Posted on 03/04/2008 4:03:45 PM PST by NormsRevenge
NEW YORK (Reuters) - An individual is not entitled to parachute off New York City landmarks, including the Empire State Building, no matter how extensive his training, a New York appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
The ruling reversed a 2007 decision, which said that stuntman and former Discovery Channel host Jebb Corliss, 31, did not put people at risk when attempting to parachute from the Empire State Building's 86th floor observatory floor in 2006.
In overturning that decision, the four-judge panel ruled that an accidental misstep or a faulty parachute could have put bystanders and security professionals at risk.
"Even a properly functioning parachute that landed a jumper safely might cause a variety of accidents," the court ruled.
The Manhattan District Attorney's office is now free to pursue its charge of reckless endangerment, which carries a sentence of up to one year in prison.
Mark Jay Heller, a lawyer for Corliss, said he planned to appeal the decision because it is up to lawmakers, and not judges, to determine if Corliss' conduct should be made illegal.
"We believe that Jebb Corliss was exercising his constitutional right of free expression by free form flying through the air," he said.
In April 2006, Corliss -- who has made successful leaps from the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia -- tried to scale a 10-foot (3-metre) security fence in order to jump off the skyscraper.
His bid was thwarted when police and security officers pulled the him back, shackled him to the security rail and arrested him. One officer was seriously injured in the scuffle.
Justice Michael Ambrecht of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan had thrown out reckless endangerment charges against Corliss on the grounds that the stunt, while "dangerous and ill conceived," was legal because there was no law barring it.
But prosecutors replied in court papers, that "his effort was thwarted only by the Herculean labours of the police officers and security guards with whom he fought mightily when they tried to stop him,"
Yeah, right. Then do it out in the middle of nowhere and nobody else will be concerned.
I don’t have a problem if the Darwins want to jump off a building, it’s the landing on someone or someone’s car that’s the problem.
So if they hadn’t tried to stop him no violence would have occured and he would have been within his rights but because they tried to stop him it was not within his rights...
I’m confused.
No BASE Jumping for you!
All your base are belong to us!
Next time he should arrange to do this properly.
Contact the municipal government. Arrange for media passes. Sell tickets at the jump point and the landing zone. Clear the obvious areas where accidents might affect bystanders. Have emergency personnel standing by. Sell the rights to the official recording, from live broadcast to the recording for rebroadcast.
Oh, and hire a better lawyer.
Don’t ask why we have so many people in jail.
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