[bleh123]

I'm not fully convinced the courts got this one completely right.

This is a very interesting legal argument and lays emphasis on the need for legislators to express their intentions in writing more fully as opposed to writing laws with such loose and widely applicable terms such as "Life" without giving the term or their intent in using it more context.

If, as the Judge argues, that "he did not legally die as his presence in this courtroom indicates":

1. He's indicating the existence of a written law stating that a person may only die once.

2.Additionally, there are actually legal provisions that delegate to the medically accepted definition of "Death" instead of deciding it themselves.

3. The Judge indicates that ruling in the plaintiffs favor would cause chaos for situations where medically induced resurrections would confuse laws from insurance to banking. That is not the plaintiffs burden to bear. That does not sound like a valid reason to rule on the interpretation of a law.

Finally, and i believe the most important part here: The US Constitution lays liberty and freedom at the heart of individual rights conferred upon people from God or a superior force. All laws enforced by the Government must be explicitly legislated within these bounds since it prevents the default case moving from "Individual God given rights, unless expressly regulated within constitutional boundaries" to "Rights conferred by the Government discretion" -> The second case is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

The burden of legislation (And clearly elucidating intent) is upon the Legislative body. By leaving ambiguous the part within the letter of the law that regulates individual liberties for individuals found guilty of a crime, the Legislative has "given up" their jurisdiction in the edge case scenario which is in front of the court since it is "undefined" - This would have been a great case for the courts to weigh in and restrict legislative over reach and force more clearly written laws.

For those who think this is picking on too many nits - it sets precedent. A better example for argument might be the tax code and the popular saying that there is no living person capable of declaring that they are fully operating within the letter of the tax code due to the many levels of discretionary interpretation it allows.

[technothrasher]

Point 2 is where this man's argument falls apart. The medically accepted definition of death is the permanent, irreversible cessation of 1) the circulatory system, 2) the respiratory system, and 3) cerebral function.

Just having your heart stop is not "death" and hasn't been for a very long time. That definition only hangs around these days colloquially for people to enhance the drama of their medical stories.

Oh, and off topic, but the US Constitution does not actually mention anything about God given rights. That's the Declaration of Independence. In fact, the Constitution does not really address the rights of the people at all so much as the limitations of the government. The bill of rights does mention some of the rights of the people, but only in directing the government to specifically not encroach upon them, and the 10th amendment was added to make it clear that the bill of rights does not in any way abridge any unmentioned natural rights.

[beerandt]

Also, many of those said rights are forfeited upon conviction, especially while still in the legal custody of the state.

[kenjackson]

Legal and medical definitions of death I’ve seen include the terms “permanent” and/or “irreversible”.

The prisoner being alive would imply that he never actually died, at least not medically or legally.

[bleh123]

I respectfully disagree. There are conflicting provisions under law, but the widely accepted standard is a declaration "by a qualified medical professional"[1]As another comment here helpfully points out, there are scenarios such a person going missing for a legally mandated number of years before being declared legally dead[2]

[1] http://tiny.cc/mbzzfz [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_death

[zozbot234]

I don't think this is correct. People have been declared legally dead simply due to being missing for a long time, and there's nothing "permanent" or "irreversible" about being a missing person - sometimes they show up again.

[MereInterest]

There is a big difference between being dead and being declared dead. One is a fact about the universe, and the other is a fact about what somebody said about the universe. Seeing somebody who was dead and is now alive is cause to start a religion. Seeing somebody who was declared dead and is now alive is cause to doubt that initial declaration.

[tptacek]

The word "God" doesn't appear in the US Constitution, which also doesn't make mention of any "superior force".

People whose hearts stop on an operating room table and are subsequently resuscitated aren't issued death certificates.

[JJMcJ]

> And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures

From the Articles of Confederation.

The present Constitution doesn't even have that much of reference, and that is by intention of the Framers.

[harryh]

The US Constitution lays liberty and freedom at the heart of individual rights conferred upon people from God or a superior force.

No. It does not.

Go read it again.

[paulcole]

Strongly disagree. Just avoid the mental gymnastics and think like a reasonable person:

If you are currently walking and talking then it is obvious that you have not died.

Alternatively, can a person have more than one life? Unless this is Mario Brothers, no.

This may change in the future with new technology but currently death is a permanent state not a temporary one.

[mlthoughts2018]

It absolutely feels like a judge deciding “here’s the decision I want because it fits my personal understanding of conmon sense in this situation” — which is frightening since, based on my mom’s experience working in a variety of state & county judges’ offices, there’s not much reason to trust the common sense of judges at all, even when they are basically benevolent people (a lot of them aren’t).

[PhasmaFelis]

It's an interesting world we've come to where "you are alive, therefore you have not yet died" can be considered an idiosyncratic personal viewpoint.

[mlthoughts2018]

I did not say anything like that. I said the judge is trying to effectively inject the judge’s notion of common sense in an extralegal way.

The impression of whether the judge’s common sense is valid or invalid has utterly nothing to do with this issue at all. The issue is that off the cuff common sense reasoning is not rigorous legal reasoning, it can have all kinds of unintended consequences.

[PhasmaFelis]

> I did not say anything like that. I said the judge is trying to effectively inject the judge’s notion of common sense in an extralegal way.

The judge is describing the existing, well-established law in a slightly jokey manner.

[GavinMcG]

Why on earth do you claim the judge is doing this? The law in Iowa defines death as irreversible. What reason do you have for saying the judge's common sense is what's at play rather than, you know, the law?

[mlthoughts2018]

You’re really missing the point.

What if a prisoner suffers a brain trauma and it’s unknown if it’s irreversible or not? Or under some future law, the prisoner’s family can keep them on life support and their status as either having fully served the sentence or not has ramifications for life insurance payouts from a complex employment contract with a “morality” clause like some athletes have.

You could wheel the prisoner on a bed into the courtroom with machines beeping. What would this judge’s ruling say to do? You can “see” the “living” prisoner present, but it’s not medically or legally known at that moment if it’s reversible, and if it’s not, the declaration of “death” actually has urgent ramifications for other people.

It’s precisely because there can be such complicated corner cases that we absolutely should not accept a judge’s snappy line of rhetoric about seeing the prisoner present in the courtroom as legal basis.

This has direct implications because that one-off armchair wisdom of that one judge suddenly affects what the state definition of death means by “irreversible” even if that was not the common sense intention.

It has nothing at all to do with loopholes for this particular prisoner.

[GavinMcG]

> You could wheel the prisoner on a bed into the courtroom with machines beeping. What would this judge’s ruling say to do? You can “see” the “living” prisoner present, but it’s not medically or legally known at that moment if it’s reversible, and if it’s not, the declaration of “death” actually has urgent ramifications for other people.

Which is why the same law also says that "In the event that artificial means of support preclude a determination that [spontaneous respiratory and circulatory] functions have ceased, a person will be considered dead if in the announced opinion of two physicians, based on ordinary standards of medical practice, that person has experienced an irreversible cessation of spontaneous brain functions."

I mean, seriously, just Google "Iowa death definition" and you can find all this. There is no loophole whereby the judge gets to just go with his gut.

> It’s precisely because there can be such complicated corner cases that we absolutely should not accept a judge’s snappy line of rhetoric about seeing the prisoner present in the courtroom as legal basis.

It's not the legal basis. It's, like you said, a snappy line of rhetoric. In the written decision/order the judge will refer to the statute and to the uncontested fact that the man's lack of respiratory and circulatory functioning was reversed.

> This has direct implications because that one-off armchair wisdom of that one judge suddenly affects what the state definition of death means by “irreversible” even if that was not the common sense intention.

No, it doesn't. A judge's snappy rhetoric doesn't make new law. You're tilting at windmills here.