Depraved Indifference

[cultcross]

Did the old lady have dementia or otherwise compromised judgement/memory? If not, well, that's on her. She was an adult that made her own decision. Hell, a coma isn't the worst way to go, so maybe that outcome was intentional.

If she was impaired, then yeah, it's on the nurse. OP and others covered that angle already. My point is that even people in retirement homes can (don't always, but can) still retain their own agency and that deserves consideration and respect.

This - there's an intervening act which breaks the chain of causation - the woman ate the sweets knowing what they were and the risks. So in addition to proving the act, and the fact that eating the sweets caused the death (90 year old people die, how can you demonstrate what she died of?) you'd have to prove lack of capacity in the woman to make the decision to eat sweets.

Even if you could prove all that, does smuggling in sweets fulfill "so blameworthy as to warrant the same criminal liability as that which the law imposes upon a person who intentionally causes a crime" and was "imminently dangerous and presented a very high risk of death"? There's a difference between "you shouldn't have sweets, you're diabetic" and "giving you this is tantamount to giving you cyanide". High blood sugar isn't automatically or even usually fatal. I'm far from convinced that the act would be criminal even if you were able to demonstrate what took place.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Um, no. The coworker was talking about what she herself did. She wasn't talking about what someone else did. If the coworker were to somehow testify in court about what she did, it wouldn't be hearsay. That doesn't mean it's true of course, but hearsay is something else.

I said hearsay only in the sense tha @Nakita Akita heard what her colleague said.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I think we're jumping to too many conclusions by instantly labeling her a murderer. One of the key details that is missing from the story before we can make further judgment is the mental capacity of the elderly woman. If she were suffering dementia or in a childlike state and did not know that eating sweets would be harming herself, then it was the responsibility of the nursing home staff to keep her safe by keeping such things away from her. In this situation, the woman was to blame and even if she didn't do it maliciously, she caused the woman's death. Murder is still too strong of a word though. In my opinion, murder implies intent to kill. If I believed that she intended to kill the elderly woman, then I would report it. If not, there is more gray area and I would have to weigh several factors before deciding whether to report it.

But, if the elderly woman had her full mental faculties, then eating the candy was HER decision. I don't see how the nurse can be to blame for her death just for buying the candy and bringing it to her. Unless the nurse was force-feeding it down the woman's throat, she wasn't making her eat it and did not kill her. The woman killed herself (whether intentionally or accidentally). I would not report it.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

An elderly woman once told me her husband had a stroke and she didn't bother calling the ambulance for over an hour, until her daughter called her and realizing what happened urged her to. She was hoping he died. Instead he ended up in a home, quite vegetative.

I wished I had not heard this information.

 

[Refuge]

what if you knew someone that told you that a long time ago, when they were young, they worked in a nursing home.
While they worked there, there was a lady that was maybe 90 or something.
The older Lady had diabetes and the person knew she had it.
The older Lady used to try to sneak candybars and stuff like that because she still wanted to eat a lot of sugar.
The younger person one day went and bought the older Lady a bunch of sweet snacks and gave them to her.
That night the older Lady ate the candy and went into a coma and died.
The people that worked there and maybe her family just figured that the older Lady snuck the stuff in herself.

I know this is probably depraved indifference resulting in death, but is there anything I could or should do?
I still see the killer on a daily basis and I think about it a lot.
I've entertained the thought that the bitch, I mean the killer may have been lying, but why would someone make up such a story?

I think the deal breaker here, the critical component, is supply. Those in a nursing home particularly with a medical condition have little control over their diet and meds. If she were a raging alcoholic and wanted a bottle of vodka it would be at the very least irresponsible to enable her. Giving a diabetic anything that messes with glucose insulin levels isn’t something that is a tad naughty it’s something the care giver has deliberately taken into her own hands.

I wonder to the motives here. Maybe the care giver was just stupid. Maybe there was more to it but she didn’t tell you anything more. My brother died from the results of diabetes. Officially his cause of death was heart failure. However people who knew him intimated he did not care to look after his health. It has left us troubled, well in despair. The elderly lady’s family assumed she snuck in the candy but surely they too would wonder how and if she maybe wanted to die. It’s hard to know.

I think it possibly is water under the bridge now. The elderly woman did in the end (in whatever mental capacity she was in) eat the sweets. Still I hope the person you know is no longer in a position to be a care giver.

 

[Nakita Akita]

I think, from the way the murderer woman told the story, that the older Lady didn't really understand why she wasn't supposed to have candy. Like diminished cops city due to age etc type of thing.
Anyway, I'm just going to let it pass and try not to think about it.
I guess I just think about it because my dad is a couple of months shy of being 90 years old and he said he doesn't want to go into a nursing home, and I don't want him to either.

 

[Refuge]

^ Yeah it's not a prospect I like to consider for a loved one. My Dad is in a veterans hospital and is pretty dependent. I rang him for his birthday and the nurse said he wouldn't know who I was.

Anyway, I think you don't need to burden yourself with the worry of this other situation.

 

[Velocity]

I'm diabetic, and family and friends often feel sorry for me because I have to avoid sweets. They offer me things that they know I like, even though they also know it's bad for me. Honestly, it isn't that I can't FIND sweets, that isn't the problem. It might just be that the person who gave the patient some sugary delights was just trying to make her happy. Maybe the patient was given a bag of candy and she ate it all at once. Who knows?

 

[TrickyDickie]

Law enforcement agencies claim to want the public's assistance, but they don't really make it clear with what.

I have brought several things to the attention of the FBI, state police, etc, and never even received a reply:

1) I reported a Craigslist ad in which someone advertised the desire to romantically meet someone who would enjoy killing cops. At least Craigslist no longer has personals....

2) I reported someone who was quite obviously stalking Lt Joe Kenda, of Homicide Hunter.

3) I was testing a metal detector in an open field behind a McDonald's, in Canastota, New York, and I found a personalized license plate from the state of Illinois that someone had buried. I contacted the Illinois State Police and they never replied.

 

[Nakita Akita]

Law enforcement agencies claim to want the public's assistance, but they don't really make it clear with what.

I have brought several things to the attention of the FBI, state police, etc, and never even received a reply:

1) I reported a Craigslist ad in which someone advertised the desire to romantically meet someone who would enjoy killing cops. At least Craigslist no longer has personals....

2) I reported someone who was quite obviously stalking Lt Joe Kenda, of Homicide Hunter.

3) I was testing a metal detector in an open field behind a McDonald's, in Canastota, New York, and I found a personalized license plate from the state of Illinois that someone had buried. I contacted the Illinois State Police and they never replied.

I totally understand.
I contacted ICE about a state university where I worked that had literally about 100 illegal aliens working there.
Crickets.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I totally understand.
I contacted ICE about a state university where I worked that had literally about 100 illegal aliens working there.
Crickets.

Wow.

Why would you do that?? That's truly terrible.

In fact if you think about their families it almost demonstrates depraved indifference.

 

[Nakita Akita]

Wow.

Why would you do that?? That's truly terrible.

In fact if you think about their families it almost demonstrates depraved indifference.

Because they were working there and they were not legally supposed to be in the country.
So they were criminals.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Because they were working there and they were not legally supposed to be in the country.
So they were criminals.

Unless you were the person who hired them in the first place, I don't see a likely scenario for how you could have known their status.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Law enforcement agencies claim to want the public's assistance, but they don't really make it clear with what.

I have brought several things to the attention of the FBI, state police, etc, and never even received a reply:

1) I reported a Craigslist ad in which someone advertised the desire to romantically meet someone who would enjoy killing cops. At least Craigslist no longer has personals....

2) I reported someone who was quite obviously stalking Lt Joe Kenda, of Homicide Hunter.

3) I was testing a metal detector in an open field behind a McDonald's, in Canastota, New York, and I found a personalized license plate from the state of Illinois that someone had buried. I contacted the Illinois State Police and they never replied.

I think that even if you don't hear back and nothing comes of it, it's still good to report suspicious things. In the short term these probably aren't things that they can do much about, but such things may help them build a larger case in the future. Someone could say "hey remember that call we got last year about a license plate?" and it could make a difference. I'm guessing that 99% of the suspicious things reported amount to nothing, but 1% can really make a difference.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Unless you were the person who hired them in the first place, I don't see a likely scenario for how you could have known their status.

Yes all 100..

And anyway, no, they are not criminals. Reporting people to ICE is a heinous act. People get deported, they get separated from their kids, they get thrown into detention centers.. there is NOTHING good about reporting people to ICE. It's a bad thing to do to another human being.

 

[Refuge]

Because they were working there and they were not legally supposed to be in the country.
So they were criminals.

Criminals should face the full extent of the law.

 

[Butters]

Did we learn nothing from TNG Season 1, Episode 8.

 

[Refuge]

Did we learn nothing from TNG Season 1, Episode 8.

Please explain the relevance???

 

[Butters]

Please explain the relevance???

There can be no justice where laws are absolute.

 

[Refuge]

There can be no justice where laws are absolute.

Laws are absolute.