Herald Sun reader comments on death of James Gould

Ben Thomas Wrote:

It's only 7:25 and I'm already outraged! How can they NOT charge him
with something along the lines of manslaughter due to his conduct
resulting in the death of another human being?

The police can only charge him with a penalty notice for allegedly
failing to obey a traffic light, as he was cycling and not driving a
motor vehicle.

I'll agree this is not a level playing field so to speak. There's
obviously a legal "disconnect" between bicycle as legally a road
vehicle (AustRoads 1999) and bicycle as a legally *equally* road
vehicle to motorised vehicles. The law can be a arse some times.


--
cfsmtb

Ben Thomas wrote:

It's only 7:25 and I'm already outraged! How can they NOT charge him
with something along the lines of manslaughter due to his conduct
resulting in the death of another human being?

lol, because they don't charge motorists with anything much as well and
even motorists get convicted, they get as wrist slap fine.

In aus.bicycle on Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:25:06 GMT
Ben Thomas wrote:

It's only 7:25 and I'm already outraged! How can they NOT charge him
with something along the lines of manslaughter due to his conduct
resulting in the death of another human being?

What's the legal definition of manslaughter? I've no idea.

Do you know? Can you quote it?

Zebee

Zebee Johnstone wrote:
In aus.bicycle on Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:25:06 GMT
Ben Thomas wrote:
It's only 7:25 and I'm already outraged! How can they NOT charge him
with something along the lines of manslaughter due to his conduct
resulting in the death of another human being?

What's the legal definition of manslaughter? I've no idea.

Do you know? Can you quote it?

Zebee

I have no idea. It seems rather absurd that you can only "get in
trouble" for killing someone under very specific circumstances.

Ben

In aus.bicycle on Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:55:02 GMT
Ben Thomas wrote:
Zebee Johnstone wrote:
What's the legal definition of manslaughter? I've no idea.

Do you know? Can you quote it?

I have no idea. It seems rather absurd that you can only "get in
trouble" for killing someone under very specific circumstances.

Well, it's about intent.

if I am up a ladder, and the ladder breaks, I fall and hit someone who
has a heart attack, am I a murderer?

I am if I deliberately jumped off the ladder aiming to hit that
person. I probably am if I did it aiming to hit someone. I
definitely am if death was the intent, it's harder to say I am if
frightening them was my intent. I might be guilty of negligence or
manslaughter if I was a professional user of a ladder who is expected
to follow safety regs, I might not be if I was someone who had just
bought a 2nd hand ladder and knew nothing about them. And then
there's the problem that maybe the bod was taking a shortcut on
private land and I had no expectation of someone being there. Not to
mention the timing issue - falling off a ladder's not illegal, the
only reason there's a problem is one of timing.

Many hundreds of years of law have explored the full range of
possibilities and tried to deal with complex and difficult situations.


Zebee