Should "bullycide" be murder?

[Great Nepal]

You give someone who you know to be suicidal a loaded gun, the person pulls and blows their own brains out. Are you guilty of murder (or at least manslaughter) or not?

No, they're the one that pulled the trigger.

You as a reasonable person should have known the consequences of providing suicidal person a loaded gun by doing so you are demonstrating callous disregard for human life or at the very least recklessness. That is depraved indifference murder and manslaughter respectively. There has been case where indictment for second degree manslaughter was sustained when person simply failed to remove guns from home of suicidal person.

[The Two Jerseys]

No, they're the one that pulled the trigger.

You as a reasonable person should have known the consequences of providing suicidal person a loaded gun by doing so you are demonstrating callous disregard for human life or at the very least recklessness. That is depraved indifference murder and manslaughter respectively. There has been case where indictment for second degree manslaughter was sustained when person simply failed to remove guns from home of suicidal person.

I was just doing some checking, in this instance you are correct.

However, bullying still doesn't warrant a murder or manslaughter charge.

[Wisconsin9]

You as a reasonable person should have known the consequences of providing suicidal person a loaded gun by doing so you are demonstrating callous disregard for human life or at the very least recklessness. That is depraved indifference murder and manslaughter respectively. There has been case where indictment for second degree manslaughter was sustained when person simply failed to remove guns from home of suicidal person.

I was just doing some checking, in this instance you are correct.

However, bullying still doesn't warrant a murder or manslaughter charge.

Why not, exactly?

[The Two Jerseys]

I was just doing some checking, in this instance you are correct.

However, bullying still doesn't warrant a murder or manslaughter charge.

Why not, exactly?

Because the bully isn't pulling the trigger themself or handing the suicidal person a loaded gun.

[Wisconsin9]

Why not, exactly?

Because the bully isn't pulling the trigger themself or handing the suicidal person a loaded gun.

If I pay a person to kill someone else, I'm still a criminal.

[Great Nepal]

Why not, exactly?

Because the bully isn't pulling the trigger themself or handing the suicidal person a loaded gun.

It's same principle though.
You are demonstrating disregard for life of the victim by bullying them despite knowledge that it is having detrimental effect on physiological stability of the victim and knowledge that victims of bulling are several times more likely to commit suicide; analogous to handing suicidal person a loaded gun.

[Scyobayrynn]

You as a reasonable person should have known the consequences of providing suicidal person a loaded gun by doing so you are demonstrating callous disregard for human life or at the very least recklessness. That is depraved indifference murder and manslaughter respectively. There has been case where indictment for second degree manslaughter was sustained when person simply failed to remove guns from home of suicidal person.

I was just doing some checking, in this instance you are correct.

However, bullying still doesn't warrant a murder or manslaughter charge.

Involuntary Manslaughter is a completely debatable possibility for bully incited suicide.
UNlawful Act Manslaughter--which falls under the perview Involuntary Manslaughter
"Unlawful act manslaughter occurs when someone causes a death while committing or attempting to commit an unlawful act, usually a misdemeanor. Some states distinguish between conduct that is malum in se (bad in itself) and conduct that is malum prohibitum (bad because it is prohibited by law). Conduct that is malum in se is based on common-law definitions of crime; for example, an Assault and Battery could be classified as malum in se. Acts that are made illegal by legislation—for example, reckless driving—are malum prohibitum. In states that use this distinction, an act must be malum in se to constitute manslaughter. If an act is malum prohibitum, it is not manslaughter unless the person who committed it could have foreseen that death would be a direct result of the act."

It is a completely reasonable argument that if bullying reaches the point of harassment and or simple assault and battery(non-felonious criminal acts) which then end in the death of bullied, a case can be made for Unlawful Act Manslaughter.

[The Two Jerseys]

Because the bully isn't pulling the trigger themself or handing the suicidal person a loaded gun.

It's same principle though.
You are demonstrating disregard for life of the victim by bullying them despite knowledge that it is having detrimental effect on physiological stability of the victim and knowledge that victims of bulling are several times more likely to commit suicide; analogous to handing suicidal person a loaded gun.

By that logic, you're a murderer if you give someone a cigarette and they die of lung cancer.

[Great Nepal]

It's same principle though.
You are demonstrating disregard for life of the victim by bullying them despite knowledge that it is having detrimental effect on physiological stability of the victim and knowledge that victims of bulling are several times more likely to commit suicide; analogous to handing suicidal person a loaded gun.

By that logic, you're a murderer if you give someone a cigarette and they die of lung cancer.

No, a cigarette doesn't cause lung cancer, person has choice in taking cigarette while they are of good mental competence and frankly causation of cancer is still quite difficult to track. If you gave packs of cigarettes to a child who smokes it and dies of lung cancer and ME states primary cause of smoking, then yes you would definitely be responsible: murder or manslaughter is obviously matter for jury.

[Sociobiology]

Because the bully isn't pulling the trigger themself or handing the suicidal person a loaded gun.

It's same principle though.
You are demonstrating disregard for life of the victim by bullying them despite knowledge that it is having detrimental effect on physiological stability of the victim and knowledge that victims of bulling are several times more likely to commit suicide; analogous to handing suicidal person a loaded gun.

but here lies the problem, few bullies recognize they are bullying, most believe they are simply socializing normally. Now many have a rather skewed view as to what we would consider normal socialization is, they are often acting towards others as they have been treated and thus believe is normal.
bullying itself has a rather vague definition.

[United Marxist Nations]

Someone's offended.

I am offended because the term fucking sucks. It sounds awful.

Not to mention that it doesn't even mean what is given in the OP, grammatically speaking (literal definition would be killing of bully)

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

No, what a very dumb idea.

[Risottia]

Bullycide is defined as suicide encouraged by bullying.

Defined in what law exactly?

Anyway, no. Driving someone to suicide is already covered by articles other than murder. Catch-alls in jurisprudence are A! BAD! IDEA!

[King Raven]

Could you prove that it was the bully's fault?

[Liriena]

If a bully's verbal or physical abuse demonstrably lead to their victim inflicting harm upon themselves, or committing suicide, it should be treated as manslaughter. If it was deliberate (as in, the bully overtly encouraged the self-harm or suicide, or knew that their actions would provoke self-harm or suicide), then I would say a murder charge would not be unreasonable.

[Liriena]

For one thing, the bit about bullying making people strong is shit, and for another, even if it did, that doesn't justify the psychological damage.

It makes you stronger, helps you take shit better.

No. It just traumatized me, and stole my entire childhood from me.

[Apparatchikstan]

There is a distinction between victim and victimization.
If you are beaten, dragged into a restroom and head flushed, then given a wedgie, and left crying and wounded on the floor while your attackers laughingly go on about their day; well then, you have most certainly been victimized. Naturally there should be some legal recourse against this offense and the offenders. Whether you psychologically surrender to the trauma, and allow yourself to be a victim of the event, is an entirely different matter. And suicide is the ultimate surrender to anything and everything, leaving in it's wake possible victims of it's own.
People who purposely prey upon and brutalize others should be punished for "their" predations as a matter of course. And those victimized should be aided however necessary to preserve their integral sense of self, because becoming a victim is essentially becoming lost in a sense. And that deep an absence of self can lead us to make terrible choices for ourselves. That being said, a suicide ultimately only has one accountable participant.

[Donut section]

No, in no way shape or form should a person be responsible because someones parents didn't teach them that what another person says isn't a reflection of who you really are.

Hell, i was an abused child, if i hadn't received the massive amount of bullying as a challenge i would have tried suicide.

[The Risen Jaguar Warriors]

It makes you stronger, helps you take shit better.

No. It just traumatized me, and stole my entire childhood from me.

Me too.... :'(

[Geanna]

Unless the intended application of bullying was to drive on to suicide, then yes, it could be applied with some degree of a murder charge. However, the burden of proof, so to speak, would lie on whether this was the intention, and whether the bully knew of the suicidal thoughts/tendencies of the victim. In which case, a manslaughter charge would be more applicable going down this road.

[Augarundus]

Why would it be? A person X says something mean to person Y, and, in response, person Y kills himself? How is X at all responsible for the actions of Y? We wouldn't accept that producers of violent films are responsible for school shootings (if it were somehow proven that the shootings were committed after having been inspired by these films), because the shooters are independent moral agents who freely chose their actions.

If blaming the "inspiration" for a crime (by the way, I'm fairly sure suicide is not even a crime in most jurisdictions - people who commit suicide aren't doing anything immoral, and many of us would accept that suicide can be done rationally and morally under certain circumstances, as in the case of physician-assisted suicide, so it's puzzling as to why suicide in this case is "murder by proxy") were the norm, wouldn't we also have to put on trial anyone whose actions contributed to someone's decision to commit suicide? If someone breaks up with their boy/girlfriend, and (s)he subsequently kills him/herself out of grief, is the surviving partner guilty of murder? Obviously not.

In a practical sense, this sort of law would encounter two problems:

A) The only answer to the above problem (how do we distinguish between actions which led to a suicide which should not be considered 'bullycide' and actions which led to a suicide which should be prosecuted?) is some sort of intent-based legal standard, but that's impossible to prove. A seemingly innocuous statement could be blamed for someone's decision to commit suicide - was this statement "bullying"? It's impossible to divine whether the intent of the alleged "bully" was malicious or not, so "reasonable doubt" will always exist, and any successful prosecution will require either a confession or an arbitrary intervention on the part of the jury.

B) This creates perverse incentives for the alleged victims of bullying - if they know that the legal system systematically favors the prosecution in "bullycide" cases, they can always choose to kill themselves in order to get someone else convicted of murder. Of course, this requires willingness to accept a pretty significant personal cost (death), but also potentially ensures that your enemy is locked in prison for life/thirty years/till execution. In effect, it's doubly a murder-suicide, because your decision to commit suicide condemns another to death. This probably wouldn't be very common, but it's a theoretical flaw in this law that should show how ridiculous it is: that you could potentially be convicted for a crime based entirely on the decisions made by another person (that is, the law has no regard for your separate agency).

[Wisconsin9]

Why would it be? A person X says something mean to person Y, and, in response, person Y kills himself? How is X at all responsible for the actions of Y? We wouldn't accept that producers of violent films are responsible for school shootings (if it were somehow proven that the shootings were committed after having been inspired by these films), because the shooters are independent moral agents who freely chose their actions.

If blaming the "inspiration" for a crime (by the way, I'm fairly sure suicide is not even a crime in most jurisdictions - people who commit suicide aren't doing anything immoral, and many of us would accept that suicide can be done rationally and morally under certain circumstances, as in the case of physician-assisted suicide, so it's puzzling as to why suicide in this case is "murder by proxy") were the norm, wouldn't we also have to put on trial anyone whose actions contributed to someone's decision to commit suicide? If someone breaks up with their boy/girlfriend, and (s)he subsequently kills him/herself out of grief, is the surviving partner guilty of murder? Obviously not.

In a practical sense, this sort of law would encounter two problems:

A) The only answer to the above problem (how do we distinguish between actions which led to a suicide which should not be considered 'bullycide' and actions which led to a suicide which should be prosecuted?) is some sort of intent-based legal standard, but that's impossible to prove. A seemingly innocuous statement could be blamed for someone's decision to commit suicide - was this statement "bullying"? It's impossible to divine whether the intent of the alleged "bully" was malicious or not, so "reasonable doubt" will always exist, and any successful prosecution will require either a confession or an arbitrary intervention on the part of the jury.

B) This creates perverse incentives for the alleged victims of bullying - if they know that the legal system systematically favors the prosecution in "bullycide" cases, they can always choose to kill themselves in order to get someone else convicted of murder. Of course, this requires willingness to accept a pretty significant personal cost (death), but also potentially ensures that your enemy is locked in prison for life/thirty years/till execution. In effect, it's doubly a murder-suicide, because your decision to commit suicide condemns another to death. This probably wouldn't be very common, but it's a theoretical flaw in this law that should show how ridiculous it is: that you could potentially be convicted for a crime based entirely on the decisions made by another person (that is, the law has no regard for your separate agency).

As pointed out many many times previously, intent is not always required for there to be a crime. Regards your second point, it should be fairly fucking obvious that if someone's willing to kill themselves to punish a bully, it's probably been some pretty fucking serious bullying.

[Esternial]

Can always give it a new category instead of trying to fit it into the existing ones, and determine its own set of punishments.

[Shilya]

Can always give it a new category instead of trying to fit it into the existing ones, and determine its own set of punishments.

Which would still have to be very broad. I see four main cases here:

a) The bully knew that the victim was in danger of killing himself, and pressed on with the specific intent to get him to kill himself. (equivalent to murder)
b) The bully knew, as above, and continued anyways, but without intent to drive him to suicide. (manslaughter)
c) The bully didn't know, but the victim was out of other options to escape the bullying (maybe also due to mental illness?) (Unlawful act manslaughter)
d) The bully didn't know, and the victim had other options that they didn't see. This one may conflate with the one stated above, depending on where you are. In my country, that would clear the bully of the death, since suicide, while other options were open, is regarded as a voluntary choice that others can't be blamed for.

So that's a massive range. How would you plan to cram all that in a law? I'd say it's better to apply existing laws, or amend them a bit.

[The New Sea Territory]

Not murder, but one could make a legal case for manslaughter.