Is Speedball responsible for the deaths at Stamford?

Originally posted by BlaqChaos
Despite all it's fantastic events and stories, the MU has always been based around the events of the real world Earth (right down to the event's of 9/11). Trying to change the rules for their situation only makes is seem as though you are grasping at straws. It comes off as "Okay, I'm having a hard time proving Speedball isn't at partially at fault legally, so I'll say that the laws we know of aren't the laws they go by."

In the absence of any others laws to go by, then we go by the real world US laws. If we don't do that then this entire debate it a moot point as we have no other reference of deciding matters.

That said, by the real world standards of US laws, Speedball was negligent can be found guilty of the wrongful deaths of Stamford. I'm a cop, I know the law. I checked in my wife's office (a room full of lawyers), they know the law.

so you are in general saying that the super hero genre is PIS?

Originally posted by darthgoober
Yes but the way they changed the standard means that just about EVERY superhero is guilty of negligence at some point in their career. So ALL the heroes need to be rounded up and charged with negligence. And EVERY cop and politician should also be charged for not pursuing a case with every hero, since they've been aware of the negligence all along, but have completely ignored it.

I gave the conditions for which Speedball was guilty of the Wrongful Deaths, and one of those was negligence. So, although every hero may be guilty of negligence at some point or another, useless said negligence destroys an entire neighborhood, don't try and apply it here.

As for the times when their negligence DOES result in the wrongful deaths of others, then it's up to the families whether they wish to pursue the matter or not. (And since most heroes have secret identities, serving a hero can be difficult if not impossible.)

Also, our real worl history shows that some laws aren't heavily enforced until some event occurs that causes more focus to be put upon it.

*sigh* If I only had the time to debate this further... Oh well, I'll be back in a month.

Wait, so it's only negligence if something bad actually happens? So if you leave a loaded gun on a table around someones toddler, but nothing bad actually happens, then you were'nt negligent?

Originally posted by BlaqChaos
Not every superhero is guilty of negligance that resulted in the death of innocents, and that's what this was about remember.

Originally posted by BlaqChaos I gave the conditions for which Speedball was guilty of the Wrongful Deaths, and one of those was negligence. So, although every hero may be guilty of negligence at some point or another, useless said negligence destroys an entire neighborhood, don't try and apply it here.[/B]

Originally posted by BlaqChaos As for the times when their negligence DOES result in the wrongful deaths of others, then it's up to the families whether they wish to pursue the matter or not. (And since most heroes have secret identities, serving a hero can be difficult if not impossible.) [/B]

Originally posted by BlaqChaos Also, our real worl history shows that some laws aren't heavily enforced until some event occurs that causes more focus to be put upon it.[/B]

Now let me ask you, should the Government officials and police officers of the town be awaiting sentencing also? That show was on TV, and EVERYONE knew what the purpose of that show was. So shouldn't the government agencies and police station taken it upon themselves to see that they had people in place to oversee that bust? By not doing so, aren't they just as accountable as Speedball?

Just goes to show that nothing is done till it's too late.

Originally posted by darthgoober
Life or not, it's still an example of hypocrisy. As I said, the government KNEW what was supposed to go down, but they made no effort to see that their agents were present. So the government agency's were just as negligent as he. If they want to reprimand him, and then change the way things are run, that's fine. But they are changing the rules mid game, which is wrong by any standard. To make it a legal matter without assuming any responsibility themselves is hypocritical any way you cut it. There should have been a line of government officials who faced the same charge right behind him. For that matter, since they are using a change in current policy to address past offences, they should also be charging EVERY other hero who rushed in without clearance with negligence also whether things went awry in those instances or not(because even though nothing bad happened, it wouldn't change the fact that something COULD have, so that would still count as negligence).

Speedball is a scapegoat plane and simple, a victim of a fickle society and a spineless government who's only interest is protecting their own ass at the expense of the very people who've always supported it.

See but your whole thing is blame the government. Why? Speedball wasn't a federal employee. Sure the government was aware of his actions but they really had no control over the superheroes, hence why there was a proposal to ban them. All Speedball was was a catalyst to kickstart the governments agendas against heroes. Sure they're using him to achieve their own means and its wrong, but does that Speedball any less responsible for what happened?

Originally posted by inamilist
So what you are proposing is a scale of positive relation between the level of threat to society and the ammount of time and effort that heroes should spend planning their attack?

ie - if an enemy is X strong, you denote Y effort to planning. For any increase in X there is a related increase in Y.

Basically. I can only speak for myself here but I'd say I would take more time planning against Count Nefaria then a greased up deak guy touching on the candy

Originally posted by inamilist
Public opinion does not denote responsability, nor does it assign neglegance or recklessness

Granted

Originally posted by inamilist
The fact that the public is fickle, as you point out, indicates that their opinion is moot in considerations like this.

No, it indicates that you have to be doubly sure that you cover your own ass in case things turn sour

Originally posted by inamilist
The point I am making is to show that there is a culture of what would be considered in the real world as negligance that is the set normal expected behavior for people in comicdom.

In some instances yes, but if you maintain a certain level of disbelief then for all intents and purposes both are parallel

Originally posted by inamilist
The fact that people are on whole unbothered by the idea of costumed heroes playing vigalante until something goes wrong can be seen as something just short of permissiveness.

I wouldn't agree with this. For years we've seen MANY characters openly state their disdain for superheroes. Many of these people alos happen to be government officials so that makes the law being passed all the more believable

Originally posted by inamilist
Also, as seen in the recent Ms Marvel comic, there has been NO CHANGE in this reckless behavior post SRA, and people have accepted it conditionally (the condition being that those perpetrating the reckless behavior now are registered under law).

Are you still talking about the robbers and Carol and Simon? How was that reckless. Two thugs barge in and Carol and Simon stop them by revealing themselves. They didn't barge in and from what i saw no one was in pressing danger.

Besides, the law is two-fold. It doesn't only promise responsbility on the part of the heroes, but it promises accountability for when something bad goes down. Thats the most important part of this whole thing I'd say.

Originally posted by inamilist
There needs to be precedance set through previous legal cases involving heroes. Since these cases are few and far between, heroes have been operating in a nebulous grey zone of legality.

Exactly. Another reason the SHRA was fasttracked through. To get heroes out of any gray area.

Originally posted by inamilist
HOWEVER, the coperation between heroes and government groups and the general acceptance of their actions through the courts and society as a whole DOES set a precidence or NO LEGAL LIABILITY for negligent behavior.

No it doesn't. How can you spout superhero and government cooperation when both camps weren't on friendly terms prior to Civil War? The people may have accepted their actions but does that excuse the heroes from any sort of legal liability?

Originally posted by inamilist
So yes, if you are asking if Speedball was criminally responsable in the real world where you and I live (and would probably not tolorate for an instant the idea of crazy vigilante justice) then the answer is clearly yes.

But that isnt the world of Marvel. The general complacency to the actions of an entire community at all levels of government and society to blatently negligent action sets a precidence for what can be considered resonable action by an individual

At all levels? No way. Government higher ups have not even tried to hide their disdain for superheroes.

Originally posted by inamilist
"blame" is a dificult word here, given that these are all fictional characters. Its preposterous to think that real people would have gone so long accepting the actions of the heroes, especially given that they operate above the law.

There are huge differances between thoughts and actions. In a recent civil war book, don't some of cap's people, or even cap himself, talk about taking cover in a group of civilians? This isn't reckless?

Yes it is

Originally posted by inamilist
Its fine to point to the one clear example of negligence that the writers are hold up on a pedistal as a plot device, but that doesnt change the fact that for 60 years the industry has been unconcerned with legal consequences of heroism.

For the most part no but it's touched upon enough times to be used as a precursor for CW

Originally posted by inamilist
But this is only something we would ever consider as being responsible of a hero in the context of the Post stanford MU.

Not me. I've always looked for stuff like this in comics. Try looking back at some of your old stuff. You may come across examples where the hero dedides not to fight in a certain area etc. It may not have clicked then but you can see now what the hero was trying to do

Originally posted by inamilist
Before it would have been irrelevant because there was never any worry of legal ramifications for the actions of the hero.

Good point. Fortunately the SHRA is looking to address that

Originally posted by inamilist
only if we are in agreement that the whole concept of "super hero" is reckless and stupid

Only if we're suddenly placing all super-heroes like Cap and Spider-Man on the level of Speedball

Originally posted by inamilist
however, in my example, there is no way to differentiate between the old lady and the annihilation wave, simply because of a lack of knowledge.

But in the situations where you know what the villian is capable of (ala the New Warriors) would you react the way they did?

Originally posted by inamilist
In most cases, heroes assume that thugs pose low level threats. Thankfully bullets are so useless in the MU.

Thankfully

Originally posted by inamilist
But basically, the power level is irrelevant. If it is reckless to attack Nitro in public it is also reckless to attack any other villian in public

I don't agree. Nitro can explode, therefore attacking him within the vicinity people is stupid. Chameleon is a villian, but unless he's immersed in a crowd there isn't much worry about taking him down a few hundred feet from a school. Different situation call for different levels of attention and different course of actions. Federal training hopefully will instill that into some of these heroes

Originally posted by marvelprince
See but your whole thing is blame the government. Why? Speedball wasn't a federal employee. Sure the government was aware of his actions but they really had no control over the superheroes, hence why there was a proposal to ban them. All Speedball was was a catalyst to kickstart the governments agendas against heroes. Sure they're using him to achieve their own means and its wrong, but does that Speedball any less responsible for what happened?

If the government is going to start pointing fingers, then they should be willing to accept their own responsibility for what happened. That's why I say that Speedball DOESN'T deserve the charge, because he's the only person getting one. If they were willing to blame EVERYONE who was responsible, my opinion would be different, but a hero shouldn't be singled out for punishment when the government that condoned his reckless actions gets let off scot free.

Speedball was being a glory-hound trying to sniff-out ratings.
He didn't seem very concerned about attacking evil superhumans
in a residential house, surrounded by other residential houses,
in a residential area. That was INCREDIBLY stupid and he
certainly deserves getting his ass beat like a rented mule for that.
Whenever say.....Spiderman for example, goes after super-villians,
he ALWAYS does whatever he can to take the fight AWAY from
bystanders. Most heroes do that. Speedball showed no such concerns.
Is he legally negligent? debatable.
Does he deserve punishment? absolutely.

Originally posted by Scoobless
A ruling Monarchy isn't the same as a ruling elected party leader, just being a member of the family makes you a powerful public figure.

I still hold to the fact that you can't hold an entire nation/country to the actions of a relative of its leader. If Namor, himself, were a member of the team, or perhaps the next in line for the throne, then maybe Atlantis should be held responsible.

I'm sure there are cases in history where countries have gone to war over the actions of a distant relative of a monarch, but no "civilized" country that I can think of in the past 100 years has done this. I could be wrong with that, though... my History is a little rusty.

Either way, is it truly right to hold an entire nation to the fact that one out of its millions of residents made such a mistake?

I believe that if this were elaborated more upon in the Marvel Universe, there would probably be a small sect who believed that Atlantis should pay... but I doubt that a lot of the nation's leaders would truly take them seriously.

Grimm... I'm still laughing about the "Noob" comment. Wow...

Originally posted by darthgoober
No, I'm not saying blame the whole thing on the government. I'm saying that you can't really claim negligence on the Speedball's part, unless your willing to claim negligence on the governments part also. The fact that Speedball isn't employed by the government just reinforces the negligence on their part, because apprehending a known felon is THEIR responsibility. Where were the Shield agents that should have been present to make sure the proper precautions were taken? Has the government NO responsibility in ensuring that metahumans don't run wild until AFTER something bad happens?

If the government is going to start pointing fingers, then they should be willing to accept their own responsibility for what happened. That's why I say that Speedball DOESN'T deserve the charge, because he's the only person getting one. If they were willing to blame EVERYONE who was responsible, my opinion would be different, but a hero shouldn't be singled out for punishment when the government that condoned his reckless actions gets let off scot free.

This doesn't make sense. For example, some guy manages to prevent a bank robbery and is congratulated for it. Good job blah blah. This same guy tries to rush into a hostage situation and manages to get the hostages shot so it's the governments fault for not arresting him in the first place?

Honestly the government has no responsibilty here. They've been trying to get superheroes under control for sometime now, it just so happened that it took a bad situation to fasttrack the resolution (keep in mind that the SHRA was being considered from even before Stamford). I could see your argument holding water if it was the government in the first place that sent Speedball there to take down Nitro, but thats not whats happened. Speedball went out on his own and messed up on his own. How is the government responsible?

Originally posted by marvelprince
I could see your argument holding water if it was the government in the first place that sent Speedball there to take down Nitro, but thats not whats happened. Speedball went out on his own and messed up on his own. How is the government responsible?

The Government are just as negligent as Speedball & the Warriors because they knew about the TV show and allowed it to continue when they clearly had the power and time to shut it down long before it got to the Stamford episode.

Originally posted by Scoobless
The Government are just as negligent as Speedball & the Warriors because they knew about the TV show and allowed it to continue when they clearly had the power and time to shut it down long before it got to the Stamford episode.

But the kind of things Speedball was doing on the show wasn't anything as dangerous as what they tried to pull in Stamford. Before they're changing tires for people and now they're trying to take down ruthless criminals? The NW bit off more than they can chew

Originally posted by marvelprince
This doesn't make sense. For example, some guy manages to prevent a bank robbery and is congratulated for it. Good job blah blah. This same guy tries to rush into a hostage situation and manages to get the hostages shot so it's the governments fault for not arresting him in the first place?

Honestly the government has no responsibilty here. They've been trying to get superheroes under control for sometime now, it just so happened that it took a bad situation to fasttrack the resolution (keep in mind that the SHRA was being considered from even before Stamford). I could see your argument holding water if it was the government in the first place that sent Speedball there to take down Nitro, but thats not whats happened. Speedball went out on his own and messed up on his own. How is the government responsible?

Originally posted by marvelprince
But the kind of things Speedball was doing on the show wasn't anything as dangerous as what they tried to pull in Stamford. Before they're changing tires for people and now they're trying to take down ruthless criminals? The NW bit off more than they can chew