Should witnesses be held responsible when they do not assist in a crime?

Well, maybe. But then again, maybe not. The rapist, after all, was mentally ill, as the victim readily concedes -- it didn't seem to deter him that he was raping a woman in a public place with witnesses around, so I'm not sure that yelling at the guy would have done a whole lot of good.

Action tends to give rise to obligation, whereas inaction doesn't. That's true both in law and in morality. If, for instance, Abel, who sees Baker, a blind man, walk into the middle of a busy street, does nothing, he can't be blamed if Baker gets hit by a car. Abel, after all, wasn't responsible for Baker walking into the middle of traffic, so why should he be blamed when Baker gets run over? On the other hand, if Abel leads Baker into traffic, he can't very well abandon him in the middle of the street and escape responsibility if Baker gets hit. One who acts, therefore, must bear the consequences of his actions.

If the subway employee acts to stop the rape but is negligent in his attempt and fails, he could find himself both legally and morally responsible for the rape. Most people, given the choice of acting and possibly suffering adverse consequences as a result, or else not acting and avoiding any possible adverse results, would choose inaction. A rule that required action, therefore, would have the perverse effect of discouraging people from getting involved in the first place. Instead of calling the police, the rational bystander would run from the scene of any crime that he witnessed, in the hopes that he wouldn't be forced to act to his possible detriment. Better, then, to have a rule (legal or moral) that encourages people to act voluntarily rather than one that punishes those who don't.

Joe's reasoning parallels exactly that of the judge who threw out the woman's case, which alleged negligence and malfeasance on the part of the subway employees. Neither charge stuck. I'm wondering though how this insane rapist, who most probably has a record of some sort - at least matching the DNA left on this particular victim - can still be at large. Even with no DNA match, his exact description - and maybe even some videotape - is available; how many like him can be on the loose?

100's of thousands. the mental health system in the US is essentially non-existent.

Yeah - I think sometimes too, people freeze, not sure what to do. I think for me it was just instinctive. It probably was a good thing that I was so many floors up when I saw this beating, I am small as well - but I could just picture myself hitting this huge man while all these other "men" just walked on by.

I think I read some where if you are in a situation where you need help and there is a group around, they have this group mentality like they are not individually responsible so instead of yelling some one help me - you should look directly at an individual and say hey you buster (or how ever you single an individual out) and ask that person to help you. Now they are directly responsible.

I actually did this once in downtown. I was walking and this man with crutches was right next to me and was loosing his balance, he I am 105 pounds trying to hold him - and all these people just walking by - this one guy was walking by and I asked him directly to help and voila we were able to help this poor man out.

oops this is what I was referring to.

Remember the last Senfield episode? It was all about them not assisting in a crime. Instead they laughed at the man being robbed. In the end, the town had a new law where it was required to help out if some one is in need. Being selfish as our Senfield group is - they threw the book at them and the 4 ended up in jail.

In "common law" jurisdictions such as the United States, Great Britain and the British Commonwealth, there is no general duty to come to the rescue of another. However, contrary to common law, eight US states have laws requiring people to help strangers in peril: Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. These laws are also referred to as Good Samaritan laws, despite their difference from laws of the same name that protect individuals that try to help another person. These laws are rarely applied, and are generally ignored by citizens and lawmakers.

Unlike the United States, many European civil law systems provide a far more extensive duty to rescue. Any person above legal age, who sees another human being in peril, must take all reasonable steps to provide help. The only exclusion is that the person must not endanger her/his own life or that of others, while providing rescue.

In theory, this can mean that if a person finds someone in need of medical help, she/he must take all reasonable steps to seek medical care. Commonly the situation arises on an event of a traffic accident: other drivers and passers-by must take an action to help the injured without regard to possible personal reasons not to help (e.g. having no time, being in hurry) or ascertain that help has been requested from officials. In practice however, almost all cases of compulsory rescue simply require the rescuer to alert the relevant entity (police, fire brigade, ambulance) with a phone call.

France has a law that people can be prosecuted for "non-assistance à personne en danger" (deliberately failing to provide assistance to a person in danger), which can be punished by up to 5 years of jail time and a fine of up to €100,000. It is not used very often, mainly for the reasons outlined previously by other posters - it would be unfair and unrealistic to require people by law to put themselves in danger, but people are occasionally prosecuted.

The photographers at the scene of Princess Diana's fatal car accident were investigated for violation of the non-assistance law. In another case, which shocked the country, a woman fell in a river and drowned near a camp site and a number of the campers stood and taped her struggles with their camcorders. It was some while before anybody thought to use a mobile phone to call for help. When the police arrived they confiscated all the camcorders and played back the footage, and everybody who had filmed the scene was prosecuted. This met with widepsread public approval. She probably would have drowned anyway, and nobody was prosecuted for not jumping in the river.

If you are going to copy and paste from Wikipedia, then you should at least cite it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue

An accidental oversight. Thanks for alerting me. I meant to place a link at the bottom. The material from Wikipedia was edited somewhat and the part about the drowning incident was all mine.

You are somehat of an uptight person in my opinion.

Anyone seeing the posting in question have a good idea where it came from and if they wish to check placing a section of it into google search will give them the information.

We are not doing research papers here. The analogy would be people talking in a coffee shop or a bar.

When I found out that Kitty had been murdered,
and that no one responded to her screams, I felt emotionally bad.
I did not know about it until news of her murder was broadcast several hours later,
in the full light of day.

She was murdered about 2 miles from me.

At the time, I wished that I had been able to help her out and kill the murderer to save her.
At the time, I deemed her neighbors' failure to help to be despicable, but I 'd have to admit
that thay were within their legal and moral rights to do nothing.
We don 't owe each other anything.

Indeed, it is a fact that Good Samaritan peacemakers who have intervened
in predatory violence have been murdered a lot more than once.

Its very sad and unfortunate that she had chosen to obey the NY gun control law.
The penalty for obeying gun control laws is DEATH, in the discretion of a criminal predator.
I wish that she or SOMEONE, anyone, had shot the killer
who repeatedly stabbed her to death in multiple attacks, over half an hour.

Kitty 's case stands for the proposition that your neighbors may not come to your rescue in time of emergency.
The Reginald Denny case, in Los Angeles, stands for the proposition that the police will not save u either, unless u r lucky.



David

U DO understand that is a JOKE, right?
Its not a treatise on the legitimacy of criminal jurisdiction.

In my jurisdiction, NY, not even the police can be held liable (neither criminally nor tortiously)
for failure to intervene in an ongoing crime, and NOT EVEN
if thay promise the victim that thay WILL protect him or her and then default.





David

somehat of an asshat...

rtwat can i attribute replies

Remember the last Senfield episode? It was all about them not assisting in a crime. Instead they laughed at the man being robbed. In the end, the town had a new law where it was required to help out if some one is in need. Being selfish as our Senfield group is - they threw the book at them and the 4 ended up in jail.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I check that is just TV in the state where it was set to had happen the worst they could had gotten was a fine of around a thousand dollars or so.

You're just pissed that you didn't get away with passing off someone else's research and writing as your own. Get over it.

I don't like when people conveniently neglect to disclose that they are ripping off their text from elsewhere. If that makes me "uptight" that's fine with me.



Which is why it's all the more silly to rewrite only portions of it and pass it off as your own. At least do what the other Wikipedia plagiarists do and rewrite enough of it to make it hard to find.



And just like in bars there are those trying to pass off other people's words as their own. If we were in a bar and some idiot tried to pretend a famous poem is theirs, I'd point out their deception as well.

A person reading my post would know more about the subject which is the topic of this thread (remember that?) than they would from reading your last 2 posts, Robert. I reckon that on a strict utility ratio basis, I beat you by 2:1 therefore.

P.S. Asshat.

I bet you haven't got any front teeth left!

I think it must have been devastating to the woman that this happened to her and that the subway employees did not intervene or do anything else for her other than calling the authorities. However, I do not think this automatically means she should sue them or the NY MTA. Apparently the attacker was on the train with her and assaulted her physically on the train first. At that point she should have contacted the train operator (if she was able to) and requested assistance. I was assaulted once on a train. A man tried to fondle/paw me and people, although horrified, were frozen and terrified to intervene. I beat the **** out of him with my bag, punched him repeatedly in the face (granted he was drunk and fell over easily). I then went to the front of the train, told the operator to call the police, and they removed him at the next station. At first I was pissed that no-one came to my aid but I thought on it a bit and really why do I expect anyone to risk themselves to save or help me. I would be most appreciative of it, but could I really and truly expect it? There is a reason why, when people do intervene and act out of selflessness, they are called heros. It is not easy to be a hero and help someone, given the chance that it could mean danger for you. It would be silly to expect selfless heroism of everyone because we are all just not made that way.