News crew helicopter crash a couple of weeks ago?
I have a question about the terrible helicopter crash that killed four crew members. Last I heard, the man who was involved in the car chase on land was being charged for the crew member's death. How is this possible? Am I understanding this correctly? Are you telling me that if I was in a car accident on the side of the road, and for the sake of argument, let's say I was at fault. Now we all know that people 'rubber neck' at accidents. If someone was rubbernecking and caused a fatal accident because they weren't paying attention...I would be charged for the death? If so, how? Someone please straighten me out. I'm confused.
Answers:
I think this is just grandstanding on the part of the district attorney. In order to be liable for murder, his actions must be the "proximate cause" of the death. That means that the manner of the death must have been reasonably foreseeable to him. When you're in a car chase, it's probably reasonably foreseeable that someone else on the road will be injured, or maybe even someone in a law enforcement helicopter. But probably not that two news helicopters will crash and someone will die.
So while it's possible to make the claim he should be liable for murder (if he hadn't been in the chase, there would not have been a death), I don't think the prosecutor will be able to prove that he was the legal cause of the death.
I know it seems ridiculous, but that's pretty much the logic behind it. They say he caused the deaths, because they would not have occurred had he not run from the police. It is sad, but those pilots were responsible for their own safety. I find the argument that he should be charged in their deaths to be horrifying.
If the man had not been trying to elude the law, they wouldn't have been following it. Yes its very easy to tie it in.
The deaths were the side result of a crime being committed. If those two helicopters crashed because they were covering a story on a car accident caused by you, you would NOT be responsible - you were not committing a crime.
If deaths occur directly OR indirectly because you were committing a crime, you could be held liable.
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