a: In a drive-by shooting, the driver is often charged along with the shooter; even when the driver insists that he didn't know what was going to happen.
b: The defense attorney claimed that he made Stephen Heymann aware of the suicide risk early in the case.
If Heymann was aware of the risk and pushed ahead anyway, is he a contributor in the same sense that the driver of the car is a contributor? Why or why not?
Regarding your second point, are you suggesting the legal system should go easy on criminals who may be suicidal?
I just think it is foolish to start blaming every entity that could have contributed to his mental state. Hypothetically speaking, if he had recently broken up with someone or was fired from a job would we claim that they killed him? No, they would simply be catalysts that might have contributed to his ultimate decision.
Are you saying one should not sue, or at least weigh heavily, people's mental state prior to launching a lawsuit?
Is that current procedure, run mental evaluations before suing? Lots of people have mental breakdowns before and during trials. The trials proceed so long as people are 'mentally competent' to stand trial.
If something like this were allowed, people would pretty much abuse the system and claim mental anguish, etc. to avoid facing a trial.
Yes, and one of the ways we do so is by the defense filing a motion to argue that the defendant is unfit to stand trial for the time being. I haven't followed the motion work in the case, so I don't know if his defense team made any such claim. But it seems to be that quite a few people are trying to have it both ways - on the one hand he was too mentally fragile to be put on trial, on the other he wanted his day in court to argue for the right to download freely and so the plea bargain with the mild sentence (which would have been served in some sort of minimum security facility) was an unconscionable deal with the devil.
That is a good argument for why Heymann would not be a contributor. That is, Heymann has clean hands because the defense failed to make the court aware that Swartz was possibly unfit to stand trial. Thank you.
In extreme cases, yes. People are put on suicide watches, but the trials proceed. The bar for being considered 'insane' and 'mentally unfit' is very high. You have people who would colloquially be considered 'crazy' go to trial, represent themselves, etc.
I don't think so. It's a really tenous connection. It's like saying me getting on the freeway contributed to an accident which happens 10 minutes behind me. Sure, maybe if I had not gotten on the freeway that would have caused a different pattern of traffic on the freeway so that the accident would not have happened, but in no way would I be a direct contributor.
No it isn't. If anything it shows that he didn't want to endure his potential punishment. If he didn't understand the potential punishment there would be no need to commit suicide.
Your statement could be misinterpreted to mean that any rational competent defendant would consider the potential punishment worse than death.
I'm positive that you meant that he understood what 35 years in jail and a felony charge meant and was thus not unfit to stand trial under an insanity claim. That's fair.
b: The defense attorney claimed that he made Stephen Heymann aware of the suicide risk early in the case.
If Heymann was aware of the risk and pushed ahead anyway, is he a contributor in the same sense that the driver of the car is a contributor? Why or why not?