Instant Polyjury -- was it honorable "to put him out of his misery"

[Q Classic]

mrt144, i don't look american.

asians aren't considered "american" by most people. we're considered "foreigners".

besides, there's what, about 2 billion more of me anyway?

[Dr Strangelove]

IMHO even the medic was not qualified to make such a decision. The only times that paramedical personnel are permitted to make a life or death decision is when the situation threatens the life of the paramedic, or when giving aide to a "hopeless" case would hamper efforts to give aide to a more viable patient or when adequate resuscitative efforts have proven futile. In this case it would appear that the wounded man was even concious. Of course, I don't know how extensive his wounds were.

[MRT144]

i dont know, ive know quite a few asians who lived in america longer than my family. I think asians are as american as baseball and autos

[Alexander's Horse]

I agree with the doc - and even what looks like catastrophic injuries can be dealt with these days.

That's one reason why the US only have 1500 dead but 11,000 wounded. That's an incredibly low death to casualty ratio.

[DanS]

I would want it done for me.

In the extreme, with your position, you would have to admit to a potential teenage suicider that suicide may be a good path, depending on how much mental pain the kid is under.

[Alexander's Horse]

They could have left the casualty for the local pop to assist.

If it took 2 shots to kill then the patient hardly sounds like he was at death's door.

These soldiers have been watching too many Westerns.

[Donegeal]

Suicide is a permenet answer to temporay problems. This is an entirerly different situation.

[DanS]

How do you know that the problems are temporary? I can easily imagine a broad range of permanent problems.

[Donegeal]

Originally posted by DanS
In the extreme, with your position, you would have to admit to a potential teenage suicider that suicide may be a good path, depending on how much mental pain the kid is under.

Based on this quote, the problems you are implying are most likely dealing with a bad homelife, teen angst about something, infatuations with another person or some other such temperary thing.

Now yes, there are some medical reason why suicide might look like a good path, but they are not limited exclusively to teenagers.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by DanS
In the extreme, with your position, you would have to admit to a potential teenage suicider that suicide may be a good path, depending on how much mental pain the kid is under.

Mental pain can be cured. In fact, going to sleep tends to dispell it. Not so with physical pain like losing half of your head...

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Winston
The only circumstance that could possibly sway my opinion on this, is if the wounded man himself explicitly requested to be killed.

Normally, yes. Though they could have a problem communicating, and the Iraqi might not be strong enough to talk or make gestures.

Details, details...

Edit: KH beat me to it

[DanS]

Interesting that the military folks here seem to be the most gung-ho for conviction...

...And he was convicted for a slightly lesser charge.

Mar 31, 7:08 AM (ET)

(AP) US Army Capt. Rogelio M. Maynulet leaves the courthouse at the Army Airfield in Wiesbaden near...
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WIESBADEN, Germany (AP) - A military court on Thursday found a U.S. Army tank company commander guilty of charges related to the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi last year.

Capt. Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet, a 30-year-old from Chicago, stood at attention as the verdict was read. The charge - assault with intent to commit voluntary manslaughter - carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

The court was to reconvene later Thursday to consider Maynulet's sentence.

Prosecutors had sought a conviction on a more serious charge of assault with intent to commit murder, which carries a 20-year maximum.

Prosecutors said Maynulet violated military rules of engagement by shooting a man who was wounded and unarmed. Maynulet, 30, maintained that the man was gravely wounded and that he shot him to end his suffering.

Maynulet's 1st Armored Division tank company had been on patrol near Kufa on May 21, 2004, when it was alerted to a car thought to be carrying a driver for radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and another militiaman loyal to the Shiite cleric.

The U.S. troops chased the vehicle and fired at it, wounding both the passenger, who fled and was later apprehended, and the driver. The killing was filmed by a U.S. drone surveillance aircraft.

[KrazyHorse]

Assuming he was as gravely wounded as claimed:

[chequita guevara]

How can you committ voluntary manslaughter? Isn't manslaughter the unintentional killing of a human being?

[Dauphin]

It requires heat of the moment provocation, or sufficient cause, to make the distinction.