[Bumped by pastordan.]
Reading the Katrina Timeline I am forced to ponder the meaning of depraved indifference.
Depraved indifference is a legal designation that seeks to create a third category distinguishable from intentional murder and manslaughter. In New York State this distinction was brought forth in a case :
The 13-year old boy was killed. The court ruled that the death was nonintentional. However, they felt that playing Polish roulette with live ammo was sufficiently reckless that it created an imminent and grave risk of death. For the purpose of the statute, this was all that needed to be proven. The state of mind of the defendent (his lack of intent to kill) was insufficient to gain him a manslaughter conviction.
It’s a sad day when we have to ask whether George Bush, FEMA director Michael Brown, and other government officials should be convicted of manslaughter, or a more serious crime. But that is where we are. Reading the timeline, it is obvious that their behavior was sufficiently reckless to create an imminent and grave risk of death for thousands of American citizens. Whether or not they intended thousands of people to die is immaterial to proving the case. And the timeline proves it definitively.
Long after we were discussing the levee breach, the bad conditions at the Superdome, and the catastrophe at the Convention Center, Bush, Brown and Chertoff claim to have been unaware of those events. Their failure to make themselves aware of those crises, or their failure to act on them, constitute acts that were sufficiently reckless to not only create a grave risk, but to actually result in the death of thousands and thousands of people. Case closed.