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Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality?
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
I'm surprised that the USA does not already have a bill like this. In other countries (e.g. Germany) helping people in need is mandatory. You are also encouraged to give CPR and if you fail at it and make it worse you are not charged (otherwise people would be too scared of screwingn up and never administer CPR at all).
That you have to pass a law to get people to call 911 (never mind taking direct action such as interceding to stop the rape). I mean calling 911 takes what, holding down the 9 key on your phone (assuming you haven't changed the default speed dial that most phones come with), worst case you have to dial 3 digits, and say an address/quick description of what is going on, and they feel the need to codify this into law to get people to do it?
I think this is as good as any proof that society and culture (at least in California) is pretty damn broken.
No, Seinfeld was a _comedy_, making this thing called a _joke_, especially about New Yorkers and their cavalier attitudes about witnessing crime. Some of us are old enough to remember the Kitty Genovese case, before the Watchmen stories mentioned it. The ludicrous nature of the law was supposed to make it funny.
In real life, one compelling reason for Good Samaritan laws is so that skilled people such as doctors and police, when off-duty, get legal protection from civil suits for providing aid. They can point to the law and say "I was compelled to help" rather than face liability for volunteering, especially for medical staff who may be sued for malpractice and whose insurance companies may attempt to weasel out of liability for such "volunteer" work.
I'm glad to say I learned to help out in such situations a long time ago: it's not always been successful, but at least I can say "I tried". It seems to be common among freeware advocates that we help out strangers when we can: I just wish more of us were more practical about it. Writing a new GUI is good: investing in some tools and time and materials and working at "Bikes not Bombs" is even better.
Then take steps that will actually encourage people to be aware of the problem, like teaching them about the bystander effect. But punishing people who most likely didn't even know such a law exists does nothing but give us satisfaction with the thought that we wouldn't do that sort of thing, when of course, we likely would.
Does this mean that the victim of crime can be punished for failing to report it?
I always hated these, because to me it makes no sense to read but not do steps 1-4, and then to read and execute step 5 or 6. Therefore after reading them, you SHOULD go back and start executing the steps in order, 2-4 occur before they are negated, the 5 tells you to stop, and then you finish.
Of course, I get the point of the test. But it's like some guy on the internet playing teacher correcting your spelling while making god awful grammatical errors.
In conclusion, pedantic lessons suck.
You can get 15 minutes of fame, but you can go down in history for infamy.
This can easily be seen as a violation of the 5th amendment. This would force anyone who doesn't report a crime they might or might not have been involved in to face charges for not reporting the crime unless they report the crime and, in turn, incriminate themselves. IANYAL
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Interesting point, but the bill points out that this only applies to violent crimes. All of the examples you provided are not even crimes, and some of which are not crimes at all (depending on country and circumstances, of course). Given the example from the article, the girl was raped by 10 people while 20 or so watched. You mean to tell me that of those 20 or so people, nobody would notice with 1/3 of the crowd participating? The idea here is that if you see another human being in trouble, you must do what you can to help them (while maintaining your own safety, of course). I don't see anything wrong with that, since it helps promote public safety, giving people a moral obligation to assist those who are in trouble. How hard is it to dial 911 on your cell, or a payphone even, and report a crime, and give a location? I don't think it is too much to ask. There is a big difference between reporting a violent crime, and reporting misdemeanors such as speeding. This law only applies to reporting violent crimes, and I believe would be ultimately good for everyone.
Actually, 20 people calling at the same time may very well be needed, if one person calls the operator may just decide that they're full of shit or that it's just one person overreacting, I once called 112, the swedish equivalent of 911, after finding a passed out beaten up and drunk man in a ditch, they essentially told me "no ambulances are available right now, take care of him yourself", I called them three more times before they finally relented and decided to send a police car to take the guy to the hospital, took the police about two minutes to get there which was pretty impressive considering I had been told in previous calls that all police units and ambulances were in a neighboring town some 25 km away due to a large number of festival-related disturbances*.
* This touches on another issue I have with emergency operators, if you only have one "spare" unit don't tell me there are no units in town, you don't think I'll figure out that you were lying to me once you realize I'm calling about a real emergency?
/Mikael
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
What he didn't state were the instructions for those tests. The instructions specifically state to read every question before answering any of them. It's not a test, but a lesson in reading and following the instructions. As such, I think it has great value.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
In Brazil, we have a "rescue omission" ("omissão de socorro") law: if you're involved in an accident and escape the place leaving an injured peerson without helping or calling the paramedics, you're in for an extra charge (the aforementioned).
It has been so for what? 20 years? 30?
I thought this law existed in most places...
I can't help but think this law is well intended, but the consequences haven't been thought out. Like any other law it becomes a tool of law enforcement and there are plenty of people in jail who can tell you that calling a crime hotline is an awesome way to incriminate yourself as an accessory. Why? Because as your friendly district attorney will tell you, if the crime is bad enough somebody has to go to jail, if not he/she will appear soft on crime and possibly lose any chance of re-election.
If you won't spend 10 minutes (probably once in your lifetime at most) to rescue another life, your time must REALLY be valuable. I pity you.
Because it's a specific rule, and specific rules generally take precedence over general ones (or they'd have no reason to exist).
Take the US constitution, and look at the 18th and 21st amendments. Are you saying the 18th takes precedence because it came first?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The right to remain silent (which comes from the fifth amendment) includes the right to not talk to police. About anything, really. And since nobody can really know ALL the laws, simply reporting an observed crime to the police could very well incriminate you in some crime, either the crime you're reporting or something else (watching a cock fight? illegal. Being out after curfew? Illegal. Who knows what laws you might have violated simply by being there, and when you report this crime, you're telling them that you were there.) For more on this -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE
We have a "good samaritian" law, with the force of police, courts and jail behind it.
We have a "stop snitching" movement, with the force of death behind it.
Which do you think will win? I'd say "stop snitching" has it all over anything else, because if you are caught you easily end up dead. Here in the West we love life more.