Acquittal in Drunken Homicide via GTA

The Wisconsin State Journal has the news of an acquittal in a drunken homicide charge against a Madison-area 30 year old. The defendant admitted to being intoxicated before the crash that killed his passenger. The jury found him innocent after he presented his defense: the passenger caused the crash by forcing him to attempt a manuever they'd done in Grand Theft Auto. "In an emotional testimony on Thursday, DeMeo said that Alexander had put his hand on DeMeo's knee and made him push the accelerator down hard, then grabbed the emergency brake and sent the car into a skid. DeMeo said that Alexander was trying to perform a maneuver that both had done in a video game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, that they played regularly."

Comments

yep

[Anonymous Coward]

its the games fault, not the morons

Ive lost a little more faith

[Anonymous Coward]

I really hate to be cruel , but this is what natural selection is all about..

WTF?

[jericho4.0]

The prosecution said, and I assume no evidence was introduced to show otherwise, that there was no evidence that the EB had been pulled. Most strange, the passenger was found "moments later" with fatal head and heart injuries, with his hands in his pockets. The defence argues that he put them in his pockets to keep warm. Not likely. With a blood alcohol level of .16, if your passenger dies, your guilty of something.

Re:WTF?

[cptgrudge]

The problem I have with it is that it sets a precedent. It continues the push of not taking responsibility for one's own actions.

Is the "victim's" family going to be able to sue Rockstar for wrongful death? Assuming the company loses, it directly translates into a cost to society. Either the company lays off employees because they have to restructure, or the price of their games goes up, or their stock price falls. The destruction of personal responsibility is not good.

Re:Quick Summary

[FidelCatsro]

The charge should be based on the fact that he decided to pilot the vehical whilst intoxicated and in so doing so caused the death .
The defense to me really sounds rather implausable, I mean the passenger must of been half way laying across the middle of the car to do that , and this could have been checked with forensics .
Well i guess he is lucky i was not on the jury.

better than southpark :)

[arcanumas]

I think this puts the Chewbacca defense to shame.
Well done, reality!

Sick

[Mooga]

It's really sick that someone can use a video game in a defence and get off the hook. And this is coming for a gamer BTW.

What's next? A man open fires and claims that he does it in videogames all the time? If you don't know the difference between real life and a video game then you shouldn't by playing!

Re:Sick

[rockspider]

I'll just refer you to FM6's previous comment. "Before everybody sneers at contorted lawyers logic, note that "GTA confusion" was not the defense of the guy on trial. His defense was that his passenger interfered with his driving. Supposedly he did so while drunkenly imitating a GTA move, but his reasons for doing what he did was not relevent, since his guilt or innocence was not at issue." Try to cool it with the paranoia. This case isn't threatening the videogame / reality distinction.

Black Box

[purduephotog]

Pity there wasn't a black box installed in the vehicle that could tell
1) Speed
2) Pedal position
3) Brake position
4) Parking break
5) Steering wheel manuvers for 5 seconds.

Think how much easier this would be.