Attorney Blames Xbox For Infant Death

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I don’t know who is the bigger scumbag, the guy that kills a kid and blames his Xbox or the attorney trying to convict him by saying this:

Berardinelli said of Salahuddin in his closing arguments: "His entire life and daily routine is about playing the game. "What do you think someone with that kind of obsession is going to do when it gets knocked over? What do you think is going to happen? "The skull fractures on that baby are what happened."
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I can see the DEFENSE attorney trying to blame video games...but the prosecutor? What the!?!?!
 
The baby pulled his Xbox. I totally understand. Case closed, let this man off the hook!
 
America.... Land of the put the blame on something else but not take responsibility for their own actions...
 
"Small things make base men proud".
- (Act IV, Scene I)

"The first thing we do,...kill all the lawyers."
- (Act IV, Scene II)

Shakespeare's Henry VI
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:rolleyes:
 
I say fry him in hot oil and then some more! WTF is it with people hurting babies or children? How sick can they be?
 
*sigh*... how about a little research before slamming the D.A. on this one.

The defendant himself CONFESSED that the motivating factor for beating the child was, in fact, due to her disconnecting his game. As a prosecutor for 10 years myself, I too would have hammered this in closing argument.

The D.A. does not states (as far as I can find from the press accounts) that videogames are inherently evil and caused him to kill. That is the territory of morons like Jack Thompson. What he is arguing here is a MOTIVE for what triggered the attack based on the defendant's own words.

Nothing more... nothing less.

I hope you appreciate the irony of calling a prosecutor a "scumbag" under these circumstances....
 
why is it that i dont hear no one killing others over a ps3? (no, people lining up to get one dont count)
 
On a second thought, i didnt like this line:

"Hoof also claimed that the three-page confession Salahuddin provided to homicide detectives was coerced."

So maybe this is not as cut and dry as it seems.
 
^^I know.

Any person who gets their console or favorite electronic item damaged has 100 percent perfect reason to kill.

Duh, doesn't anyone read the Bible?
 
great, the initial gaming generation has grown up and had kids

when will parents learn. Play the kids games with them now and they will play your games with you later :)

Ignore them now, and they will ignore you later.

Teach them their value now and they will teach you your value later.
 
How about.... someone beat the lawyer senseless with the Xbox, then beat the ahole to death with it. THAT would be ironic. :eek::rolleyes::p
 
wazooda said:
*sigh*... how about a little research before slamming the D.A. on this one.

The defendant himself CONFESSED that the motivating factor for beating the child was, in fact, due to her disconnecting his game. As a prosecutor for 10 years myself, I too would have hammered this in closing argument.

The D.A. does not states (as far as I can find from the press accounts) that videogames are inherently evil and caused him to kill. That is the territory of morons like Jack Thompson. What he is arguing here is a MOTIVE for what triggered the attack based on the defendant's own words.

Nothing more... nothing less.

I hope you appreciate the irony of calling a prosecutor a "scumbag" under these circumstances....
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the issue is precedent, and US law is built upon precedents. the problem is a conviction here could well set up categorical precedent in an already heated issue of video games and their effects and causality of use. particularly when discussing violent or "adult" content. additional time because there was a "violent" video game in the same room when the crime was committed? you may laugh, but this kind of crap happens in court, and can set game makers and publishers up for lawsuits, or a 3rd person who had nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that he/she bought the game.

and a D.A. is an elected office. it is political and in the wake of Mr. Nifong's shenanigans...fair or unfair, this office will and should be scrutinized.
 
wazooda said:
*sigh*... how about a little research before slamming the D.A. on this one.

The defendant himself CONFESSED that the motivating factor for beating the child was, in fact, due to her disconnecting his game. As a prosecutor for 10 years myself, I too would have hammered this in closing argument.

The D.A. does not states (as far as I can find from the press accounts) that videogames are inherently evil and caused him to kill. That is the territory of morons like Jack Thompson. What he is arguing here is a MOTIVE for what triggered the attack based on the defendant's own words.

Nothing more... nothing less.

I hope you appreciate the irony of calling a prosecutor a "scumbag" under these circumstances....
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Ditto - sorry [H], but you got this story wrong. That's the PROSECUTOR'S quote. And I read nothing that said he was blaming the XBox for the infant's death - rather the guy's obsession.
 
The Lawyer should have blamed the asshole for not getting a wireless controller.
 
All I say is, forced labor for life!

Starting with the manufacturing of sports articles and sweaters!

Maybe the US market could be competitive again.:D
 
seems kind of cut and dried to me... someone whacked the kid. That's murder. Lock that sob up. If he did it because of his console, so be it... it's no different than it being because of his car, or anything else
 
xxGriff said:
the issue is precedent, and US law is built upon precedents. the problem is a conviction here could well set up categorical precedent in an already heated issue of video games and their effects and causality of use. particularly when discussing violent or "adult" content. additional time because there was a "violent" video game in the same room when the crime was committed? you may laugh, but this kind of crap happens in court, and can set game makers and publishers up for lawsuits, or a 3rd person who had nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that he/she bought the game.

and a D.A. is an elected office. it is political and in the wake of Mr. Nifong's shenanigans...fair or unfair, this office will and should be scrutinized.
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Sorry... but I have to disagree. First, there is no precendent setting factual situation here and, technically, it is not how precendence operates in American juris prudence; i.e. a conviction here does not create new law that kicking the wire out of an Xbox is grounds for a murder conviction.

In addition, I don't believe this opens the door for related problems to the industry. For example, I had a case where a guy killed his wife because she did not cook his eggs correctly. This, of course, is not *why* he killed her (he had a long history of domestic violence), but it was the precipitating event which I argued, successfully, to the jury. The Egg Counsel was not alarmed, nor were a rash of lawsuits unleashed upon chickens world-wide.

Secondly, if he is convicted, the fact of a "violent" video game in the room will be the least of his worries at sentencing. Most people don't realize this, but judges often have sentencing guidelines for what they may or may not consider during sentencing. In California, where I practiced, there are specific aggravating and mitigating factors that a judge, by law, needs to take into account when sentencing a murder case. I'm sure Penn. has similar statutes and I'm confident playing a violent video game, if considered by the judge, would be grounds for reversal of the sentence.

Cracking open the skull of a toddler will be enough for the judge on this one to longball this REAL scumbag.

Not aimed at you in particular, but I just wish that gamers as a whole would approach things in the same balanced way that we accuse everyone else of NOT doing when it comes to videogames.
 
This just makes me sick, I can honestly not understand how this much rage could be directed to a 17 month old.

I have a son, who is almost 2 years old, and I know that kids aren't born with the instinct to not touch the xbox. Thanks to parenting and discipline he knows not to pull the cords or push the buttons. He knows how to hold the controller (he doesn't get one with batteries in it yet) and even hums the star wars theme when we play lego star wars. Even though he isn't actually playing its a blast to pretend to play with him and he loves it too.

I couldn't live with myself if I let a video game bring me to a point of doing that to anyone let alone a child. I hope they throw the book at him and its a damn big book!
 
Sheesh, this story makes me sick to my stomach.

A fractured arm from before the incident? My God, how much torture had this child endured? A baby, that is all she was. So sad.
 
This Xbox was going to get Ring of Death anyways.

hang him.
 
Cracking open the skull of a toddler will be enough for the judge on this one to longball this REAL scumbag.
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/Agreed ... but a child is dead, and nothing will change that. :(

I hope you are correct in your opinion and the center holds, but i do not have that kind of faith. sentencing guidelines are an entirely different can O-wurms..not going there :p

and no i am not offended nor did i mean to offend.

but the playing of politics with this type of case is almost a given. I disagree with the D.A.'s choice of words in closing. i understand the reasoning, and any given jury can be overwhelmed with legalisms and procedure. but the "be very afraid" doctrine is one i am weary and leery of. there does not seem to be any shortage of D.A.'s in hot water in our country, and being a public servant, they should be held to a higher standard. there is great responsibility in the office, and even if i do not personally care for the individual or their politics, i do respect the office and the need for accountability.

i do hope you understand my quoting from Shakespeare's Henry VI. it is not the "obvious" condemnation of lawyers that most people take at first hearing. there is a deeper meaning, but i do love the dichotomy ;)
 
wazooda said:
What he is arguing here is a MOTIVE for what triggered the attack based on the defendant's own words.

Nothing more... nothing less.

I hope you appreciate the irony of calling a prosecutor a "scumbag" under these circumstances....
Click to expand...

I called him a scumbag because a GOOD District Attorney would not have put ANYTHING out there to the jury that could be used as an excuse. Hell, he is doing more to help the guy than his own attorney. A real DA would have stood up and said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, people play video games all the time and never kill anyone. Did the video game crack that baby's skull in 5 places? Did om Clancy kill that bay? NO. The person that killed that baby in cold blood, whether he was playing Xbox or making toast in the kitchen, was THAN MAN RIGHT THERE!!!!"

Perry Mason music would start playing and the fucker would shoot himself in th courtroom.
 
Steve said:
I called him a scumbag because a GOOD District Attorney would not have put ANYTHING out there to the jury that could be used as an excuse. Hell, he is doing more to help the guy than his own attorney. A real DA would have stood up and said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, people play video games all the time and never kill anyone. Did the video game crack that baby's skull in 5 places? Did om Clancy kill that bay? NO. The person that killed that baby in cold blood, whether he was playing Xbox or making toast in the kitchen, was THAN MAN RIGHT THERE!!!!"

Perry Mason music would start playing and the fucker would shoot himself in th courtroom.
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I agree. This had very little to do with the game, This guy had serious anger issues and any thing could have triggered it. It amazes me that anyone could value a game more than there child. I'm totally for " an eye for and eye" in this case.
 
Steve's spellchecker got owned. ;)

Seriously though, I can't see any sane judge even think about video games in this case. The only thing he will see in front of his two eyes is a dead baby and the man that killed him -- with priors.

You can safely say this man will be locked up for life, and the prison population will carry out the death sentence for us.
 
Maybe some of you haven't been following this when we posted on it before, so let me explain a little why people are reacting the way they are.

This is the DA that repeatedly kept bringing the console into play by saying "his beloved Xbox" and singling out the fact that it was a "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, a violent combat video game." The guy was practically helping the defense lay the blame on "murder simulators" and video games. There was NO NEED for this, at all, whatsoever. He would have been just as effective saying "that man killed that baby."

If the man is convicted because of his "obsession" with a video game that results in "skull fractures on that baby" what does that say? What was the DA trying to say?

So, just for giggles, I will buy the argument that the DA was not directly trying to tie the video game into this crime....IF someone can tell me what the district attorney WAS trying to do by repeatedly making those statements.
 
pwn3ddc4.jpg
 
Steve. From reading the article, it is clear that the DA is not going after the Xbox but that the person had such an obsession with it that if something happened to it that he would kill someone. The guys defense is trying to get the whole thing tossed out on technicalities.
 
Only in America where the cheaters, the liers and the beggers can have such a wonderful life while the ones that work hard, maintain balance and struggle to make things right get dirt kicked into their face.
 
soulman901 said:
Only in America where the cheaters, the liers and the beggers can have such a wonderful life while the ones that work hard, maintain balance and struggle to make things right get dirt kicked into their face.
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It's liar, not lier. And what's your beef with America? It happens all over the world. You should read the papers more often.

And nobody's kicked dirt in my face.
 
Steve said:
I called him a scumbag because a GOOD District Attorney would not have put ANYTHING out there to the jury that could be used as an excuse. Hell, he is doing more to help the guy than his own attorney. A real DA would have stood up and said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, people play video games all the time and never kill anyone. Did the video game crack that baby's skull in 5 places? Did om Clancy kill that bay? NO. The person that killed that baby in cold blood, whether he was playing Xbox or making toast in the kitchen, was THAN MAN RIGHT THERE!!!!"

Perry Mason music would start playing and the fucker would shoot himself in th courtroom.
Click to expand...

Another truism of the courtroom is that no one knows anything unless you sit through the entire trial and hear all comments in context. Even then, the newspapers often get it wrong. I can't tell you how many times I would give a closing and read it in the paper the next morning and think "who the f*ck said that?!?!" My point being is that we are all discussing this in a vacuum so take it for what it is worth... :)

That being said, unless you've actually tried on of these types of cases, I think you are speculating a tad too much. Juries ALWAYS want to know *why* someone lost it. I've seen cases with confessions go NG (not guilty) because jurors just couldn't figure out WHY the guy lost it... even though it is not an element of the crime (i.e. a requirement).

Contrary to your argument, a "good" D.A. would have done exactly as he has done; emphasise the triggering event that the defendant himself claimed started his rage.

My point above, on balance, I think is pertinent here. If it was horribly cooked eggs that started this murder, no one in the gaming community (or the Egg Community for that matter) would be bashing the D.A. for hammering the point home. However, the gaming community has become so over sensitized to game criticism, that we have a tendency to have knee-jerk reactions anytime videogaming is mentioned without, IMHO, digging deeper into what the references were actually used for.

Lol on the Perry Mason reference. Sadly, I would have to spend a good 5 minutes in almost every closing argument disabusing the jurors on the notion that trials were like anything they've seen in TV or movies. There was always someone woh thought defendants cracked under cross-exam and confessed on the stand.... :rolleyes:
 
The most harm I've ever felt from a console was the Sega Saturn. My older brother during Virtual Fighter would continuously kick me into the wall with no combo's so I couldn't escape. Then I would cry.
 
It sometimes scares me as to what any of us are capable of with respect to challenges to our materialistic addictions... In my infinite wanderings I have imagined many hypotheticals, and I myself am not afraid to admit that my responses to what may seem in hindsight to be mediocre crimes would be utterly vicious and inhumane.

Mediocre crimes like theft of treasured property, swindling, cheating, or malicious damage done to possessions I hold dear, such as would be my home, my means of transportation, things I plant, or especially anything that I myself count as being created and/or nurtured by me.

Someone once stole my custom license plate that was both very unique and dear to me... I was so immersed in anger and vengeance that I swore if I ever caught the person, I would torment him and then break his legs... on the 3rd day I realized it was a blessing I had not caught him, for I would be in jail right there and then.

But a child... that has absolutely no intent other than curiosity... that, not even I could fathom. It is sick, I bet she was a beautiful little girl.
 
i've killed for my xbox and i'll kill again... what of it??

lol, i dont even own an xbox
 
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