I posted this link before. There’s an argument that it’s a lack of proper training.
I’ve done studies about how much training you need in order to reasonably differentiate between the two. And it’s not a single time or two times of training; it’s multiple training sessions over a period of days. And it has to be done for however long you have your firearm, because every year the officers are training with firearms disproportionately to their Tasers. In my opinion, that’s been a very weak point in the training of Tasers nationally, because most departments will do a one-day training.
For Tasers, the manufacturer recommends a certain amount of minimal training, which means firing off two cartridges, which means squeezing the trigger twice. Plus sitting through some refresher classes and drills. But I’m gonna tell you how capture errors work: I guarantee you that most states require officers to go through yearly qualification for firearms, which generally run around 50 to 100 rounds a year. And they’re required to do other firearms training too, which means they’re probably drawing and squeezing their gun over a couple hundred times a year. So remember, it’s about differentiations and repetitions: If I’m doing my gun 200 times a year and I’m doing my Taser two times a year, are you improving or making it worse? The numbers tell us it’s making it worse. The most people likely to have capture errors are the ones who had the most disparity—so firearms instructors, SWAT guys, guys who practice a lot with their firearms.
Sometimes people will say, “How can a person mistake a Taser for a gun?” I’m telling you, it’s very easy to do under stress unless they’re trained not to do it. And so in absence of not training them not to do it, you’re creating an environment for it to happen unintentionally.
You’re right, it is the definition of depravity. But there is a fine distinction between what you said and what I said. Depravity isn’t not realizing you’re killing the person (that’s manslaughter). It’s realizing that you might be killing them and not giving a shit. The “indifference” part of depraved indifference. It’s why the classic example of depraved indifference is firing a shotgun into a crowd of people for kicks. You’re not intentionally trying to kill anyone, but you realize you absolutely could kill someone, and you just don’t give a shit.
Chauvin absolutely realized that he could kill Floyd, and at some point almost certainly realized that he was killing Floyd. I mean he sat on him past death. He just didn’t care.
OK but it’s you did know or a reasonable person ought to have known that you’re potentially killing someone, right? Like, if someone somehow thinks number four buckshot is just going to sting a little and lets loose into a crowd, they’re not going to get a pass just because they’re legitimately a moron, right?
So what I’m saying is that Chauvin knew that what he was doing was dangerous, but didn’t think that anything serious would happen. That this guy was a faker and a whiner and he was going to teach him a lesson. It’s dangerous, sure. But, come on, nothing is really going to happen to this guy. So if all that’s true, that’s still depraved heart murder, right?
As a practical real world matter or as a legal matter? As a legal matter most states have a standard that yes, you must be aware of the risk to rise to the level of depravity. That’s why it’s punished at the same level as murder. The mens rea is just as “evil” as an intentional murder. Not being aware of the risk would bump it down to some level of manslaughter.
As a practical matter ain’t nobody believing that you didn’t realize the risk of firing a shotgun into a crowd.
No, if all that was true it’s not depraved heart murder. Caveat: I am not an expert in the depraved murder statute for MN. I’m answering as if the crime occurred in NY.
That’s fine, because 95% of my legal knowledge is from Jack McCoy, who also practiced in New York.
Ignoring all other laws broken, if someone is waterboarding a guy, fully expecting the guy to be OK in the end and just wanting to extract some information via torture, would it be depraved heart murder if the guy drowns? I view what I wrote above about what Chauvin did to be equivalent to that.
I wonder if he continued past death because if he stopped earlier it would be a sort of an admission of the damage he was causing. He might have thought that to continue made it easier to claim that he was oblivious to the severity of what he had done.
I don’t see why you’re being quite so adamant about this.
My short time doing hazards analysis taught me this much: no procedural control and no amount of training can reduce the probability of human error to zero.
Exactly! I’m saying that Chauvin surely knew that kneeling on a prone, handcuffed suspect’s neck was dangerous and could cause death. The language of “disregard” is interesting. Because it could either mean, the person is knowingly running the risk of causing death and dgaf. OK, fine, clearly depraved indifference. Or, what if the person knows the behavior you’re engaged in is generally risky and could lead to death, but hell, I’m a professional, I can manage this, and I feel like choking this guy for a while. Come on, nothing is going to happen. That’s also consciously disregarding the risk!
