California train wreck survivor calls for death penalty

[Goathead]

On the 'Today' show. The guy who caused the wreck was trying to commit suicide, ten people died in the wreck and this survivor says the guy who left his SUV on the tracks causing the wreck should get the death penalty. Isn't that what he wanted in the first place? Wasn't there enough death involved in that situation? Some people in this country are a little too willing to deal out death as a solution to problems. What the hell is wrong with America? I think this country is populated by ghouls.

[librechik]

1. this should be a test case for the lack of mental health care

If we had spent as much money on Juan to cure him as we will to keep him on death row, who knows how it would have turned out. My big fear is that he's an illegal, and the racist right will use him as an example of what a good idea it is to shoot them all at the border.

[Carni]

2. This guy had some seriously bad karma

I mean how whacked can it get when you try to commit suicide and instead you cause this?

I am still a little surprised frankly that one vehicle left on a train track could cause all this carnage.

This is just an all around screwed up and terrible situation IMO

It's so terrible that I can't even offer up an opinion.

[Skittles]

10. I am sure terrorists are taking note of this carnage Carni

and how easily it was done

[Carni]

17. Yes, that thought certainly dawned on me also!

I was under the (obviously wrong) impression that when a train hit a car on the tracks that the train remained in tact and just sort of barreled through the car! Guess not! :(

[AlienGirl]

12. Time for legal assisted suicide

Yes, most cases of depression can be cured. But some *can't*.

Maybe there should be a safe, legal way for people to get help taking their own lives.

Tucker

[rocktivity]

3. That's revenge, not justice

The guy who caused the wreck acted out of selfishess, recklessness, and stupidity. But if you believe his aborted suicide attempt story, he did NOT act out of premeditation or criminal intent. Third degree murder might work if his trespassing on the railroad property is a felony. But aside from that, he's guilty of second-degree manslaughter at best.

:headbang:
rocknation

[jayctravis]

4. Death penalty for a suicidal person

who has committed involuntary manslaughter?

Yes, this is the type of behavior society should frown upon. Suicidal people do not desire to take others with them. Someone who parks a car on a train track and doesn't think that he might kill other people needs therapy and perhaps to have his driver's license permanently revoked. Yes, he probably should be locked up or confined to his home for an extended period.

Death penalty is sort of a Bre'r Rabbit conundrum.

[rocktivity]

7. We agree up to a point.

Originally posted by jayctravis:
Someone who parks a car on a train track and doesn't think that he might kill other people needs therapy and perhaps to have his driver's license permanently revoked.

Someone who parks a car on a train track and doesn't think that he might kill other people IS A CRIMINAL and should get his therapy IN JAIL. Involuntary manslaughter means you CHOSE to engage in behavior that you either knew OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN could result in the death of another. Pleading mental incompetence won't help--the law says that if he had the capacity to decide to kill himself by arranging to be hit by a train while sitting in a car, he also had the capacity to realize that anyone on that train could be killed as a result.

What happened here is wasteful and disgusting, and I want the perpetrator punished to the fullest extent of the law. But unless he committed a felony by driving his car into a part of the railroad yard where commuters aren't supposed to be, he is NOT a murderer.

:headbang:
rocknation

[SemperEadem]

14. yeah, but.

Involuntary manslaughter means you CHOSE to engage in behavior that you either knew OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN could result in the death of another.

When he initially parked the car, how did he know that a packed Metrolink commuter train was coming down the tracks instead of a Union Pacific freight train? They share the same line, also with Amtrak. He would have had to have known for sure that it was a commuter train. It just happened to be one.

At the time he went to park the car on the tracks, that consideration was the furthest thing from his mind. When he saw the train coming at him, he still would not have been able to make it out just by looking at it coming head on at you. However, he had no business parking his car on the tracks, period.

But I'm sure there's more to this story than I know. Manslaughter or Insanity. What he did was far from sane.

[Jack_DeLeon]

5. I think it would be appropriate...

He wanted to kill himself, but changed his mind and instead killed others.

Certainly would be poetic justice if he was given the death penalty.

He is certainly responsible for those people's death.

Why did he have to put his vehicle on the tracks? He should have just laid down on them himself, or fuck buy a gun and kill himself, instead he killed others. Thats always the worst way to try to kill yourself.

[BBradley]

6. How is that poetic justice? That's retarded justice.

He needs therapy. He doesn't need to be killed, and the american people don't need for him to be killed.

[theboss]

8. He also needs justice

I don't know if the death penalty is appropriate, but he did kill ten people. A few years in a hospital just ain't gonna cut it.

[AlienGirl]

11. Good argument for legal assisted suicide here

If people could just go to the doctor for a painless, certain death, this man would have been able to kill himself in peace. Then there would be no train-wreck and the state would save the cost of prosecuting this case.

Tucker

[theboss]

23. Whatever happened to a handful of pills or razor blades in a bathtub

I'm still a little torn on the idea of the state helping people off themselves. Too many suicide attempts are not really attempts but cries for help.

But I can think of dozens of ways to do it that don't involve harming others. Hell, if he just stood on the tracks, none of this would be an issue.

[First48H]

9. Let the jury decide

I'd definitely put it on the table. This moron stood and watched it happen! He said he changed his mind, not that the SUV was stuck! He'll never see the light of day.

[SemperEadem]

13. I don't think he showed the requisite intent to kill 10 people

just himself. I"m sure he wishes he hadn't abandoned his plan now. Those poor people.. I used to ride that exact line when I lived there. Coulda been me.

[JanMichael]

21. And his state sanctioned murder would help survivors how?

This country needs to get over the bloodbath as retribution mentality-

Poetic justice my ass; the death penalty for this guy is nothing more than petty revenge---it would not benefit society to have him dead.

Stephanie

[NoNothin]

15. California train wreck survivor calls for death penalty

GUESS WHAT WE ARE GOING TO SEE MORE OF UNTIL
MENTALLY ILLNESS IS HANDLED DIFFERENTLY!

Dad with family history of depression + Mom with family history of depression = a child with higher percentage chance of depression.

How can a person who suffers from schizophrenia
or bipolar disorder or some other form of depression
get help if paranoia is telling them to stay
away from the things that help them?

Unless the person in the depression is lucky enough
to have a mild form of an illness - chances are
they will do everything they can to fight the help
they need.

Families aren't allowed to help someone in the situation
without violating their privacy rights. Many times they have to
be a danger to themselves or others in order to
get help. Well - isn't that a little too late?
Help on the onset shows much better chances of a better recovery.

To help people like this botched train wreck suicide victim
and to help the woman who suffered from postpartum depression
that killed her children - help has to come from the rest of us.
You can't blame a woman who suffers from postpartum
who didn't get the help she needed - she couldn't help herself.
Her husband and hospital workers have to step in to prevent
more things like this from happening.

WAKE UP - More and more people will be born with mental illness
if you look at the statistics.

How's that for a rant! : 0

[hedgehog]

16. This is a case of manslaughter at best.

Typically, a car on the tracks is to the train as a fly is to the windshield. I've been trying to figure out how in the world the SUV made any impact at all on the train, let alone cause a derailment. Apparently the train derailed because the locomotive was at the other end pushing the train with only a light weight operator's cab at the front. There is no way he could have known what would happen.

[Carni]

18. Yes, that is what I thought!

In all of the car/train collisions I have ever heard of the car gets wiped out and the train continues on...

Makes me wonder if some of these SUV's weigh so much that they can actually derail a train?

Maybe this was a freak thing but I agree with you it's odd.

[JanMichael]

19. Engineers in California

have said that they questioned the wisdom of having the engine in the back pushing the passenger cars, as opposed to in the front pulling them.

It wasn't the weight of the SUV, it was the physics and kinetic energy behind it.

Stephanie

[Carni]

22. Thanks--now I get it

I didn't know the engine was in the back!

In fact I wasn't even aware that was done in general...sounds like a really bad plan.

[gollygee]

20. That's why the victims don't get to make that choice

Of course a survivor of the train wreck wants that - revenge is a natural human desire. But the government should be above that. Killing people is wrong, regardless of whether a private citizen or the government is doing it.