Space Law Wording Issues

[IK3I]

The assault line of laws in space law:

Spoiler

 

Battery:

To use minor physical force against someone without the apparent intent to seriously injure them.

Spoiler

The following are examples of Battery: multiple instances of Disarming (1-3 instances of Disarming do not even qualify for Battery. Doing so to steal items from someone should be considered Robbery) or throwing personnel on tables, non-lethal chokeholds, minor punching (one to three punches), smashing bottles on heads, as well as using Flashes,Taser/Disabler, or other non-lethal rounds for no legal reason.

Assault:

To use excessive physical force against someone without the apparent intent to kill them.

Spoiler

Depending on the amount and kind of force used, severe instances should be elevated to manslaughter or even murder.

Aggravated Assault:

To assault someone with enough force to cause severe bodily damage (severe external bleeding, severe limb damage, broken bones, internal bleeding, organ damage, disfigurement), but not resulting in their immediate death.

Spoiler

If the victim of aggravated assault eventually dies of their wounds, the crime should be deliberated between Manslaughter and Murder.

Manslaughter:

To assault someone with enough force as to cause their death, without apparent, premeditated intent to murder them.

Spoiler

Careful deliberation should be done when considering someone for this law. The divide between “intentional” and “accidental” can be very thin, and it is important to review all available evidence to come to an appropriate conclusion. Any effort to prevent the resuscitation or cloning of the victim raises this to Murder. If in doubt as to whether it was premeditated, it is to be assumed so and the Murder charge applied.

Personnel that fall under this law may not be executed, and must be kept in Permanent Imprisonment.

Murder:

To deliberately and maliciously cause the death of another crewmember, via direct or indirect means.

Spoiler

Careful deliberation should be done when considering someone for this law. The divide between “intentional” and “accidental” can be very thin, and it is important to review all available evidence to come to an appropriate conclusion. Any effort to prevent the resuscitation or cloning of the victim is to be considered proof of Murder.Unauthorised executions are classed as Murder.

 

There is a gap in the laws about negligence leading to someone's death. In a recent round, the HoS, following space law by the book, gave someone workplace hazard even though the ssupect believed they should have manslaughter charges brought against them, (they confessed).

The HoS was simply going by what the text states, but the end result regardless of intent was that a player was permanently removed from the round due to negligence from another player. No assault took place, they simply administered the wrong SE to a vox and gibbed them as a result of inexperience with genetics. The player wanted and expected to be charged with manslaughter as a result of what appeared to be guilt, but there is no provision regarding such an event.

[Tayswift]

Sounds like you're talking about involuntary manslaughter, which has different degrees of seriousness depending on the amount of negligence/recklessness. I guess maybe the victim could also sue for wrongful death.

Edit: I'm saying maybe involuntary manslaughter should be added as a crime to space law, maybe with a brig time varying from 5 to 15 minutes depending on the amount of negligence/recklessness

Edited December 21, 2017 by Tayswift
clarify

[IK3I]

you are indeed correct in terms of real world law, but sadly space law has no such provisions, hence the thread.

[Jountax]

Wouldn't such a law lead to half of medbay being brigged on any given round?

Hyperbole, but yeah, a lot of new players play medbay.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Jountax

[IK3I]

If someone dies of malpractice and can be revived, they simply need a competent doctor to fix them. If someone dies do to willful negligence and in such a way their round is ended as a result, that should warrant harsher punishment. The point is, if someone is trying to save a life, but then kills the patient in such a way that they themselves can not fix the damage done, they can and should be demoted, and charges pressed in accordance with the seriousness of their mistake.

 

In other words, if you don't feel confident about something, you should ask for help rather than take it upon yourself to try something you have no idea how to do. If you OD someone on epi for instance, that's worthy of demotion, and potentially some time in the brig for criminal negligence as you've just taken 10-15 minutes out of someone's round due to your mistake. If you gib someone that's already dead, that's a similar degree of negligence but depending on species, you may have removed them completely. When you permanently remove someone from the round, there should be consequences, not just a slap on the wrist. The CMO is there to make sure medicine is done right, failure to do that is what causes malpractice bay to run rampant.

Edited December 21, 2017 by IK3I

[FPK]

You could argue that manslaughter does cover this situation, but the use of the word "assault" instead of "harm" implies that manslaughter requires malicious intent. If manslaughter does hinge malicious intent, then the law is practically useless, given that determining intent is much more of a challenge than simply analyzing the physical actions committed.

 

Overall, this is dumb, throw the book down the chute in cases like this and just do what's fair. In this scenario, I would have demoted the geneticist, sentenced them to perma with parole available at 13:40, and had an IAA preform an investigation on the whole thing. 

[Shadeykins]

If you create a workplace hazard via your own negligence and it kills people, you are guilty of manslaughter.

* The scientist who deliberately doesn't launch their TTV and kills people in the surrounding maint area is guilty of manslaughter (though they're probably gibbed anyways).

* The engineer who decides it would be funny to hotwire the engine and leads to people dying from electric shocks is guilty of manslaughter.

* The miner who drills out the floor in the hallway and kills people is guilty of manslaughter.

* The security officer who directly beats the clown to death is guilty of murder.

* The guy who has a fight in the rage cage and beats the other guy into crit, at which point he bleeds out and dies, is guilty of manslaughter.

* The incompetent chemist who doesn't make any chems when medical is flat out of everything is guilty of absolutely nothing, and just deserves to be fired.

Basically anywhere you have someone's actions directly hurting/assaulting another individual and causes their death in a non-deliberate fashion can be charged with manslaughter. If it's indirect, it's not really manslaughter.

Involuntary manslaughter as noted above would lead to 40% of the medbay being brigged every other round.

Edited December 22, 2017 by Shadeykins