All lives are not of equal value. For example, the life of a serial rapist is of less value than the life of a great man (say, one bound to cure cancer) The moral choice, given two lives (great man vs. rapist) would be death for the rapist, allowing the great man to live.

Of course, that is what is moral. What is legal is a different matter, and all I can say is 'good luck' in dealing with THAT system. The best thing one can do is that which is moral, and then dodge the law as best you can if there is a conflict with the law.
 
Well, you have automatically made the supposed situation so unreastic as to make any advice about it useless.
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Unlikely yes, but not unrealistic. I can think of realistic scenarios where it could happen and I bet you can too. I grant you it is unlikely. But by bringing it to a "fine point" like this it does cause us to think narrowly and by thinking narrowly on the subject of innocent bystanders we will be better prepared to react swiftly and correctly if we are ever faced with the likelihood of hitting an innocent bystander.
 
A reference to just one case where a bad guy is responsible for a citizen's bullet would be great. Just one.
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EDIT: I just find it hard to believe that if youmiss the BG, and kill someone that had no involvement, that you'd get off free. If you can provide a case, I'd like to see it.
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I do so love challanges. Unless you are acting negligently, you are not criminally liable for the death of a bystander while in the act of self defense. A criminal is responsible for all deaths resulting from his crime, whether he physically killed someone or not.

Only one example?

Pair Won't Face Charges in Death
A stray bullet that fatally wounded a woman in her home was fired in self-defense, prosecutors decide.
By Jill Leovy
Times Staff Writer

March 9, 2004

Two suspects arrested after a mother decorating her Christmas tree was killed by a stray bullet won't be charged because prosecutors decided the men acted in self-defense during a gang shooting.

Prosecutors declined to press homicide charges against Anthony Mayo, 28, and Daniel Shelton, 42, who were arrested last month on suspicion of murder in the gunshot death of Laudelina Salazar Garcia.

Salazar, 39, was kneeling next to her Christmas tree in her South Los Angeles home on Dec. 12 when a bullet pierced her front door and struck her in the neck. She died of her wounds two days later.

Police argued that the actions of Shelton and Mayo — returning fire from a passing car — resulted in Salazar's death and that they should be prosecuted for murder.

But prosecutors concluded that Mayo and Shelton were acting in self-defense after gunmen driving by in a car opened fire at them.

The two could reasonably argue that they were trying to defend themselves against the drive-by shooters, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Rash.

"They are allowed to defend themselves if they are being shot at," said Rash. "Any killing they caused, they are not criminally liable for."
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http://www.streetgangs.com/topics/2004/030904pair.html
 
Unlikely yes, but not unrealistic. I can think of realistic scenarios where it could happen and I bet you can too
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Yeah, I can, but I don't like scenarios that deal with certainties (e.g. he WILL kill you, or you WILL kill him and a bystander). Much better are scenarios where, for example he will PROBABLY kill you, you can PROBABLY kill him and will also PROBABLY kill another person).

But I'll play.

Is it moral to trade the life of a bad guy and an innocent bystander for your own? Yes, IF the bystanders life is of EQUAL or LESS value to yours (for example, if the bystander is also a child molester). If the bystander is a very great person, or a good pregnant woman, well then, that makes it different.

But you can't know what kind of person the bystander is. You don't know if you are a better person than the bystander. You don't know if they have a family, if they are a psycho, or if they are a person who will do great things. Which is why I don't like the scenario to begin with, because it does not allow for uncertainty.
 
But you can't know what kind of person the bystander is. You don't know if you are a better person than the bystander. You don't know if they have a family, if they are a psycho, or if they are a person who will do great things. Which is why I don't like the scenario to begin with, because it does not allow for uncertainty.
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But that is an uncertainty. In the instant that you have to decide to pull the trigger or die, you can not know anything about that person. Which makes the probelm thornier, do you kill two people, one trying to kill you and one just standing there to save your own life or not, and is it legal and is it ethical/moral to do so? The bystander can be anything from a serial child molesting rapist murderer all the way up to someone who is about to cure cancer and save billions of lives.

assuming of course that you subscribe to the whole idea that one person has more value than another person, which is a whole nuther debate.
 
Thank you much, HK. I'm not sure where I stand on that issue, but I am sure that killing someone accidently while shooting someone else shouldn't go completely unpunished. Just as hunting accidents don't go unpunished. I'm not saying that the person should sit in prison for life, or sit in prison at all. But I also don't think them getting off free is the answer either.

Anyway, I guess I would have to question why exactly I was the only one in danger if there was a gunman, and others in close proximity. The only situtation I can come up with is that I did something to him. In which case, I don't think I could ethically kill someone else to save myself. But I dunno.

EDIT: I guess their punishment would probably come in the civil trial, in which case I think it would be entirely appropriate for them to be open to lawsuits.
 
OK, say you accidentally insulted a psycho in some manner, and he decides to shoot you for it. You didn't do anything to him, but in his psychosis he believes you are Satan incarnate. He has stalked you and has you backed up against a wall, and you have your gun drawn and pointed at him - a standoff and he is only 4 feet away and he is very thin to the point of emaciation and dressed in only a tee shirt. Your carry is a 357 and it is loaded hot; you are sure you are going to over penetrate at that distance and with his thin build and light clothing. You see him taking up slack and starting to squeeze the trigger - and a passerby is walking up behind him unaware of the situation. He/she can not see you or your gun or his gun, all he/she sees is two people facing each other. He/she is extremely close and anywhere that you shoot the psycho (that will stop him) will overpenetrate and you have one thousandth of a second to make a life or death decision.

That is one possibility - if we hired some good hollywood writers I bet they could come up with a lot better and more likely scenarios. Bottom line though is what do you do, do you shoot and kill him and the person behind him or do you hesitate and die?

Criminal/civil prosecution aren't factors in the decision because having legal problems is preferable to death, but if you shoot and if you survive what kind of legal problems will you have?
 
But that is an uncertainty. In the instant that you have to decide to pull the trigger or die, you can not know anything about that person.
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Good point. I stand corrected.

It would be in that kind of a situation when what kind of man a man is comes out. I remember this movie where someone pointed a gun at a politician, and the politician grabbed a child as a shield. Needless to say, his career was finished.

There are plenty of people who will do anything to stay alive. That includes killing innocents. There are documented instances of a man pushing women and children out of the way to get on to a lifeboat. There is a reason we feel that that is contemptable and a sleazy thing to do.

I can't say for 100% what I would do in the heat of the moment, but I would hope that I would take the bullet rather than kill an innocent, for both your examples. What is moral, that's hard to say, but I do know what the noble thing to do would be, and I hope I would do it.

If I had a family, other factors would come in to play, but I don't, so I can go ahead and play the lone knight.
 
If somebody were to shoot me accidentally while shooting at an attacker, I couldn't blame them for it. If it was an unprovoked attack, as far as I'm concerned, it's the attacker's fault, because I wouldn't have been shot if it weren't for him.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't have a really hard time shooting if I knew I would also hit an innocent bystander.

I wonder about the assertion in an earlier post- that the bad guy would be charged with killing the innocent bystander. I remember in a class taught by a lawyer- we had the scenario put before us that a bad guy shoots and hits his accomplice rather than the intended victim- the bad guy gets murder, even though he says it was a mistake because he still had the intent to kill somebody.

Maybe one of you lawyer types can chime in on this one. Should the bad guy in butch50's scenario be convicted of murder for the death of the innocent bystander?
 
Give the parameters, that I KNEW I'd kill a bystander...no I wouldn't take the shot. Better to let the BG go and hope to catch up with him later than knowingly kill an innocent. I KNOW that I'm no big loss to society in general but do not know one way or the other about the innocent.
 
California's murder law is such that accomplices involved in a robbery where one of the perps is plugged by a defender can be charged with murder of their fellow perp.

Not sure how it goes in other states, though.
 
Awful lot of debate over a simple question. If someone is trying to kill me, I will kill them first. If it turns out after the fact that my bullet passed through my intended killer and wounded/killed someone else, I'll deal with that in court.

WHERE I WOULD BE ALIVE!

Sheesh. So, some people would think it would be better to let psycho kill me, and then go on to kill more innocent people, rather than to risk hurting or accidently killing a bystander?

My life is more important to me than anyone else's. Maybe that makes me a bad person, I dunno.
 
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