I read the first two posts and thought - wow, what a miscarriage of justice!!
Generally speaking, the laypublic have NO duty to render aid to an individual (unless a special relationship is attached) ,let alone to stop them from drunk driving
Heck, in most states a layperson (iow not a EMT etc.) has no duty if they come upon a man on the sidewalk bleeding out and asking for help EVEN TO CALL 911. They can simply ignore him, walk on, and there is no crime whatseover they can be charged with, Seinfled notwithstanding (in states that have misprision of a felony statutes, this MAY not be true, but it's true in every jurisdiction I've worked).
So people start whinging about this case being about persons charged with a crime without committing one.
The fact pattern presented in the article is sparse, and of course they offer no link to the ACTUAL CHARGING SHEET so I could review a source document vs. a media article (remember, article often get facts, even critical facts wrong, or leave out salient details. This is very true in case of legal issues coverage by lay media especially. If I want details and facts, I go to volokh or scotus blog or source documents, not "the blaze"
However, the fact pattern in the article is not consistent with what people are wanking about.
It's not about MERELY not stopping a person from drunk driving. An average person is under no duty to do so. although I've seen it happen in many cases in the field (I even had a case where a woman shot at her bf's car after he drove after when she said not to because he was drunk.. lol)
i had case where a person called wanting to report an :"assault" by another , that the person grabbed him, forced him to the ground, and took his car keys.
He had scrapes.
And most ignorati here would claim if you were the suspect in such an allegation, not to talk to the police
The guy did talk to us (the suspect) and he explained that the person appeared impaired by liquor and was about to drive off, that the suspect advised him not to do so, and when the "victim" refused and started towards his car, THAT is where the 'suspect" took action
BASED on his statements, the suspect was of course NOT charged, but basically given an attaboy for good citizenship and we told the guy if he got into his car (in the driver seat) with keys, we would arrest him
Man, was he pissed off Doing the right thing often pisses people off.
We couldn;'t tow his car because it was on private property and we had no jurisdiction to do so based on the fact he had not *yet* committed a crime with it. Instead, we found a responsible person who promised to hold on to his keys until tomorrow, and we offered the guy a ride home.
I should have offered him a scooby doo bandage for his ouchie, because he was such a crybaby and actually wanted a person arrested for stopping him from committing a crime and endangering hte public
That's not the fact pattern in this case, at least as reported by the blaze.
The allegation is that the two charged with reckless endangerment, FACILITATED her crime. They presumably (to be proved in court) knew she was jacked etc. AND they drove around with ehr as a passenger (not a crime), THEN left the car with her in it , presumably knowing she was then going to drive home. That's entirely different. I haven't read the reckless endangerment statute in that state , but what they did was NOT merely letting her drive drunk. That's a total misrepresentation. If she had been at a party and she said "i'm going to drive home" and she walked off, they would not have been charged and THAT would be an outrage if they were, since they had no legal burden to stop her.
In THIS case, not only did they know she was drunk (presumably) but they FACILITATED her to commit the crime by leaving her in the car. THe driver was in the car, in control of the car and he essentially turned control of the vehicle over to her.
Again, totally different set of facts.
I am not saying the charges are warranted, because I don't know enough facts, nor do I know the penal code in the state they were charged.
I DO know that given THAT fact pattern, that that is qualitatively different than merely allowing a drunk to drive off.
Show me a case where some doods were charged merely for knowing person X, a drunk. was about to drive and didn't stop her. Show me one.
THAT is not what happened here. The above happens all the frigging time and nobody is ever charged. I;ve seen scores of cases, up to an including fatality collisions where investigation revealed people knew the person was wasted off their gourd and knew she was about to drive away and did nothing to stop her. No charge
This case is demonstrably different. Try reading it again
As for the snarky comment about cops having no responsiblity to protect, but the teens do, it's again an ignorant misinterpretation of the scotus case. There are TONS of cases where cops knew a driver was impaired and let them drive off, the person gets in an accident and they get hammered.
I remembered (don;'t ask me how) Irwin v. Ware from way back to when I went to police academy in MA over 2 decades ago
http://masscases.com/cases/sjc/392/392mass745.html
In most jurisdictions, a cop is under no legal obligation to arrest and charge a person he believes to be dui. Some dept's may require it, considering it dereliction of duty not to do so, etc. but at least as far as the law is concerned, that is not automatically actionable.
However, that is different from knowing a person is impaired and LETTING them drive off, as in Ware. A police officer, UNLIKE a private citizen has an affirmative duty to stop a person he believes is driving drunk and to remove them from access to the vehicle they were driving (for example, by impound)
It's simply amazing and typical how many people here constantly trot out that scotus case w/o understanding it, or the affirmative duties an officer DOES have to follow.
IRWIN V WARE is the tip of the iceberg. Tons of similar cases, in states all over the union. Cops do NOT have the discretion to let a driver who they believe to be drunk, to drive off and continue drunk driving.
A layperson does NOT have th duty to stop a person in the act of drunk driving, or about to drunk drive, UNLIKE a cop
But that;'s not the issue in this case. The issue in this case was the person's FACILITATED the drunk to drive away by turning over control of a vehicle to her
Entirely different than what (most) people are wanking about.
Cops have a higher duty. A cop cannot legally allow a person they believe to be impaired, to drive off, and CERTAINLY not after they conduct a traffic stop and discover the driver was impaired.
A layperson does NOT have that duty. And certainly cops would also be liable for RE charges if they FACILITATED (as the juves allegedly did) a person to drive off drunk, like if they found the person's car keys in a parking lot, approachedd the person, recognized he was impaired and THEN turned over the keys. That would be analogous to what the two juves did here.
Imo, both under the law and under basic decency and morality, what these kids did was atrocious and assuming the fact pattern is accurate and the statute written appropriately, charges are warranted (as is civil liability)
In the case of the two juves here, there is a specific ACT they performed, that triggers legal liability.
Again, they would have no legal duty to stop a drunk driver walking towards their car, about to drive off, for example.
in a case like that, there would be no actus reus, no "bad act" to prosecute on their part
In THIS case, there IS an actus reus - turning control of the vehicle over TO the intoxicated person.
I agree with the people here who see this as an actionable bad act
