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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums13 Charged in Hazing Death of Robert Champion
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. Thirteen people have been charged in the death of a Florida A&M University drum major from DeKalb County who died after being hazed aboard a band bus in Orlando last fall, authorities said Wednesday.
At least five people will face criminal charges in the hazing death of Florida A&M University drum major Robert Champion aboard a band bus in Orlando last fall.
He called the beating death of 26-year-old Robert Champion "nothing short of an American tragedy."
He said Champion's death was not the result of a single blow but was "attributable to multiple blows."
The medical examiner's office in Orlando found last year that Champion had bruises to his chest, arms, shoulder and back and internal bleeding that caused him to go into shock, which killed him.
http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/1313-charged-in-famu-1429796.html
longship
(40,416 posts)They bullied him to death.
This is what prisons were made for.
Book 'em, Danno!
ladjf
(17,320 posts)nt
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)Two weeks before Champion's death, White had suspended 26 band members for hazing.
ladjf
(17,320 posts)He should have enlisted help from the administration and the police. If he had already suspended 26 players and yet the hazing had
contued he obviously had lost control of the organization. At that point, it had become a University and law enforcement problem.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,146 posts)More Florida laws that need to be changed.
"Lamar said 11 of the suspects would be charged with hazing with death, a felony which carries a maximum sentence of six years. He said the evidence in the case would not support a charge of murder."
I'd have though it's second degree murder:
The victim is dead;
The death was caused by the criminal act of the defendant;
There was an unlawful killing of the victim by an act imminently dangerous to another and demonstrating a depraved mind without regard for human life.
Understanding a second degree murder can be more confusing than the more serious first degree murder. The "criminal act" reference in the statute must be a single event or series of related actions arising from and performed pursuant to a single design or purpose of committing the murder or creating the dangerous condition that led to the death. Although second-degree murder can carry a potential incarceration of up to life in prison, the death penalty cannot be imposed on a person found guilty of second-degree murder.
http://www.arnoldlawfirmllc.com/CM/Custom/SecondDegreeMurder.asp
I'd think that some jurisdiction would just call it simple murder.