When should a crime be considered murder?

[NekomimiKirino]

I had an interesting debate with my security team today. I was arguing that a suspect could not have committed murder because the victim was successfully defibrillated after entering total cardiac arrest. So, here's my issue. It doesn't make any sense that you can defibrillate a victim and then still charge a suspect with murder. The point at which a person -should- be considered dead is when defibrillation is no longer possible. Therefore, it should not be murder if a suspect's cardiac function is restarted. I know that this is a game and that's part of the reason why I would choose to charge a suspect with the lesser crime. I don't enjoy ruining someone else's round.

 

In the aforementioned case, a clown was being a shitter to the bartender and the bartender beat the clown into hardcrit. The clown succumbed and was successfully defibbed within minutes. Why was the bartender then charged with murder/manslaughter and permabrigged? For starters, it was a crime of passion and it should have been treated as manslaughter. Even more importantly, the clown's round was barely affected at all by the bartender. It is my opinion that if a victim is successfully defibbed, then the charge should be aggravated assault or attempted murder. Let me know your thoughts on this.

[ThatOneBloke]

I was actually there for that. And here's the thing: The bartender had MANY options to deal with the clown non-lethally. He could have used his shotgun, and threw him out, or called security. He could have done both of those things, in fact. But instead, he chose to beat said clown over and over again with a guitar, which led to the clown flat-lining, or "dying," if the health indicator is to be believed. I think attempted murder was the minimum, as the clown did actually go past crit, and died, due to the bartender actively beating him while he was down.

I do agree though that it sucks for the bartender, who basically spent the rest of the round shouting at sec to get a trial in perma. (No trial was given, due to the fact that I would have been the one to preside over it, leading to him being sentenced to permabrig no matter what.)

[NekomimiKirino]

I honestly disagree with the health indicator. I personally believe that it should say that someone has entered full cardiac arrest, rather than that person being dead. The reason for this is that defibrillators are used to restart the heart after it stops beating. It doesn't make sense for a person to be considered dead if a defibrillator is still capable of reviving them.

 

Some of you might argue, "Well, it's a game. You can't apply real life circumstances to a game." You are absolutely right. However; It's because it's a game that I feel so strongly about this. I hate taking someone out of the round permanently and that's exactly what perma-brigging entails. As a security player, your job is not solely to catch criminals. You are the cops to the robbers. Without robbers, the cops would have nothing to do for most of the round and nobody wins in that scenario. In a way, we make the game more fun for players that commit crimes. To that extent, I feel like there should be more leniency when it comes to crimes that take another player out of the round. (And I say this as a player that plays security semi-regularly) I'll expand on this further after I've had some sleep.

[necaladun]

NT defines it as when a medhud registers them as dead. This is for insurance reasons.

[Spacemanspark]

If they die and get revived, it's still murder. At the very least, attempted murder.