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A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

nytimes.com

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Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#51

Post by PhasmaFelis »

harimau777 wrote: post #10

It seems to me that defining clinical death as the loss of heart beat and breathing is outdated and it should instead be defined as the cessation of higher brain activity.[1] Alternately, it seems to me like referring to that as death is playing semantics. It seems to me that the defining feature of death is that you cannot come back from it[2]. I'd be interested to hear other perspectives or if I might be overlookin…

Yeah, I feel like "clinically dead" is a technical term with a limited scope that got used casually because it sounds dramatic, and people started taking it seriously.

"Dead" is a word that's pretty well-defined for most of human history. If you're dead, you can't come back. If you do come back, barring supernatural intervention, you weren't dead. It's pretty simple.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#52

Post by PhasmaFelis »

VeninVidiaVicii wrote: post #40
harimau777 wrote: post #10

It seems to me that defining clinical death as the loss of heart beat and breathing is outdated and it should instead be defined as the cessation of higher brain activity.[1] Alternately, it seems to me like referring to that as death is playing semantics. It seems to me that the defining feature of death is that you cannot come back from it[2]. I'd be interested to hear other perspectives or if I might be overlookin…

That's a strange way to end an otherwise compelling comment.

I don't see why, given the commenter makes it clear that it has no bearing on practical discussion.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#53

Post by PhasmaFelis »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #7
bleh123 wrote: post #2

I'm not fully convinced the courts got this one completely right. This is a very interesting legal argument and lays emphasis on the need for legislators to express their intentions in writing more fully as opposed to writing laws with such loose and widely applicable terms such as "Life" without giving the term or their intent in using it more context. If, as the Judge argues, that "he did not legally die as his pre…

It absolutely feels like a judge deciding “here’s the decision I want because it fits my personal understanding of conmon sense in this situation” — which is frightening since, based on my mom’s experience working in a variety of state & county judges’ offices, there’s not much reason to trust the common sense of judges at all, even when they are basically benevolent people (a lot of them aren’t).

It's an interesting world we've come to where "you are alive, therefore you have not yet died" can be considered an idiosyncratic personal viewpoint.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#56

Post by FireBeyond »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #50
bdcravens wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if he doesn't get release, I think he will have grounds for a substantial financial judgment. Obviously that's not very useful in prison.

On what grounds? He is serving a life sentence. He is in the custody of the correctional facility. They have every duty to keep him alive and healthy, up to the point of him expiring naturally. Ridiculous logic games like this are a pretty good reason why excessive legalese is mocked in mainstream culture - because it is totally disconnected from reality and enthralled with their own existence.

The correctional facility's role is to incarcerate him, restrict his freedoms. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that there's a line that needs to be drawn there, from my perspective as an emergency medical provider.

There's still some role of autonomy here. Even as a prisoner he is allowed to determine what he may read, may do (within restriction), when he goes to the bathroom. Saying "No, you have no right to determine what medical treatment you do or do not receive", to me, undermines a civilized society, even for the incarcerated.

"Sorry you were diagnosed with amazingly painful metastasizing bone cancer. If you should go into cardiac arrest, be advised, though, we will not let you pass - we are going to work to keep you alive. This may result in brain damage to you. But so be it. It may result in long, expensive and painful procedures for the rest of your life. But so be it".

Note that this is different to, say, hunger strikes and force feeding, but instead about medical conditions.

Should they keep him on life support for fifty plus years, in theory, just so he can "serve out his life sentence" to the satisfaction of the state, for example?

From a medical provider's perspective, and similarly, someone with custody over another, ignoring and actively violating their medical treatment wishes (in my state, the POLST form - Physician's Orders for Life Sustaining Treatments, which has replaced and expanded upon DNRs) is just as much assault and battery as anything else, and may also be considered negligent and malpractice.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#57

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #53
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely feels like a judge deciding “here’s the decision I want because it fits my personal understanding of conmon sense in this situation” — which is frightening since, based on my mom’s experience working in a variety of state & county judges’ offices, there’s not much reason to trust the common sense of judges at all, even when they are basically benevolent people (a lot of them aren’t).

It's an interesting world we've come to where "you are alive, therefore you have not yet died" can be considered an idiosyncratic personal viewpoint.

I did not say anything like that. I said the judge is trying to effectively inject the judge’s notion of common sense in an extralegal way.

The impression of whether the judge’s common sense is valid or invalid has utterly nothing to do with this issue at all. The issue is that off the cuff common sense reasoning is not rigorous legal reasoning, it can have all kinds of unintended consequences.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#58

Post by greggyb »

I see a lot of people playing language lawyer with what it means "to die."

I think another fruitful thing to think about what "for life" means. It is not unreasonable to interpret "for life" as "while living", instead of "until dead."

Indeed, the sentence if "life in prison" is logically equivalent to "no life outside of prison." No one debates the fact that this man is alive now. If his sentence is to live only in prison, then there is no issue.

The interesting case is whether declining to honor his DNR counts as cruel and unusual punishment by extending his term in prison.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#59

Post by sandworm101 »

greggyb wrote: post #58

I see a lot of people playing language lawyer with what it means "to die." I think another fruitful thing to think about what "for life" means. It is not unreasonable to interpret "for life" as "while living", instead of "until dead." Indeed, the sentence if "life in prison" is logically equivalent to "no life outside of prison." No one debates the fact that this man is alive now. If his sentence is to live only in p…

But remember that this is America, where super-natural sentencing is a norm. Prisons are filled with people serving double, triple or "life plus 100 years" sentences. Logic isn't running this show.

Re: A Prisoner Who Briefly Died Argues That He’s Served His Life Sentence

#60

Post by jopsen »

GhettoMaestro wrote: post #50
bdcravens wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if he doesn't get release, I think he will have grounds for a substantial financial judgment. Obviously that's not very useful in prison.

On what grounds? He is serving a life sentence. He is in the custody of the correctional facility. They have every duty to keep him alive and healthy, up to the point of him expiring naturally. Ridiculous logic games like this are a pretty good reason why excessive legalese is mocked in mainstream culture - because it is totally disconnected from reality and enthralled with their own existence.

> They have every duty to keep him alive and healthy, up to the point of him expiring naturally.

Didn't they fail that when simple kidney stones evolved to a life threatening condition?

I'm not doctor, and I don't know the case, but it wouldn't be first time a "correctional" facility violated this duty.

It's not a far fetch argument to suggest that incarceration in US prisons is cruel -- I'm suspect history will look back at us with horror.

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