Text Someone, Go to Jail.

Mark J. Randazza would like to have you believe that the recent NJ ruling in regards to text messaging doesn't mean exactly what it says:

"We hold that the sender of a text message could potentially be liable if an accident is caused by texting but only if the sender knew or had special reason to know that the recipient would view the text while driving and thus be distracted." In other words, yes, you can be held responsible if you cause an accident by sending a text message. But only if you knew that the recipient would look at the text message while driving. If you had any reason to have any doubt in your mind, then you will likely not be held liable.

Mr. Randazza wants you and I to think it doesn't mean the BS that it does. Says Randanzza:

So if you send a text message to someone, you don't need to call your lawyer or your insurance company. But if you send someone a text message and they respond back "driving, leave me alone" and then you keep sending text messages, perhaps you might be found liable.

The court has made a very stupid foray into passing blame. Mind you the precedent for this isn't as Randazza states, the McDonalds case. Instead it is actually the "felony murder" rule. See once it was accepted that you could hold a person responsible for an act they did not commit. Did not intend to commit or even agree to participate in, then this door was opened.

While it sounded "tough" to say that the person driving the getaway car from a robbery is responsible for another party's decision to kill their victim, it broke the Blackstonian rule of law whereby you prosecuted people for the crimes they committed and not for anything else. Cleary under Blackstone rules of law, the getaway driver could not be convicted of murder committed by someone else by considering the evidence. There is no weapon in the hand. There is no malicious intent. There is no intent at all.

So with this acceptance of murder by proxy by the courts (which, in my opinion should be done away with completely) allowed the NJ court to issue this dumb ruling.

In effect they are using the same logic as the felony murder. By going out to commit a crime with another party you should reasonably expect that a murder might happen, and therefore you are to be responsible for it if it happens. Never mind that the person who actually committed the act was the person responsible for deciding to kill.

Similarly a person who's phone goes off indicating a text is under no obligation to acknowledge a text. They are in complete control of their faculties and are therefore quite capable of ignoring any text messages that come in. It is impossible for a party that is not in control of the phone or the person who is driving to make them answer or look at the phone. In essence this decision makes a third party responsible for the conscious behavior of another.

That's just dumb.

What if I proposed the following? Since we know that some accidents on the road are caused by people using car radios, why not allow not only the manufacturer of the vehicle to be sued for providing a device that is a known distraction but also the radio station that the driver was listening to?

Oh what's that? It's not reasonable? Why not? The standard for the text message is knowing that the activation of the device could cause a distraction?

Ok. How about the fact that some accidents happen because men see women dressed a certain way. No doubt the women put on the clothes knowing that it would attract attention. Should we allow them to be held responsible for any accidents that occurred because a male driver was distracted by "all that ass"?

Of course we wouldn't even THINK about blaming the woman for being out in public in clothes that might prove a distraction to some men. Why? Because we expect the men to be in control of themselves. In the event that they do allow themselves to be so distracted we expect that they would take responsibility for their own conscious behavior rather than pass the buck.

But this society is fast becoming one in which people want to spread the blame as much as possible rather than face their own singular responsibility for their actions.