Posted on 09/27/2007 8:32:50 AM PDT by rottndog
Cecil "Lucky" Warren passed away the other day. And that raises this question:
Even though he died last weekend, was he actually murdered almost four years ago?
Some of you may remember the story. Lucky Warren, then 77, was the former World War II Army paratrooper and lifelong professional gardener who was attacked by two young thugs on Veterans Day 2003 as he was cleaning the parking lot outside a bank in Huntington Beach. The thugs knocked him down, kicked him viciously in the head, stole 50 of his hard-earned dollars and left him lying unconscious on the ground.
Since then, until his death early Saturday morning, Lucky had been lying comatose in hospitals and nursing homes, breathing with a respirator and being fed through a tube, unable to speak, his eyes open but unseeing. Medically, clinically, legally he was alive – but in a very real sense Lucky's life had ended on that Veterans Day morning.
For Betty Warren, his wife of 60 years, it was a kind of living death, too. The man she had married when she was 18 and had barely spent a day apart from since was gone – and yet he wasn't.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Very sad for one of America's veterans to die this way.
Get them on the chair.
Smoke ‘em. Twice.
Not to lessen the gravity of the situation, or even to play devil’s advocate...
He was eventually going to pass on; the prosecutors should’ve gone for attempted murder assault charge to begin with. He was deprived of the rest of his life after the attack.
If he’d had a living will to be “removed” from life support devices/artifical feeding, etc. would they have been able to “step up” the charges to murder?
The prosecutor probably went for a “sure thing” conviction in the first place rather than the right charge.
Should have pulled the plug years ago.
Since he wasn’t actually dead, they couldn’t be charged murder. But the prosecutor charged them with the max he could under the law.
Now that he is dead, they are considering murder charges, but are awaiting results of an autopsy to determine actual cause of death. If they can proceed with a murder trial, I believe they will.
It really depends on state law.
In NY, if someone dies as a result of a felony you commit - even if their death was wholly unintentional (like a security guard dying of a heart attack during an armed robbery) - you can be charged with second-degree murder.
If that security guard recovered from his heart attack, you would not be charged with attempted murder since you did not intentionally try to kill him - but if he did die, it would still be your fault.
Our country is turning into a ghetto from border to border and our laws protect the guilty. My heart goes out to his wife and family. What a waste.
“but there is still the constitutional issue of double jeopardy to be faced.”
There is no double jeopardy(attempted murder vs. murder) and thankfully no statute of limitations for murder either.
Interesting case in Maryland way back in 1963, which helped the career of Bob Dylan:
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,,1424244,00.html
Life after a lonesome death
On February 9 1963, William Zantzinger, a rich young farmer, struck Hattie Carroll, a black barmaid, with his cane. She died that night; he got six months. Her story lives on in Bob Dylan’s brilliant protest song - but where is Zantzinger now? And did The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll really change anything? Ian Frazier reports
Friday February 25, 2005
The Guardian
Do you know the Bob Dylan song The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll? Put it on now and listen to it, if you happen to have it on a CD or an album. If you don’t, or you don’t remember it, it’s about a young society swell named William Zantzinger who, in 1963, killed a black serving woman named Hattie Carroll at a ball at a Baltimore hotel by striking her with a cane. Dylan was just 22 when he wrote it, and the lyrics show him at his high-energy, internal-rhyme-spinning peak:
[My comment: he “killed” her in the legal sense. He actually was just acting like a boor at one of the most prestigious society events of the year in pre-civil rights Baltimore.]
Article continues
William Zanzinger [sic] killed poor Hattie Carroll
With a cane that he twirled around his diamond ring finger ...
[She] Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane
That sailed through the air and came down through the room,
Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle ...
Zantzinger’s motive, Dylan sings, was that he “just happened to be feelin’ that way without warnin’”. When Zantzinger came to trial, charged with first-degree murder, the judge “spoke through his cloak, so deep and distinguished”, and gave Zantzinger a six-month sentence. At this last injustice, the song ends:
But you who philosophise disgrace
And criticise all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face,
For now is the time for your tears.
The song contains errors of fact. Dylan misspells the perpetrator’s name, omitting the letter T - perhaps deliberately, out of contempt, or perhaps to emphasise the Snidely Whiplash hissing of the Zs. And Zantzinger’s actual arrest and trial were more complicated than the song lets on.
Police arrested him at the ball for disorderly conduct - he was wildly drunk - and for assaults on hotel employees not including Hattie Carroll, about whom they apparently knew nothing at the time. When Carroll died at Mercy Hospital the following morning, Zantzinger was also charged with homicide. The medical examiner reported that Carroll had hardened arteries, an enlarged heart, and high blood pressure; that the cane left no mark on her; and that she died of a brain haemorrhage brought on by stress caused by Zantzinger’s verbal abuse, coupled with the assault. After the report, a tribunal of Maryland circuit court judges reduced the homicide charge to manslaughter. Zantzinger was found guilty of that, and of assault - but not of murder.
-—snip-—
No there isn't.
Everyone is so hepped up on “hate crimes” why don’t we pass a law that says it is a “hate crime” for anyone to attack a senior citizen like we have seen oh too many times recently.
You all are correct. It’s been too long since I practiced criminal law.
You can’t punish scum like that enough, IMHO.
I know. No matter what ... to attack an elderly person is horrendous to begin with and then to find out he fought to protect the sorry ass of this perp is just sickening. Sorry mod...couldn’t help my self. If this guy is such a big deal how come he didn’t pick on someone his own size and age? Knew he would probably get his butt kicked so he picked on a defenseless elderly man. A man i might add could have probably whipped this guys butt years ago. I hate bullies and people who prey on others.
This is now a confirmed PGR Mission.
There will be a memorial service with military honors for Cecil “Lucky” Warren at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 5 at First Presbyterian Church of Westminster, 7702 Westminster Blvd., Westminster, CA
We will remember and honor this WWII Vet in a manner befitting a true American Hero!
Actually, I think we should volunteer those thugs for targets in the worst place in Iraq.
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