Judge clears State: "no duty to protect general public"

[eye2i2hear]

Yeah, this sub-category ("Big Business") seemed apropos as the place for this:

Quote:Writes Andy Sirkis:

Quote:"The great state of California releases a violent criminal without following any of its own rules, and then the sicko brutally stabs a 15-year-old girl the next day. According to this article , the black-robed ruling party boss finds the government “not guilty” because, as he so aptly put it, the government has no duty to protect the public."

[right]---The LR Blog, Posted by Lew Rockwell, relayed by 3rdear[/right]
From the referenced article:

Quote:Judge clears state in parolee's attack on girl
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A San Francisco judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the state for a near-fatal stabbing by a parolee who was mistakenly released from San Quentin State Prison without supervision. ... In this case, Superior Court Judge Peter Busch said the state has no duty to protect the public from a newly freed parolee, even if the prison system violated its own rules on how and when high-security inmates should be paroled. ...

ScottThomas, 26, had been in and out of prison for a series of nonviolent crimes and parole violations for seven years and was finishing up a four-month stretch at San Quentin for violating parole conditions by traveling more than 50 miles from his home without permission and failing to report to his parole officer.
Mistakenly released

In what a state inspector's report later described as "a series of mistakes, oversights, and failures to follow (Corrections Department) policy," he was set free on a Friday evening, May 18, 2007, and was left at the San Rafael bus station. There, authorities say, he bought a ticket to San Francisco.

The next afternoon, 15-year-old Loren Schaller went to Creighton's American Bakery in the quiet Miraloma Park neighborhood and was getting ready to leave when a man, identified by authorities as Thomas, lunged at her with a hunting knife. He slashed her in the wrist, stabbed her in the neck, and cut her repeatedly until he was pulled away by Kermit Kubitz, a 60-year-old lawyer who was stabbed in the chest.

Loren has undergone multiple surgeries and has partially lost the use of her right arm, her family says. Kubitz has joined her in the lawsuit against the state. Thomas was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and was hospitalized but is due back in court this month. ...

[L]awyers from the attorney general's office argued [that] courts have held the state accountable for negligently releasing a prisoner only if authorities should have known that the prisoner posed a danger to a specific person - someone he had threatened, for example, or someone in whose house he was placed when released.

The victims in this case cannot claim "that they were a foreseeable or readily identifiable target of Mr. Thomas' threats," state lawyers said in court papers. [highlight=yellow]The state, they said, has "no duty to members of the general public" to protect them from a former prisoner.
Busch agreed in a ruling from the bench Tuesday[/highlight], saying prison officials had no reason to believe Thomas would attack these particular people.

The victims' lawyers plan to challenge his ruling in the First District Court of Appeal. Attorney Dennis Riordan noted that the same court overturned another Busch decision last year and ruled that prison guards can be held responsible for failing to protect an inmate from repeated attacks by a cellmate.

"If (the state) owes that duty to other criminals, it should certainly owe a similar duty to innocent members of the public," Riordan said.

[right]---[/right]

[Plume]

and marijuana is against the law, but drunken drivers and bar brawls are.......
and there's a war on drugs, but the Pharmaceutical/FDA empire enjoys all kinds of benefits even though it's products are routinely recalled and.....ignorance is protected by guns. and i'm talking about the kind of handicapped that keep caps very very handy . They'll put a cap in that ass. :tongue2:

[NonEntity]

This post ties in nicely with the debate over on LiMi regarding "authority." I would ask anyone reading this to consider the question of "authority" as it applies in this instance. Do you not find it to be a totally meaningless concept? The man needs taking out. What authority is there to do such a thing? There is none. Obviously the state does not have it, and the state will rail against vigilante justice should some responsible person take the effort of doing so himself. There is no "authority." "CHAOS!!!" some of you may proclaim. "We'll have chaos!" But what, I ask you is this story an example of if not the very form of chaos you mean as a dangerous lack of any form of rational behavior. We HAVE chaos. Chaos is what results from no one taking responsiblity. There are only individuals. Society is not an entity, it is an aggregation of individuals. There is no one to be authorized, for there's "no one here but us chickens." Get over it. Put away your toys and fantasies.

- NonE

eye2i2hear Wrote:Yeah, this sub-category ("Big Business") seemed apropos as the place for this:

Quote:Writes Andy Sirkis:

Quote:"The great state of California releases a violent criminal without following any of its own rules, and then the sicko brutally stabs a 15-year-old girl the next day. According to this article , the black-robed ruling party boss finds the government “not guilty” because, as he so aptly put it, the government has no duty to protect the public."

[right]---The LR Blog, Posted by Lew Rockwell, relayed by 3rdear[/right]
From the referenced article:

Quote:Judge clears state in parolee's attack on girl
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, February 15, 2009
A San Francisco judge has dismissed a lawsuit against the state for a near-fatal stabbing by a parolee who was mistakenly released from San Quentin State Prison without supervision. ... In this case, Superior Court Judge Peter Busch said the state has no duty to protect the public from a newly freed parolee, even if the prison system violated its own rules on how and when high-security inmates should be paroled. ...

ScottThomas, 26, had been in and out of prison for a series of nonviolent crimes and parole violations for seven years and was finishing up a four-month stretch at San Quentin for violating parole conditions by traveling more than 50 miles from his home without permission and failing to report to his parole officer.
Mistakenly released

In what a state inspector's report later described as "a series of mistakes, oversights, and failures to follow (Corrections Department) policy," he was set free on a Friday evening, May 18, 2007, and was left at the San Rafael bus station. There, authorities say, he bought a ticket to San Francisco.

The next afternoon, 15-year-old Loren Schaller went to Creighton's American Bakery in the quiet Miraloma Park neighborhood and was getting ready to leave when a man, identified by authorities as Thomas, lunged at her with a hunting knife. He slashed her in the wrist, stabbed her in the neck, and cut her repeatedly until he was pulled away by Kermit Kubitz, a 60-year-old lawyer who was stabbed in the chest.

Loren has undergone multiple surgeries and has partially lost the use of her right arm, her family says. Kubitz has joined her in the lawsuit against the state. Thomas was found mentally incompetent to stand trial and was hospitalized but is due back in court this month. ...

[L]awyers from the attorney general's office argued [that] courts have held the state accountable for negligently releasing a prisoner only if authorities should have known that the prisoner posed a danger to a specific person - someone he had threatened, for example, or someone in whose house he was placed when released.

The victims in this case cannot claim "that they were a foreseeable or readily identifiable target of Mr. Thomas' threats," state lawyers said in court papers. [highlight=yellow]The state, they said, has "no duty to members of the general public" to protect them from a former prisoner.
Busch agreed in a ruling from the bench Tuesday[/highlight], saying prison officials had no reason to believe Thomas would attack these particular people.

The victims' lawyers plan to challenge his ruling in the First District Court of Appeal. Attorney Dennis Riordan noted that the same court overturned another Busch decision last year and ruled that prison guards can be held responsible for failing to protect an inmate from repeated attacks by a cellmate.

"If (the state) owes that duty to other criminals, it should certainly owe a similar duty to innocent members of the public," Riordan said.

[right]---[/right]

[Marc Stevens]

There's only a duty to protect when in custody. Big surprise.

These cases could make front page news everyday, could be the topic on every talk radio show and not a damn thing would change for the better.

We need more regulation, this is Reagan's fault!

No, we need a bailout, the police don't have enough money!

Those attorneys need better schooling, the system has failed them!

Oi vey, I'm going to the gym.

[3rdear]

NonEntity Wrote:This post ties in nicely with the debate over on LiMi regarding "authority." I would ask anyone reading this to consider the question of "authority" as it applies in this instance. Do you not find it to be a totally meaningless concept? The man needs taking out. What authority is there to do such a thing? There is none. Obviously the state does not have it, and the state will rail against vigilante justice should some responsible person take the effort of doing so himself. There is no "authority." "CHAOS!!!" some of you may proclaim. "We'll have chaos!" But what, I ask you is this story an example of if not the very form of chaos you mean as a dangerous lack of any form of rational behavior. We HAVE chaos. Chaos is what results from no one taking responsiblity. There are only individuals. Society is not an entity, it is an aggregation of individuals. There is no one to be authorized, for there's "no one here but us chickens." Get over it. Put away your toys and fantasies.

One thing is certain. These people certainly ain't no "subject matter experts". :biggrinblue: