Quote:
Originally Posted by asaris
Smooth -- you're a little off. Since they got jail time, I'm guessing the charges were criminal, not civil, and what you're saying only applies to civil negligence. It's not really clear what the distinction between civil and criminal negligence is, only that criminal negligence is a much higher standard than civil negligence. The standard for civil negligence is, as you say, the "reasonably prudent person." But to be criminally negligent, your conduct has to be outrageous, beyond the bounds of decency . . . . Courts put it in different ways, but the idea is that you have to be really, really negligent. I don't know what the exact facts are in this case, so I'm not going to comment directly, but if the manager was actually criminally negligent, then he certainly deserves the jail time.
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Thanks for pointing that out, asaris.
I was incorrectly applying negligence under civil law to a criminal trial.
Is it true that criminal negligence would be defined by local or state statute?
It would be more appropriate to discuss general intent versus specific intent.
Some people in this thread are questioning whether this man will learn something while sitting in prison (specific deterrence).
But if we believe in general deterrence, then we would still want to put him in prison to teach
other people that behaving like he did will be punished.
That would be a cool poll, Halx, whether the people posting in here belive in specific or general intent. And then see if their reactions in the threads match what they chose.