Is this a crime

[putowtin]

"it is common ground that under our law two persons can stand aside and watch a third jump to his death: there is no legal duty to rescue. Not all legal systems adopt that as their approach but for better or for worse that is the established position in English law"

that's the british legal standing, the only exceptions are
1: if you are a police officer, you are legally bound to help (even off duty)
2: the person is related to you in which case it can be seen as gross negligence manslaughter

but I know that in France and Germany it is an offence that can result (if charged and convicted) in a prison sentence.

 

[Blindswordmaster]

Choosing not to act isn't a crime. But it is a dick move.

 

[LeKiller]

I believe some countries have called the good simaritan law, if you see a crime or life threatening thing happening and you can do something about it, but you don't, then you're liable for that. Other then that it seems to be sort of 2nd degree murder since you clearly knew he would die, yet you did nothing about it.

 

[alittlepepper]

If you were aware of the situation you could at least be charged with manslaughter, provided it could be proven. So yes, it is a crime. You are required to act in some way, even if it's just calling emergency services to help. A failure to do so is gross negligence on your part, at least as the law sees it.
And frankly if I were a friend that you'd related that story to I'd kick you in the balls so hard you'd taste what you had for breakfast for leaving someone to die.

 

[notimeforlulz]

last sunday i was at a BBQ with some mates drinking and whatnot, and my brother presented us with this strange question

"if you happen across a stranger who is sinking in quicksand and you just leave him to die is that a crime"

we could not seem to decide if it was.

what do you guys think??

You're probably required by law to call emergency services. And you're not allowed to leave the scene till they arrive.

So whip out your phone and a beer, plus an armchair, and use all three.

 

[goldfalsebond]

what? of course not. Are people in a hostage situation criminals for not trying to stop the robbers/terrorists/douchebags?

 

[Jegsimmons]

your ass can be sued i know that. crime...no clue.

 

[The Lugz]

no, it is in no way a crime to watch someone die
heartless and cruel, but not a crime

suppose that person was dropped in quicksand by the Mafia or the illuminate and you rescued them and got on the front of a newspaper

what now.

i realize we are not writing a crime novel, but honestly you can never judge a specific action, as an absolute or in pure terms without contrast of all of it's component interactions
and by that in this case i mean
personal risk(s)
or
endangering others
( even the person you are rescuing, by playing an inept hero )
i could imagine families suing you for breaking Timmy's leg by tugging him out of a pile of rubble, or a crashed car ( real example, hundreds of people are now paralysed or suffer secondary injuries because of inept first aid, and rendered 'help' ) and fair play to them you should not be meddling in something that is not complicity your business as it's entirely possible a rescue service could do a better job, especially if someone is injured


personally, i'd just go call the police and let god sort them out, if you believe in those things

#edit#
oh, right quicksand.. yah if i had a stick handy i'd help them out of-course but if not then the same answer applies

 

[zehydra]

No, but it would be a questionable thing to do.

A governing body should NEVER make laws prohibiting inaction, because responsibility of action lies upon the actor. A person who does not commit an action cannot be held guilty of inaction.

Surely you just described negligence, which is not doing something, or inaction, that then leads to ill consequences. Which definitely should be illegal.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, you do have to phone emergency services. It's not exactly specifically written, but the law says something like performing an action that a reasonable person would. Which means at the minimum getting help. Which in this day and age with millions of mobile phones really shouldn't be hard.

As for actually helping the guy, that's up to you. It wouldn't be illegal not to rescue him, and you probably shouldn't. No point both of you dying. Leave it to the pro's.

Recently, here in Britain, a policeman was fired from his job for risking his life saving someone who was drowning. He saved the girl, and he was unhurt, but he was fired for endangering himself. He was sacked for being a hero, basically. So as far as Britain goes, I can say for certain that you wouldn't have to save him.

not doing something cannot lead to anything. Not taking action to prevent ill consequences as a crime, would put EVERYONE in prison.

 

[Thedayrecker]

Refer him to the last couple episodes of Seinfeld.

 

[Fleeker]

Parts of the US have a good Samaritan law which in this case would apply.

 

[Dogstile]

Depends, are there other people around?

This is exactly what I thought.

Can't charge you if nobody knows, plus the only witness is going to be unable to talk pretty soon ^_^

 

[renegade7]

Not necessarily, but someone could DEFINITELY make the case for it because your refusal to help directly resulted in the person's death.

 

[Zaik]

If an ambulance chaser catches you going the other way, you could be sued in civil court by family members.

I can't think of any criminal offense that requires you to assist someone in need, unless you are trained to perform something like CPR, First Aid, etc. If, to distort the example, you had an up to date certification to perform CPR and someone choked to death right in front of you and you did nothing, i do think that is a criminal offense, but most likely the only punishment is revoking your CPR certification. It's not like people go around asking about this stuff right after someone dies though, so you'd have to pretty much announce what you did to get in any real trouble.

 

[zehydra]

Not necessarily, but someone could DEFINITELY make the case for it because your refusal to help directly resulted in the person's death.

But that can't happen. Inaction cannot be responsible. Only if there is a sense that everyone is responsible for everyone else's survival could someone be responsible.

For instance, if you push a ball up an incline, you are responsible for the ball going up the incline, but if the ball simply falls down the incline, you are not responsible for it falling to the bottom because you didn't stop it.

The reason for this, is because responsibility comes from concrete actions or duties. Responsibility can't come from inaction, because the inaction is undefined. The person could have stopped the ball from his hand, could've hit the ball back up the slope, could've taken the ball and removed it from the scene. If a person can be responsible for what he doesn't do, then he can be responsible for as many crimes as is imaginable.

And that, is absurd.

 

[SamBargeron]

Legally, it is a crime if you do not report it to the proper authorities in a timely manner. However, we don't have much quicksand here in the united states so I think you can sleep easy tonight. Besides, who is going to report you for failure to report an incident? The quicksand guy? If he somehow survives and complains that he wants to file charges, the police probably won't know who to arrest.

 

[Mercsenary]

Thats what they got arrested for on seinfeld, "not helping" someone being mugged.
Some cops will arrest you for anything if theyre pissed.

?

If you can realistically save someone, its Negligent Homicide.

That is a crime.

It's not because "some cops will arrest you for anything if theyre[sic] pissed."

 

[Choppaduel]

well, if you don't know anything about quicksand you would have to endanger yourself to save him so no its not a crime

it does make you an asshole tho

 

[Naeo]

I really don't know. If you abstract it from quicksand by one step and say "if you come across someone who is in mortal peril and just ignore it and keep walking, is it a crime?" it becomes a bit easier. I have to be up front and say I don't know exactly how this would work out, legally. I imagine, though, if you had the means to help someone and did nothing--and they died as a result if your refusal to help them--it's possible you could be charged with manslaughter or maybe, depending on the jurisdiction, negligent homicide, but that one's very doubtful. Though I don't think, in general, you can be charged for that, as you could usually make some reasonable case for why you couldn't help them that could get you out of any charges in court. But then again, if you could have reasonably prevented the person's death and outright refused to, you could maybe be charged with manslaughter.

Again, that's just an educated guess of mine, since I've never heard this question brought up before, and while the morality of it is pretty obvious, the legality of it is a completely different question.

 

[Therumancer]

I think it depends heavily on what state your in, at least in the US.

While it's a bit differant, understand that related issues have been a big concern in the US for a long time. They most famous case of this kind of thing has to do with the Kitty Genovese case. In short she was stabbed to death while screaming for help while a lot of bystanders just ignored it and let it happen.

One of the big concerns in the US however is not so much apathy, as the wikipedia article reports, but a fear of of being punished for trying to help. The classic case of a victim sueing a paramedic, or someone intervening to protect someone else from an assault being themselves charged and convicted of assault and so on. This has lead to a lot of so called "Good Samaritan Laws" intended to protect people who choose to get involved base on intent, however they tend to be very touchy as they decay over time due to victims or villains sueing the rescuers and demanding exceptions, only to be re-affirmed when a major "Kitty" type incident takes place, and then begin a process of erosion again.

In the case of the guy "dying in quicksand" it's a little less straightforward, but the bottom line is that if you decide to get involved, there is always the chance that the guy is going to sue you. Let's say you throw the guy a rope, pull him out, but there are complications and he gets hurt while your tugging, at first he's thankful, but then six weeks later your facing his lawyer due to your incompetance in recueing him. I'm sure we've heard of stupid court cases right up there with that (Thief sues home owner he's robbing for unsafe stairway or so on). Likewise, just by calling someone you are taking a degree of responsibility, if the guy dies while waiting for the authorities, or he is injured, questions like "well, why couldn't you have called 5 seconds earlier" or whatever can come up. This is one of the big reasons why there are issues with Anonymous tips on things like 9/11. The people making the reports don't want to be on record and any way held accountable, and of course emergency services want people for the records. This in of itself has caused problems since many emergency services put the anonymous calls to the bottom of the list since they could be crank calls.

Of course the flip side to all of this ridiculousness is people's general tendency to abuse what freedom they happen to be given when it involves other people. The reason why such good samaritan laws tend to gradually erode after every big issue is because you wind up with jackoffs who decide to abuse them to take advantage/hurt/screw with people because they can, or just do stupid and careless things. You know, the guy who decides it would be fun to "accidently" throw a live electrical cable into the quick sand to pull the guy out and then say "ooops" later, or the guy who decides to sit there for 20 minutes and then call the authorities knowing it will probably be too late because he's a sadistic twit, or the guy who decides to intervene in an assault just so he can have the pleasure of getting a free hand with excessive force charges. Excessive force in the case of stopping an assault being a common one, and also what concerns people, and can vary with continuum of force state by state. For example if you see some guy raping a girl at knife point, you whip out a .45 and blow the dude's brains all over the wall, and it raises a lot of questions since the guy with the gun was not directly being threatened, and could have potentially run away to get help, or numerous other things. Not to mention the whole "side" issue of the victim claiming psycological trauma from not only being nearly raped, but also being splattered with brain chunks. In some states that might be fine, in others... well not so much. In general in self defense you can go one step higher than the person attacking you to protect yourself, the steps determined by the specific state policies and it can get complicated. Contrary to belief you don't have to use "equal force" in most places assuming you can't flee. However again, the whole issue is that in a good samaritan-type intervention the guy doing the intervening is not in any danger usually before they get involved and that can become a key point of law, especially in the more left wing states that really frown on personal empowerment/armament/etc...

I'm just explaning things as I understand/learned them, it's been a very long time since I took Criminal Justice and related classes though.

The overall point is that like many things in the USA at least, a lot of it depends on where you are. Concerns over liability are also a big part of this. In general one of the biggest reasons why people don't get involved is the fear that it will backfire on them. It's sad, but a lot of people aren't going to save another person if it means going to jail, getting sued, or other things, and that can be a very real fear. It's simply safer to not get involved, and honestly it can be argued that there is a differance between not being a hero, and being a totally detached bastard. It depends largely on the circumstances.