Posted on 03/30/2013 5:13:35 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Being one of the living dead would be a big advantage if you're charged with murder.
And you could probably trash your neighbor's property and not be successfully sued.
Ryan Davidson, a lawyer who also blogs about "superheroes, supervillains, and the law" at Law and the Multiverse, tells The Huffington Post that "if zombies are effectively unconscious, then they would be incapable of performing voluntary actions and thus immune to criminal liability (or civil liability, for that matter)."
He'll be discussing that conclusion and "various legal aspects of being a zombie" on Friday at the WonderCon convention in Anaheim, Calif.
Now, on the flip side, zombies likely wouldn't have any legal rights, Davidson says. So they couldn't sue the living folks who've taken over their property.
Of course, this being the law, there is another way of looking at it.
If zombies aren't re-animated corpses, but are instead "living people infected with some kind of virus," Davidson says, then maybe they could be criminally and civilly liable for their actions.
But that may be a moot point. From what we've seen on The Walking Dead, it doesn't look like the living are all that concerned about zombies' rights anyway.
We've developed something of a zombie news beat here on The Two-Way, by the way:
Zombies don’t get constitutional protections. They can and should be exterminated on sight.
Zombie is a code word for LIV, right?
Is a 12 gauge shotgun blast to the head considered a criminal or civil liability? They're already dead so it can't be considered murder. Worst case is abuse of a corpse, which I think I could live with. As long as we can apply the "liability" described I'm really not that worried about how a lawyer or a court sees it.
NPR has notihing to do but argue hypothetics about zombies?
And I am paying fior this crap?
I think I’d find a use for them. Maybe put them on treadmills for power.
Brains for thought.
Zombies, rights, what an opening for the famous Bob Hope bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a6YdNmK77k
For one, if a Zombie is attacking you with murder (ie eating you dead) as the ulitimate outcome, then popping a cap on a zombie is self-defense.
They can also be shot — or hacked, or stabbed, or burned, or beheaded, or crushed, or dismembered, or blow-up, or mowed down, or whatever — on sight. No immediate danger necessary. “Self-defense” is presumed.
So, legally, ‘zombie’ status is a mixed-bag at best. Ultimately, just a lawyer that likes to hear himself talk. Once the zombies come ... there is no law.
SnakeDoc
Excellent! tape an Obama poster to stick, then tie the stick to their heads leaving the poster some few feet in front of them...perfect. Almost a perpetual motion machine! If the zombies get tired, or run out of energy, just feed 'em some other zombie. One could attract and herd 'em around with the same hopey-changey two-step graphic displays (with musical accompaniment).
I must say, you've come across a brilliant idea.
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