winston53660

Some people believe voodoo dolls can cause harm/death to people. Should the use of them be legally punishable if used in that manner?

__________________
http://winstoncreative.com/

Heracy

Yes.

Yes they should.

But not in that manner.

In this:



Dunk 'em in the mill pond!

Nail em up!

Burn em down!

Kandahar

I see a couple of distinctions here:

First of all, the belief that your actions could cause the person to die should not be sufficient IMO, unless that belief is REASONABLE. It's reasonable to expect that if you shoot someone or bomb their house, that they could die. It's not reasonable to expect that if you spit on someone you'll give them HIV (much less that they'll die). I think Winston's example of voodoo dolls illustrates this point quite well.

Second of all, there is the fact that HIV is not necessarily a death sentence like it used to be. There are people who have had HIV for years and are perfectly fine. Therefore even if he had injected the officer with a syringe full of HIV+ blood, that still isn't a "deadly weapon" IMO (although it's certainly much closer than saliva would be). Going back to my previous example: If you and I are riding the metro, and I cough on you because I have influenza and I want you to get it, is that "attempted murder"? If not, what death rate - over what time frame - is acceptable to qualify as attempted murder?

Finally, there's the fact that we don't know if he was actually trying to give the cop HIV, or if he was just being a dick and trying to scare the cop.

__________________
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
-Douglas Adams

RightinNYC

I'm not saying I necessarily think it's right one way or the other, but it's been held in many many cases that deliberately giving someone HIV is murder or attempted murder.

Exactly.

There was actually a case where exactly this happened. The court CAN convict in that situation, but they have the grounds to reduce or reject the penalty where the belief was so unreasonable that no person could believe it to be true.

Although it's a somewhat arbitrary line, courts have said that a belief that spit can cause HIV is "more reasonable" than the belief that voodoo can kill someone. Perhaps it's not a great dividing line, but there has to be one somewhere.

__________________
People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

talloulou

The guy is too disgusting for words but manner slaughter is a stretch. I'm sure they can drum up other charges to punish him for a decent amount of time since someone like that probably has tons of baggage. Assault on an officer ought to do it along with whatever else they were nailing him on. Most likely if he was dealing with a cop he was already in trouble.

rivrrat

First off, it's not impossible at all to transfer AIDS through saliva. It's just unlikely. It would require the infected person have blood in their saliva and the recipient of the saliva have an opening or inflamation that would allow the blood to enter their bloodstream.

Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? Not at ALL.

IMO, this ****er should have gotten whatever sentence is normal in that state for attempted murder.

__________________
Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

6FeetofSole

This is ridiculous. Par for course though.

talloulou

Nowhere does it say the guy was attempting to infect the officer. He was kicking and putting up a fight while being arrested. He also spit. He has HIV. Disgusting low life yes. Assault on an officer, of course. Attempted murder? No. It's very unlikely the officer held his mouth wide open and the man spit directly into it. Since it hit his eyes too you have to assume the guy basically spit in the officers face. Saying he used his saliva as a deadly weapon is a bit hysterical, in my opinion.

However I did find this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/us...rssnyt&emc=rss

which states the man has a history of biting too. So probably it is good that they got him off the street and the jury probably heard lots of evidence that painted him as a despicable character and someone who ought not be roaming free. I can see that. In general though I don't think a guy who spits on someone is attempting murder just because he's HIV+. Disgusting pig, yeah. Murderer, not so much. In this case, for this particular fellow, I don't have a problem with them locking him away for a long time. I just am uncomfortable with the precedent it sets and I can see this whole "spit is a deadly weapon" thing being abused and used against others in future cases involving HIV+ people.

Kandahar

There is ONE known case of this occurring, out of MILLIONS of people who are HIV+. Just like there is ONE known case of a virgin getting pregnant from semen in bathwater, or there is ONE known case of a human surviving rabies, or there is ONE known case of a guy falling out of an airplane and landing completely unharmed.

These cases are so bizarre and unusual that for all intents and purposes, it's fair to say that these things are impossible.

rivrrat

There's no way to say that it's only happened in one case. If someone gets HIV and had sex with someone who was infected, we just assume it was the sex. Doesn't mean it was. There's no way to determine how it was transferred.

Regardless, it's not impossible. It just requires specific circumstances. HIV is actually much harder to get than people think anyway.