Posted on 02/14/2011 3:52:25 PM PST by Second Amendment First
Major disasters like terrorist attacks and mass epidemics raise confounding issues for rescuers, doctors and government officials. But they also pose bewildering legal questions, including some that may be painful to consider, like how the courts would decide who gets life-saving medicine if there are more victims than supplies.
But courts, like fire departments and homicide detectives, exist in part for gruesome what-ifs. So this month, an official state legal manual was published in New York to serve as a guide for judges and lawyers who could face grim questions in another terrorist attack, a major radiological or chemical contamination or a widespread epidemic.
Quarantines. The closing of businesses. Mass evacuations, warrantless searches of homes. The slaughter of infected animals and the seizing of property. When laws can be suspended and whether infectious people can be isolated against their will or subjected to mandatory treatment. It is all there, in dry legalese, in the manual, published by the state court system and the state bar association.
The most startling legal realities are handled with lawyerly understatement. It notes that the government has broad power to declare a state of emergency. “Once having done so,” it continues, “local authorities may establish curfews, quarantine wide areas, close businesses, restrict public assemblies and, under certain circumstances, suspend local ordinances.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I can tell from the tone of the above comment that Mr. Younkins is pretty sure he'll be making the grim decisions - not receiving them...
Perfect.
The main problem our country has is that some of our "betters" have forgotten that there is a big difference between legality and reality.
Let’s get real. In case it gets to the point portrayed here the laws are whatever the guys with the guns say they are.
The people with critical supplies will save their own first.
Some idiot will be like the security guard on 9/11 who told people to ‘go back upstairs’ because everything's fine...
Some low level person will force people to stay in a radioactive area because he doesn't understand radiation can be washed off - many will die unnecessarily.
A crisis of this type brings “total joy” to liberal control freaks with limited knowledge . They will abuse their power...
Ayup. Sometimes, dead is better...
Well, that ain't a blanket release of liability...
A Nuke go’s off and they worry about Lawyers ? That should tell you something ?
The whole F*ing atrocity was written for lawyers. It would be useful if these peckerwood shysters would write something for doctors and first responders.
My wonderful state
The police state is in Walmart.
Where do you think you can go that the police state can’t?
Several years ago there was that movie about a dirty bomb (or two?) going off in London. Raised lots of the same things - except for the legal force behind it.
Obviously it won’t be business as usual if a dirty bomb goes off and contaminates 50,000+ people (and their clothes, documents, vehicles, merchandise, etc.) in the middle of NYC.
If you do that then I think you worry about death too much.
It may not be too far away either.
If this for NYC or NYS?
Never mind, I see it’s NYS. That had it all ready waiting for Cuomo to get in. Everything by design.
They get the money from the revenue raised by the revenue agents, I mean, policemen.
That is a shame; I remember not too long ago when it was very easy to drive with an open container for hours in the Catskills without seeing a single policeman.
I don’t know of a place.
I didn’t even go on the senior trip to NYC back when it really was the “Big Apple”, I am certainly not going there now that it is the big trash dump. My closest approach was passing through Brooklyn Naval Shipyard on the way to Keflavik, Iceland and back.
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