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25th November 2012, 07:19 PM | #241 |
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In Maine, manslaughter, then acquittal.
http://www.people.com/people/archive...113512,00.html Edited to add, I don't think it would really matter what the hunter thought it was. |
11th April 2014, 09:03 AM | #242 |
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This is the most recent thought I had on this topic.
If you were a Bigfooter, who claimed they were going to shoot a Bigfoot if they saw one, and a reasonable person (not a Bigfooter or a UFO Kidnapping victim, but a reasonable person like you or me.) would think that there is a good possibility that it could be a person in a suit and not a Giant Hairy Wood Ape, then you would be held accountable in a court of law for shooting that person. There would be no easy defense. Obviously the shooter would say to the responding officers "I thought it was a Bigfoot" admitting to the crime. The only defense available would be: Insanity- Where the subject was so into the Bigfoot game, that he truly thought that Bigfoot was real, and was delusional about providing a specimen to science. Self-Defense- He would need to show he thought his life was in danger, in which case, a shot in the side, or a shot in the back of the victim would negate that defense. If the shot was from 100 yards, or 50 yards, or 25 yards, would that be too far away to think your life was in danger? |
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12th April 2014, 02:01 AM | #243 |
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I'm going to take a little bit different approach here:
For someone to shoot a guy in a bigfoot suit, you would have to believe the shooter actually thought it was a bigfoot, or else why would he take the shot? To kill something he knew was a human for sport? If you could (a) rule out that the shooter knew there was a guy in a suit in the area, (b) show that he considered the existence of bigfoot to be real, and (c) demonstrate the shooter didn't have a significant history of similar negligent actions, and otherwise appeared responsible, I think criminally negligent homicide/involuntary manslaughter would be the obvious charge if I were working the case. And, depending in where you're at in the country, I think a good defense attorney could get that reduced to a lesser charge, since a jury would likely buy that the guy in the suit shared some amount of the responsibility for what happened. Where I live, going out in the woods in a fur suit would be considered a very stupid and dangerous thing to do by almost everyone. This is all just a guess though, since unique circumstances would dictate a lot of things. For instance, if the guy who got shot was a known hoaxer who had endangered himself before, or if the shooter had previously killed a guy in a chupacabra suit, it would change things. |
12th April 2014, 08:23 PM | #244 |
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Or the guy could claim he just thought it was a bear and avoid all of that....especially if the guy in the suit had a history of mental instability and I'm assuming that would be the case.
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13th April 2014, 05:31 AM | #245 |
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If we are talking about a jury of average citizens I am not sure that they would need to even use a defense like this. There are people openly "hunting" for Bigfoot on cable-TV and I don't think that those watching are in the belief that the people seriously searching are insane, wrong perhaps, but not crazy. There is just too much cultural awareness of this legend, going back generations, for it to be insane for someone to try to prove it.
Edit: didn't read Jodie's post right above, beaten to the punch! Maybe a better defense would be the hunter might claim he was afraid whatever it was, was an aggressive hungry bear, so he was concerned for his saftey? |
13th April 2014, 06:11 PM | #246 |
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13th April 2014, 06:36 PM | #247 |
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You can't shoot at mythical beasts when you are in no danger and kill people "accidentally". It amounts to reckless endangerment or negligent homicide depending on whether you killed them or not.
It is irrelevant whether it is bigfoot per se, but rather whether the person had reason to believe their life or property was in danger from the costumed actor. If the actor is just standing on the side of the road you can't kill him and say oh geez, I thought it was bigfoot. If it just smashed through your car window with his fist, then you can fire away in self-defense. It is irrelevant whether it is a bear, a bigfoot costume, or a guy in no costume at all. |
14th April 2014, 02:35 PM | #248 |
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Interesting question. I think it falls somewhere inside a continuum:
One extreme: Shooting some nut prancing around on all fours through the woods wearing an anatomically correct deer suit during hunting season; chances of getting off probably pretty good. Other extreme: Blasting away at a 6-year old trick-or-treater on Halloween who's walking up your driveway wearing a devil costume, under the assumption it was Satan his diabolical self coming to drag you off the Hell; chances of getting off probably close to nil. The various Bigfoot scenarios would probably fall somewhere between the two cases cited above. |
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14th April 2014, 03:17 PM | #249 |
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Late to the party here, but as it happens the question seems to have come up in New York at some time. No laws exist there, but there is a default whereby an animal not listed as being in season cannot be shot. As bigfoots are not listed as huntable, it would be presumably as illegal to shoot one as it would be to shoot a housecat.
e.t.a. in other words, hunting laws are generally "permissive" in the legal sense that they allow only what is explicitly permitted and disallow all else. As to how this would impact the shooting of a person in a bigfoot suit, I don't know, but here in the Northeast it's an old presumption that you'll be hit harder for violating game laws than simply for shooting a person. When a Maine hunter shot a housewife hanging laundry wearing white mittens, he was acquitted for having thought she was a deer. He might not have been so lucky if he'd been hunting illegally. If you're going to have fun hoaxing crypto-suckers in Vermont or New York, you should wear a Champ suit instead. Champ is a protected species. |
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14th April 2014, 07:33 PM | #250 |
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15th April 2014, 07:29 PM | #251 |
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Moličre) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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18th April 2014, 02:45 PM | #252 | |||
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Orangutan Shot After Being Mistaken As Bigfoot In Sumatra
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18th April 2014, 07:02 PM | #253 |
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Somebody needs to tell the shooter that Orang Pendek doesn't exist if he hasn't already been told.
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Bigfoot believers and Bigfoot skeptics are both plumb crazy. Each spends more than one minute per year thinking about Bigfoot. |
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19th April 2014, 10:38 AM | #254 |
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Dubious. There isn't a name of the shooter or any statement from him. I can dub this over and say he was shot after a husband found him on top of his wife. It would have the same credibility. I don't find anything of substance on this "news" agency. Why does it have that computer generated voice sound?
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19th April 2014, 11:30 AM | #255 |
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More likely shot by a poacher: http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ry?id=23378533
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04...n_5167933.html |
20th April 2014, 01:39 PM | #256 |
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Not only more believable, but it alludes to Indonesian news sources fielding the story locally first, so anyone handy with Indonesian can see what these original source materials are saying. They cite an Orangutan society anyone can check sourcing on to see the primary threats are poaching and habitat loss.
Funny the Orangutan society forgot to leave out all the deaths from "mistaken for bigfoot or loch ness monster" |
23rd April 2014, 04:04 AM | #257 |
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23rd April 2014, 06:31 PM | #258 |
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23rd April 2014, 06:47 PM | #259 |
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25th April 2014, 06:02 AM | #260 |
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27th April 2014, 11:12 AM | #261 |
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I don't think that's true. I think a court would likely find that any person who sees a creature and is culturally aware enough to think that it "looks like a bigfoot" could also reasonably be expected to be culturally aware enough of the practically 100% chance that it's a person in a suit to constitute depraved indifference if they actually shot at it. |
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27th April 2014, 12:29 PM | #262 |
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I'm not saying you're wrong, but you seem to think juries are very rational.
I just randomly googled a survey about bigfoot belief in the US. 67% according to this poll are at least open to the possibility. Will post link after this post, it's my 15th. Sad, but probably true enough to make the point that if a jury is a decent cross section of society, they could well sympathize with a bf shooter. |
27th April 2014, 12:31 PM | #263 |
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Wait for it.....
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27th April 2014, 12:32 PM | #264 |
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27th April 2014, 08:20 PM | #265 |
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27th April 2014, 10:02 PM | #266 |
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But being open to the possibility is not irrational because most have not spent any time thinking about it seriously. They've heard of it, and that's about all.
If a jury had to rule on the existence of bigfoot, that would put the skeptics in command! Rules of evidence. Penalties for perjury, etc. Try rolling in the sacred Patterson-Gimlin film in court. You could subpoena DeAtley and the suit. Exercise a search warrant for it. But this will never be a question in a court.
Quote:
If it is a prankster standing on the side of the road you can't shoot him. If he is a prankster breaking into your house you can shoot him. Take the suit off in both cases, and it still doesn't matter. Not much, anyway. |
28th April 2014, 08:19 AM | #267 |
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That's all well and good, but wouldn't this fictional jury also have to take into consideration that the shooter wasn't privy to all this evidence, subpoenaed PGF debunking, etc. before deciding to "collect a specimen" ?
I mean if it's so obvious that the thing doesn't exist, why would you have to prove to a jury in court that it doesn't? If they're already reasonable people, they should already know, that is, if that's the standard you're holding the shooter to. Can't have it both ways.
Quote:
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28th April 2014, 09:20 AM | #268 |
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The crime is not the suit. The crime is saying "I'm going to shoot the next Bigfoot I see, for scientific purposes." knowing full well that you've been warned that those apes are not wild creatures, but humans messing around with you.
It could also be shown by posting quotes from Bigfoot forums, that it is generally well accepted that a Bigfooter shooting a kid in a suit is not a criminal, and that the crime would be on the kid in the suit for being a dick. |
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28th April 2014, 12:23 PM | #269 |
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Since you've posed no situation, this can't be answered. The law requires a situation in which either torts or crimes arise, which has almost nothing to do with a suit.
Quote:
Quote:
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28th April 2014, 12:57 PM | #270 |
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This seems like a waste of time.
The scenario was adequately described in the OP, was it not? I also already fully agreed that the shooter would be entirely at fault under any scenario in which he wasn't defending his life. The only point I'm kicking around is whether it's so obvious that a jury would be likely to agree. If that's the only point of contention, I'm unsure what the rest of your post is even about. If I'm too obtuse to see the disconnect, please spell it out. I'm being perfectly sincere. |
28th April 2014, 01:12 PM | #271 |
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Correct. It takes only one person on the jury who kinda-sorta believes in bigfoot to hang the jury.
I wonder how the jurors would be selected? The prosecutor would reject anyone who believed in bigfoot and the defense would reject anyone who didn't believe in bigfoot. |
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28th April 2014, 03:20 PM | #272 |
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29th April 2014, 06:18 PM | #273 |
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Pot meet Kettle.
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29th April 2014, 07:30 PM | #274 |
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I think many people are confusing civil liability with criminal here. The criminal law is going to be pretty clear on what constitutes homicide. We don't know the jurisdiction here, but for most, I think criminal culpability for the homicide would be a tough case. It would have to be some form of negligent homicide, since without any additional facts there's no real demonstration of recklessness involved. On its face, it seems like a classic 'mistake of fact', but the complicating factor is the mythical aspect of the 'fact'.
I still think the shooter would either not get charged, or would get off either with a lesser charge or aquittal at trial. But it's pure speculation--we'd have to see it actually happen. A big civil suit would be most likely. I don't think the mistaken belief in bigfoot is as big a deal as some are making it out to here. For example, suppose I declared I was hunting for Megalodon, went out on a boat with a harpoon. Then, someone comes buy in a submarine disguised as megalodon. I harpoon the boat, and kill one of the occupants. Am i criminally responsible? I dont think so. |
29th April 2014, 07:55 PM | #275 |
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If you're within the jurisdiction of a state, I think it pretty likely that you will run afoul of the state's game laws even if homicide is sketchy. You can't just go out and hunt things unless state hunting and fishing laws provide a season for doing so. I have not researched this, but I doubt there are many if any states in the US where hunting laws are not "permissive," meaning in this case the opposite of the usual social meaning. A permissive law spells out what you are permitted to do. All else is presumed to be forbidden.
If you are hunting bigfoots illegally, there might be an added ground for homicide charges, because the offense of illegal hunting is an aggravating factor. |
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Moličre) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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29th April 2014, 09:36 PM | #276 |
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From a political standpoint, *maybe* --especially if the press was negative and got the community's ire up. But from a legal standpoint, not very likely. The only time it might add as a 'ground' for homicide charges is if it were defined as one of those felonies that constitute felony murder. I am pretty sure no jurisdiction has a law where illegal hunting is one of those felonies.
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29th April 2014, 10:42 PM | #277 |
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Replace the word bigfoot here, with ghost, or mermaid. It makes no difference, a mythological creature is still not in existence and therefore cannot be killed. To fire upon what you think "might be a bigfoot" not only breaks hunting laws, it goes past "reasonable" thinking into the mentality that its ok to shoot at something you either don't know what it is, or something you know to be a human in a suit. Otherwise, you're just making crap up to suit your own belief system. A judge and jury may have sympathy for your stupidity, but I doubt it would change the outcome. "I thought I was shooting bigfoot" is not a good defense. I hope we never get to see that used in court...
The whole point to this discussion is to show how ridiculous it is for PhD types, bigfoot enthusiasts and the likes to be talking about specimen collection of something that clearly does not exist, and would certainly be endangering society as a whole to go out looking for an upright man/ape like looking creature in North America to shoot for specimen collection. How utterly irresponsible can you be bigfooters? This much? Lets hope it never comes to this. You already have certain groups (biptos group cough cough) that claim to have fired live rounds at claimed bigfoots. I'm sure you're aware of those incidents, and the time where apparently some humans that were likely fired upon and left in a hurry by that same group. (the group paid for the damage to their truck) This is a sick game, and it should be exposed before someone ends up hurt, or worse. |
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30th April 2014, 04:16 AM | #278 |
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Depends where you're at, and it's just like you spelled out.
In most states any animal that hasn't specifically been assigned hunting regulations is considered nongame, and is protected by law. In some states (Texas comes to mind) any animal not specifically protected by regulation can be killed at any time in any amount. There's no regulation specifically protecting bigfoot, so theoretically you can shoot one if you see one. In any case, a simple violation of shooting something out of season or killing a nongame critter usually amounts to a class c misdemeanor and (in my state) a $50 fine, plus court costs and in some cases, the value of the animal. |
30th April 2014, 07:49 AM | #279 |
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Would things change drastically if the victim was simply wearing dark clothing instead of a hairy costume?
"I thought he was a Bigfoot" would still apply, right? We actually expect that many "honest misidentifications" of Bigfoot are really of people just out for a walk in the woods and who are not trying to look like a Bigfoot. Does the shooter face bigger penalties because the hiking kid wasn't trying to look like Bigfoot as compared to the costumed kid who was trying that? |
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30th April 2014, 09:44 AM | #280 |
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A quick Google search comes back the results showing it's legal to kill one in Texas, but not California. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/0...in-California#
They are also protected in Skamania County Washington and was originally a felony but has since been reduced to a gross misdemeanor. http://www.bigfootencounters.com/art...-ordinance.htm |
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