Suicide Ain't No Couple's Dance

[catelin]

The key concept to suicide is that you fucking kill YOURSELF. Why is it, then, that someone decides to take some other poor sap along for the ride? I personally have never understood the idea of wanting to make oneself dead. I've got too much of a survivor instinct. You're in a plane crash in the Andes with me, I will be using my pocket knife to make ass steaks. No doubt. But even assuming that there's a bona fide reason for shortening your stay on the planet, why include someone else in that? As usual, my question relates to a case I'm working on. Aside from being the vivacious bon vivant my friends all know and love, I'm an ATF-trained arson prosecutor. You'd never know by looking, eh? Oh, and I mean the training on how to investigate and prosecute arsons, not how to commit them. Just figured I'd make that clear, in light of that pesky ATF/Waco dealio. So I've got this case comes across my desk where one guy decides he's going to blow himself to bits. Efficient. I have no problem with that, as long as it's away from others. However, he decides to do it in his place of employment. Pulls out the gas stove from the wall, turns the radio on, and sits down for the long sleep. A neighbor boy, about 20, smells gas. He sees the guy and runs in to pull him out of the small building. Well, suicide king gets pissed and ends up igniting the gas...building goes boom. Boy of twenty now has burns over fifty percent of his body and may not live. Suicide king has burns, but of course, not nearly as serious as the poor kid who went in to save his sorry ass. The rub in all this is that 20-year-old good Samaritan's mother got to stand by the sidelines and watch her son's clothes burn onto his body. Right in front of her eyes. Man. No good deed goes unpunished. Sometimes it sure seems that way.

Comments

Re: Even Smartasses get eaten in the Andes

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

umm... what about the testimony of the mother that watched the kid go in? couldn't she testify to smelling the gas?

Re: Even Smartasses get eaten in the Andes

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Remember, though; we don't just have to prove something happened. We have to prove it was an intentional (or sometimes a knowing, reckless, or negligent--depending on the legal standard) act by the defendant. The only ones who saw exactly what went on inside were the boy who got burned and the defendant. Mom didn't even know he'd gone in until it was too late. Her smelling gas is a neutral fact...doesn't go to prove the guilt or innocence of the guy. Forensics aren't a substitute for eyewitnesses in most cases, but they're a darn good supplement.

Re: Even Smartasses get eaten in the Andes

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

Score some speed from one of your other defendents, shoot the poor kid in the hospital up enough to give a statement...

oh right, you don't live in a Tom Clancy novel.

Re: Even Smartasses get eaten in the Andes

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Heh! Dude, if it were a Tom Clancy novel, my office would be like the roach motel for defense attorneys...they check in, but they don't check out. ; )

Re: Even Smartasses get eaten in the Andes

[budhaboy.livejournal.com]

sure, and the kid would have been the guilty one, taking revenge on the other guy for in some way being responsible for his father's death in 'nam.