I still have value as a person

[diavolina_ivy]

In Boise, 4 men beat another so badly that he died two days after they jumped him. They are not being charged with murder. As of right now, they are not even in jail. They are being charged with aggravated battery because the man they jumped had a communicable disease and would have died anyway. The 4 men are wearing medical masks and under

Comments

[lurker2209]

I wonder, is this the sort of weird thing where the law actually specifies a different charge if the victim is sick, or if a cynical prosecutor just decided to only press the battery charges because he thought the Jury would acquit on the more serious charges. I mean, either way it says something horrible about society, but the first situation would be worse.

[diavolina_ivy]

That was my thought. It was getting late last night when I posted, but I am going to try to look up whether or not it is the law that specifies people who kill terminally ill people can not be charged with murder. What exactly would one try to Google, do you think?

[lurker2209]

I'm not sure. I think you'd probably have to look for a legal journal or court opinion and those are hard to understand. I googled a few news articles on the case, and it doesn't seem like everything is settled. It sounds like the coroner did the autopsy, but was doing a deeper investigation to determine cause of death--because of the disease and the beating. So it seems entirely possible that the DA is just waiting to get all of the medical evidence and then file additional charges for murder/manslaughter. The DA actually can't file charges for murder until he has a ruling from the coroner that the cause of death was injuries sustained from the beating.

It's really weird that the coroner finished the autopsy, but can't definitively state the cause of death. But maybe this particular disease is unusual in some way and they just want to be thorough. It might all just be a case of the wheels of justice moving slowly.