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Manslaughter Conviction Overturned For Scientists Who Didn't Predict Earthquake
Jason Koebler writes: Geologists who didn't warn a town about an impending earthquake are not murderers, an Italian appeals court ruled today. A 2012 decision that rocked the scientific world has been overturned, according to Italy's Repubblica newspapers and confirmed by other Italian outlets. In that decision, six prominent geologists and one government worker were convicted of manslaughter for failing to notify the town of L'Aquila of a 2009 earthquake that killed at least 309 people. The scientists were originally sentenced to six years in prison and were to pay more than $10 million in damages.
But that's not what they said. They said the risk had not changed because of the earthquake swarm. That's very different from saying there's no risk. No sane scientist would say there was no risk of earthquakes anywhere in Italy. It's a tectonically active area. There is ALWAYS a risk.
It's like saying that an earthquake isn't going to happen in California tomorrow. NOBODY is going to say that for any reason, because there is no reason why one couldn't happen tomorrow no matter what happened today, earthquake swarm or not.
Large commercial airplane crashes are also rare. If there was a crash of a small plane yesterday, would you say that the risk of a major plane crash today was increased? There's no reason to expect any link. If someone asked a flight attendant "In light of the small plane that crashed at this airport yesterday, is the risk of a major plane crash today increased?" They'd probably say "no". That doesn't mean they'd say there is no risk. People might be worried because the thought of a plane crash was foremost in their thoughts thanks to the previous day's events. But there's no *rational* reason to expect an increased risk.
So if the plane crashed, would you sue the flight attendant for manslaughter for misleading the passenger into thinking there was no risk? No, you'd say the passenger was not listening carefully.
Why is this so hard to understand?
Not if you hire Cheney's lawyers.
Table-ized A.I.
And if there hadn't been one, then they would have been right. What's your point? Just because there was no special likelihood of an earthquake doesn't actually mean that there won't be one, does it? The whole episode is total nonsense.
And the distinction is?
The distinction is that they didn't know if it was safer or not, so they should have said "we don't know" in the most reassuring way possible. Instead they tried to look smarter than they were and ended up being badly wrong.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Plea bargains are a legal abomination. The fact you can get a traumatized guy who came home and found his wife strangled by a burglar and say "Take the plea bargain and get 20 years in jail for something you do, or risk capital punishment if you cant convince the jury your innocent.
That is *fucked*, because so many people who probavbly could have proved their innocence will take the 20 years rather than risk getting slain by the state.