North Carolina prosecutors are pursuing an interesting felony-murder charge against Larry Whitfield, who is accused of breaking into the home of an elderly lade after an attempted bank robbery and car chase. Whitfield never touched Mary Parnell, 79, but the stress is believed to have caused her heart attack and death.
Whitfield wrecked his getaway car after the flight and broke into the home to hide. He told Parnell to sit in a chair in her bedroom, but the fright killed her.
Whitfield, 20, is now charged with first-degree murder. He has no prior offenses.
This is not the first such felony-murder case involving such a heart attack. In 1982, Willie Ingram was convicted after 64-year-old Melvin Cooper died from a heart attack in his New York home during a robbery and in 2008 a Pittsburgh jury convicted Mark Fisher of the murder of 89-year-old Freda Dale, who medical examiners said died in her home from a fear-induced heart attack.
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Doh,
I should have mentioned you’d be cutting back or eliminating USDA because by definition food is agriculture.
They are not talking about doing a Food Agency and leaving the rest of that in place, no. When you create a Food Safety Agency, the old FDA/USDA schema can be tossed and redefined as well. Plus, I think that the biggest issues in FDA and outmoded regulation is in the drug testing area. I think food safety has fallen into disarray because it’s a “red-headed step child”, due largely to lobbyists removing food regulation and steering influence into the FDA via big pharma but mostly due to not being able to get enough warm bodies to do the actual inspection job. It’s not just “building the new” but “replacing the old with a better model”. An FSA could have new, rational and scientifically valid testing and safety regulations independent of corporate influence that has so distorted the FDA’s mission in recent history. Food regulation is something you cannot let slide. In the days before food laws, for example, merchants often sold pepper (an expensive and exotic spice at the time) adulterated with saw dust, gravel, pencil shavings etc. Yes, removing old ineffective regulation is key, but removing it all together is a bad idea. With a new agency and a clean slate, I think this would be a much simpler, more effective way to ensure food safety than trying to rehab the joint FDA/USDA scheme they currently use. It has 1) less parts to break and 2) a chance to be redesigned properly from the ground up without previous issues providing resistance to the much needed changes.
it seems that if the oversight agencies have too much on their plates would it not be better to see what regulations you could actually get rid of? I have got to believe that with an oversite the size and scope of USDA and FDA that some of the regs are redundant, out lived their usefullness or just plain silly.
Wouldnt it be better to look at those things before spending a lot of additional money to create a separate agency?
Jason,
Because right now, conflict of interest in the FDA is a huge issue in drug testing. On top of the fact that they are also responsible for testing medical devices, new biologicals, approving testing, etc. takes away from food duties. This on top of a situation in USDA where budgets have not met growth (they simply don’t have enough inspectors) and combined with 10 years of food lobby effort aimed at removing regulation and you get a situation like you have today where known contaminated peanut butter was distributed. By separating the food and drug duties, you make the underlying job simpler. Simpler is alway better. Complexity breeds error. By dividing the duties into discrete areas, you can isolate and remove inefficiencies better than in a dual purpose system that by it’s nature can conflict with it’s goals of BOTH food and drug safety. For that reason, there should also be a Water Safety Agency, because the EPA is doing a crap job with that. Let them regulate industry, but clean water should be the priority, have it’s own agency, enforcement powers and agenda aimed at the common good of maintaining potable water. Being able to drink is far more important than ANYONE’S pocketbook. But I digress, when you split the duties of the agencies into discrete units you also gain the operation efficiency of having an easier to define goal. That usually pays off in hard ways to imagine, often hard to quantify, but a clean, clear and coherent mission statement makes any job easier.
Buddha:
why not just put it under one roof and not create another agency?
That would seem the more efficient thing to do.
JT and Regulars,
Submitted for your consideration:
I heard someone, I didn’t catch his name but he was an Obama appointee talking about possible restructuring of various departments within government to improve efficiency on NPR with Neil Conan. The part of the interview I caught mentioned possibly splitting FDA and USDA joint duties for food safety to create a separate Drug Administration and a Food Safety Administration. While I love this idea for many reasons, I haven’t seen a lot about the nuts and bolts ideas on this kind of practical work that needs to be done in the MSM and the alternative media is just as sketchy so far. I was wondering if you, or any of the regulars, had any more good info on these kinds of proposed changes to the way government delivers services? I’m hoping I can find the link for the rest of that interview after dinner, but so far no luck. Probably not posted yet. Thanks.
HOOOOOO—-YAAAAAAAAA! ANOTHER LIBERAL TAX CHEAT CAUGHT!
Per ABC News tonight: Tommy Daschle, the ETHANOL MILLIONAIRE LOBBYIST KING, fessed up to cheating the IRS of over $100,000 since just 2005! Democrats are having an emergency meeting on Monday to figure out what to do with the SECOND TAX CHEAT that Obama wants to give a Cabinet position to!
HOOOOOOOO-YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Question: Why do apparently all liberals cheat on taxes? Maybe we need to set up audits of every liberal in America!
Bron & MSNBC & Global:
“Global you cast pearls before swine.”
*********
Even the biggest bore knows not to insult his host. Why don’t you little boys run along now, and resume your insect torture, er discomforting, among your merry band of hooded followers.
Dear sir:
In November 2007 Barack Obama told his supporters in a speech just played on MSNBC that he would employ “ZERO” lobbyists in his White House.
He now has 8 lobbyists employed in his White House – and this report is courtesy of non other than MSNBC – the network fast getting tired of Barack Obama ruining its market share.
Mr. Turley, just WHEN are you going to start challenging these mistakes Mr. Obama is making almost daily? Or is the pittance you get for appearing on Olbermann and Maddow’s show worth corrupting the values virtually all parents wish to instill in their children – by chance maybe even you.
In November 2007 Barack Obama told his supporters in a speech just played on MSNBC that he would employ “ZERO” lobbyists in his White House.
He now has 8 lobbyists employed in his White House – and this report is courtesy of non other than MSNBC – the network fast getting tired of Barack Obama ruining its market share.
Mr. Turley, just WHEN are you going to start challenging these mistakes Mr. Obama is making almost daily? Or is the pittance you get for appearing on Olbermann and Maddow’s show worth corrupting the values virtually all parents wish to instill in their children – by chance maybe even you.
Global you cast pearls before swine.
Jason,
Felony murder is felony murder. You takes the victims as they come, heart condition or not.
Mike:
what if the woman had a really bad heart and she could have died anyway say at the sound of thunder or some other thing that frightened her. His intent was not to kill her does he have some mitigating circumstance? or is he as Buddha says looking at long hard stretch with green bologna?
Curious that this isn’t being applied to Bernard Madoff.
Jason2L, the underlying public policy is that you take the victim as you find him. Therefore, it is not necessary that you know of a person’s health issues or specifically intend the result, only that there is a causal relation between your act and the death of the victim. This is eminently sound policy.
Jason2L:
Check out the Felony-Murder Rule and it’s little cousin the Misdemeanor-Manslaughter Rule on Google.
what is the law about this? not being a lawyer I would be interested. Does it have something to do with proximate cause?
Dude. You’re screwed. Enjoy the lifetime supply of state made green bologna sandwiches.