Referee dies after being punched in head

[j1979]

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/f...084536011.html

This is a sad story. I really feel for the family of the ref. and hope that the kid gets a proper punishment.

[BobF64]

Its just a sign of the modern defective society, where everyone is being told they can do no wrong, and that everything they do is praiseworthy.

[najiro]

assault is assault whether one uses his bare fists or with a weapon. It is a criminal case... it should be...

[Mblaster]

A shame for everyone involved, the kid clearly was a bit of an idiot for hitting the ref in the face for giving him a yellow card, but he could never have predicted the outcome.

Also, Bobs post reminded me of this: http://www.explosm.net/comics/3004/

[BobF64]

Also, Bobs post reminded me of this: http://www.explosm.net/comics/3004/

Hehe.

Its the one good thing about those TV "talent" shows, not that I watch them but sometimes you cant help but see the good bits where some talentless tone deaf person is obviously awful yet everyone they know keeps telling them how good they are.

[watercooled]

It's way beyond being a bit of an idiot - that would be throwing a bit of a tantrum and arguing about it. You can't just go about thumping people when you don't get your own way, that sort of thing just doesn't belong in a civilised world.

His childish, selfish and unprovoked actions directly led to a man's death, so he should be tried for manslaughter at a minimum.

[wasabi]

Kid is aggressive idiot and deserves punishment. Feel terrible for ref's family. BUT - I am wary of this being treated the same way as murder, or even full-blown manslaughter. Hotheaded people punch people all the time - 9999 times out of 10000 the other person gets black eye or gets knocked out. While there was doubtless an intent to harm the ref, I don't think it is reasonable to think the kid had any remote intent to kill him.

Don't get me wrong, he deserves punishment somewhat above regular assault charges. But I don't think we should forget this has a certain element of freakish improbability about it too. As such it doesn't fit nice neat legal categories.

[watercooled]

That's precisely why I said manslaughter, not murder. If the killing was intentional, then the charge would be murder. The trial can decide the sentence based on circumstances etc.

If he'd given him a gentle shove and he fell and death was because of some rare condition, then maybe more leniency would be appropriate. However, any idiot should know a blow to the head risks brain damage or worse - there's no such thing as 'just unconsciousness if you punch correctly', there are plenty of people who've simply fell backwards after a shove, banged their head without losing conciousness but go on suffering frequent fits/seizures.

[Saracen]

Kid is aggressive idiot and deserves punishment. Feel terrible for ref's family. BUT - I am wary of this being treated the same way as murder, or even full-blown manslaughter. Hotheaded people punch people all the time - 9999 times out of 10000 the other person gets black eye or gets knocked out. While there was doubtless an intent to harm the ref, I don't think it is reasonable to think the kid had any remote intent to kill him.

Don't get me wrong, he deserves punishment somewhat above regular assault charges. But I don't think we should forget this has a certain element of freakish improbability about it too. As such it doesn't fit nice neat legal categories.

Watercooled is right .... the intent to kill or to cause serious injury would make any likely charge murder, at least under UK law, but if you assault someone and they die as a result, then in the absence of un6sual circumstances, the charge is very likely to be manslaughter, or the US equivalent.

It also does not take a genius to work out that a punch in the head could cause serious injuries, and that evenbif it doesn't, it could cause someone to fall down, at which point they can bang their head and the outcome us in the lap if the Gods at that point.

There's a stark lesson for anyone getting involved in punch-ups in that - if those Gods aren't smiling on you, that punch that knocks someone down could lead to you spending a significant number of years behind bars. It is entirely down to chance, once you've clobbered someone, unless you can swing a self-defence plea and that is not as easy as many people might think.

[wasabi]

Average Saturday night in your average town there are a load of drunken bustups because someone looked at somebody funny. What I see as a little odd is that the intent is roughly the same, but the verdict in terms of years behind bars varies massively depending on what amounts to luck (or bad luck).

[cookie365]

Watercooled is right .... the intent to kill or to cause serious injury would make any likely charge murder, at least under UK law, but if you assault someone and they die as a result, then in the absence of un6sual circumstances, the charge is very likely to be manslaughter, or the US equivalent.

It also does not take a genius to work out that a punch in the head could cause serious injuries, and that evenbif it doesn't, it could cause someone to fall down, at which point they can bang their head and the outcome us in the lap if the Gods at that point.

There's a stark lesson for anyone getting involved in punch-ups in that - if those Gods aren't smiling on you, that punch that knocks someone down could lead to you spending a significant number of years behind bars. It is entirely down to chance, once you've clobbered someone, unless you can swing a self-defence plea and that is not as easy as many people might think.

Agreed. There's an old saying in English law, not sure if it applies to US law too, that you take your victim as you find him. So it doesn't matter that the other 9999 out of 10000 people you could have punched wouldn't have died, the one you did, did. And you take responsibility accordingly.

[wasabi]

Agreed. There's an old saying in English law, not sure if it applies to US law too, that you take your victim as you find him. So it doesn't matter that the other 9999 out of 10000 people you could have punched wouldn't have died, the one you did, did. And you take responsibility accordingly.

Just because something is a law doesn't make it right.

[Saracen]

Just because something is a law doesn't make it right.

Perhaps not, but in this case, it is right.

First moral - don't go punching people. That is clearly not right.

Second moral - if someone dies because you punched them, then their death is due to the punch, and but for the punch, they'd be alive and with their family, not laying in a mortuary cooler somewhere.

Third moral - while you may not be able to predict death as a likely outcome, you certainly can predict that they are quite likely to fall down, and that the result becomes unpredictable at that point. Besides, when you punch someone, you do not know if they have a medical condition that could make being punched extremely dangerous.

So, if you ignore the fact that when you punch someone, you simply do not know how drastic the result might be, but you do it anyway, then you deserve the penalty, and very possibly a long spell behind bars, if someone dies because you didn't keep your fists to yourself.

And subject to whatever an autopsy may reveal, it currently appears that a man died, lost his life, and his loved ones will suffer all the pain of bereavement, because some stupid, ignorant young thug thumped him. Frankly, he deserves everything he gets. And I hope his brainless actions torment him for the rest of his life.

[apostolis]

really sad...

it'a pity acting like this while being called "humans"...