“Negligence” simply means you breached a standard of care. In this case, the standard of care would be as follows: Would a reasonable police officer under the same set of circumstances have acted the way this officer acted? In most states the next level up the chain is “gross negligence,” which is non-criminal but allows for punitive damages to be assessed. Finally, we get to criminal standards which require “extreme recklessness”—at a minimum—or “men rea”—i.e., “a guilty mind”—for more serious crimes like murder. States vary as to crimes and standards, but this is roughly what we are dealing with.
> “Negligence” simply means you breached a standard of care. <
Interesting post there, and you do make some reasonable points. I however, am looking at this from a different angle. I’m applying the “average man” test. This is not something I made up, by the way. It’s rooted in English law.
Let’s say that a cop writes down the wrong house address when preparing for a raid. And then bad things happen. That cop has been negligent. He could be fired. And his city could be sued. But that error alone would not make him criminally culpable, in my opinion. Because anyone could write down a wrong address.
But I can’t believe that an “average man” would fire through a house window at an unknown target, especially if he knows that innocents could be in the house. So doing so would be beyond negligence, even beyond gross negligence. It would be a criminal act.
But of course a jury will decide. And at this point I wouldn’t place a big bet either way.