Virginia Middle School Student Faces Felony Charges for Laxative Incident

[Codewiz]

Originally posted by: Pepsei
A prank that went too far is the key here...

say, someone is running, you stick your foot out... he slips... got up..you laught about it....

what if he slips and hit his head and dies? is it still a prank?
okay, what if he brokes his arm? a prank?
a little scratch?

the teacher in question got sick...that's the point....
if the teacher wasn't affect at all... perhaps we wouldn't hear anything about it. maybe the kid will try again with a larger dose?

My point is that I DOUBT that the kid meant for the teacher to get seriously sick. He just wanted to see the teacher go running out of the room to poop his guts out. He probably didn't even know that it could cause the teacher to get seriously sick

Do I think he needs to be punished? Yes because of his stupidity. He picked the wrong person and the wrong type of prank for his age

I just don't see why people are so out for blood on this issue when there are more serious offenses. This kid made a mistake and hopefully he will learn from it. I don't think he is a bad kid for it. I did plenty of stupid crap when I was in 8th grade. Stuff that was much worse than this but the key item is that I learned from my mistakes. Hopefully he will also.

 

[Pepsei]

by the way... is there a link to this story.. .. I searched washingtonpost and got nothing.


edit... also searched WRC TV's website... www.nbc4.com and nothing.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
laxtives ARE fatal

That doesn't have any bearing on the child's intent.

 

[everman]

I would go for charging him with a a couple hundred hours of community service. If he really wanted to seriously injure the teacher he could easily have used something worse than a laxative.

 

[yellowperil]

I read a case in crim law where a girl was charged with attempted murder because she almost put rat poison in her teacher's coffee (she was caught before doing it). I don't know if it would apply here because laxatives aren't lethal in themselves usually. Also if the court or jury finds he was acting recklessly it really doesn't matter if he didn't intend to hurt the teacher, because they can infer intent based on the consequences.

 

[T2T III]

The snippet doesn't mention what charge was brought against the kid, nor is there a source so we can look it up ourselves. (Shame on you, wje!)

Actually, I pulled the news from my main Cox.net portal page which was listed last evening. Unfortunately, they don't have an archive of the daily news so I can't go back and pull up the story. I'll keep my eyes open and put in a relevant link because more papers in my area should be carrying the story.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: yellowperil
I read a case in crim law where a girl was charged with attempted murder because she almost put rat poison in her teacher's coffee (she was caught before doing it). I don't know if it would apply here because laxatives aren't lethal in themselves usually. Also if the court or jury finds he was acting recklessly it really doesn't matter if he didn't intend to hurt the teacher, because they can infer intent based on the consequences.

No that would be manslaugther. Recklessness without intent to kill is manslaughter. Not all states have attempted manslaughter so a prosecutor will charge that if he desires. A good defense lawyer would be able to destroy any case that had a charge of attempted murder without ANY intent to kill.

 

[BoberFett]

Put laxative in a teachers drink - Felony

Execute your classmates - It's society's fault

 

[TallBill]

makes me glad that i never tried that

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: TheEvil1
its a frekin laxitive. it makes you poop. WTF is teh big deal. yea suspend hiom fine him but 20 years in jail??? i could run someone over with my car and get less time then that. thats redislious

it was a prank for gods sake.

a kig in my school like 5 years ago brought in an UNloaded gun and he only got expelled for 1 year

Laxatives, like any DRUG, have the potential to harm the body. People can have (sometimes fatal) allergies to drugs and/or foods. It's NOT harmless at all. In fact, it's potentially quite harmful, even fatal.

And even if the kid did just put a single dose in the coffe, you don't think causing the teacher to spend the day on the toilet deserves punishment? How 'bout if I did that to you? You'd think the rest of us should laugh and you just have to deal with it?

And to the others: INTENT has nothing to do with whether or not the kid's committed a crime. Is drunk driving not a crime if you didn't mean to? Or if you didn't realize your blood alcohol level was higher than the legal limit?

Pranks are fine. "Pranks" that threten the health, safety, or life of another are not and are, as this thread demonstrates, criminal.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink

Originally posted by: TheEvil1
its a frekin laxitive. it makes you poop. WTF is teh big deal. yea suspend hiom fine him but 20 years in jail??? i could run someone over with my car and get less time then that. thats redislious

it was a prank for gods sake.

a kig in my school like 5 years ago brought in an UNloaded gun and he only got expelled for 1 year

Laxatives, like any DRUG, have the potential to harm the body. People can have (sometimes fatal) allergies to drugs and/or foods. It's NOT harmless at all. In fact, it's potentially quite harmful, even fatal.

And even if the kid did just put a single dose in the coffe, you don't think causing the teacher to spend the day on the toilet deserves punishment? How 'bout if I did that to you? You'd think the rest of us should laugh and you just have to deal with it?

And to the others: INTENT has nothing to do with whether or not the kid's committed a crime. Is drunk driving not a crime if you didn't mean to? Or if you didn't realize your blood alcohol level was higher than the legal limit?

Pranks are fine. "Pranks" that threten the health, safety, or life of another are not and are, as this thread demonstrates, criminal.

For christ sakes, try reading some posts before you start spouting off. The only time INTENT was mentioned was during the discussion on whether or not this would be attempted murder. READ THE THREAD BEFORE YOU REPLY!!!!!!!

 

[Dufman]

almost anything is fatal in an overdose

you can even die from drinking too much water

 

[classy]

This was a bad joke. Nothing more. He should be punished by suspension but all this other stuff is just a bit overboard.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: wje
I guess the part that I don't understand is how the teacher felt ill after drinking the coffee/laxative drink. How much could that kid have placed in the coffee? :Q

It's all about spin. The story would be drastically different if they said the teacher had to spend the rest of the afternoon on the crapper. Besides what jury is going to send a person to jail for 20 years because they made someone get the runs? Now if you say they became violently ill (You get violently ill after ingesting poisons) it becomes much easier to get a conviction - and convictions make better stories than some kid getting expelled from a school.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink

Originally posted by: TheEvil1
its a frekin laxitive. it makes you poop. WTF is teh big deal. yea suspend hiom fine him but 20 years in jail??? i could run someone over with my car and get less time then that. thats redislious

it was a prank for gods sake.

a kig in my school like 5 years ago brought in an UNloaded gun and he only got expelled for 1 year

Laxatives, like any DRUG, have the potential to harm the body. People can have (sometimes fatal) allergies to drugs and/or foods. It's NOT harmless at all. In fact, it's potentially quite harmful, even fatal.

And even if the kid did just put a single dose in the coffe, you don't think causing the teacher to spend the day on the toilet deserves punishment? How 'bout if I did that to you? You'd think the rest of us should laugh and you just have to deal with it?

And to the others: INTENT has nothing to do with whether or not the kid's committed a crime. Is drunk driving not a crime if you didn't mean to? Or if you didn't realize your blood alcohol level was higher than the legal limit?

Pranks are fine. "Pranks" that threten the health, safety, or life of another are not and are, as this thread demonstrates, criminal.

You have a few mis-statements in your post. 1. No one said he should not be punished, but 20 years seems a bit harsh when nothing more than as you stated "You'd think the rest of us should laugh" happened. 2. On the issue of intent: false it does matter, if you are fighting someone and you kill them, intent plays a huge part of the case, it is not black and white there are shades of gray. I think we can all agree that what this kid did was stupid and wrong, but a crime? I think you are taking things a bit too far, what damage was sustained?

 

[Vic]

A couple of hours of "illness" from a laxative prank now demands 5-20 years in jail?

While I do believe that the student should be punished for his "prank," I also feel that we as a society have lost virtually all concept of justice and that our courtrooms are rapidly becoming the instruments of vengeful people.

 

[Tiger]

String the little bastard up!
Overdosing on laxative can have dire consequences. Why shouldn't the little turd be charged with attempted murder?

 

[Transition]

I understand peoples concern with the laxatives, but it was intended to be a prank. Nothing more, nothing less. I'm sure the kid did not have intentions of killing his teacher - but i'm sure he's now realizing the consequences when people put the situation under a magnifying glass and pick apart every "what-if" in the world. Does he deserve to be disciplined? Yes. Is it necessary to bring the situation to the level it is on now? No.

 

[tcsenter]

The world just isn't the same, anymore.

I bet the timeless prank of a cherry bomb in the bathroom will get you time in federal prison on felony explosive and terrorism charges today.

 

[Tiger]

I understand peoples concern with the laxatives, but it was intended to be a prank. Nothing more, nothing less.

When I was that age it never would have occured to me to try a prank like that.
Exactly what kind of discipline should be handed out for an attempted poisoning?
Where is the line between prank and assault, does that depend on amount of hospital time for the victim or whether we chuckle under our breath at the situation?
What if it had been a BB gun instead of a laxative?

 

[Transition]

A BB Gun instead of a laxative?? We're talking about two completely different issues. I'm sure the issue of poisoning his teacher never even crossed his mind. He just wanted to make the guy poop, a lot.

 

[Tiger]

A BB Gun instead of a laxative?? We're talking about two completely different issues

IMHO it's not that big a leap from excusing an attempted poisoning because the convict thought it was only a prank, to excusing a couple of BB's in the butt because it couldn't do any real damage.
Parents ought to have to put up with the treatment teachers get from the little convicts. It'd come to a screaching damn halt.

 

[Transition]

Why don't we just say the kid brought in a nuclear bomb, it's pretty much the same thing.

 

[Mill]

Originally posted by: Tiger
String the little bastard up!
Overdosing on laxative can have dire consequences. Why shouldn't the little turd be charged with attempted murder?

BECAUSE THERE WAS NO INTENT TO MURDER!!!! THAT IS WHY!!!!

Look up mens rea.

 

[Viperoni]

expelled, community service, but IMO, no jail time.