Who killed Captain Stacy?

[cyberghostface]

So there was a certain scene in A+X #11 that caught my attention...



Was it really Otto's fault? Let's see.

From Amazing Spider-Man #90...












So basically Spider-Man deliberately causes Dr. Octopus to lose control of his tentacles... the tentacles attack him and knock over debris, killing Captain Stacy... and Otto is the one to blame?

Comments

[icon_uk]

Since Otto is the one choosing to repeatedly commit criminal acts, and Spider-Man is only trying to stop him, yes it is entirely and compltely Otto's fault.

[kuronotenshi]

Hear hear.

[cyberghostface]

The debris only fell because of Spider-Man's deliberate actions. Otto had no control over it.

[icon_uk]

The debris only fell because Otto was there as a criminal/fugitive from the law (I can't recall what point of the story this happened at)

So if Otto was only there to commit a crime, he had no other business being there in the first place, and Spider-Man's only deliberate action was attempting to stop him.

Had Spider-Man picked Otto up by his arms and walloped him around the roof and THAT had knocked the debris loose then yes, it would be Peter's fault, but damage inflicted by Otto whilst being subdued by Spider-Man is not Spider-Man's fault.

Was it deliberate murder on Otto's part? No, but it would be manslaughter I think, since it's a death caused by him in the commission of a crime, just indirectly.

If someone makes a citizen's arrest and the assailant's gun goes off in the struggle and kills an innocent bystander, who is to blame? I believe that the law would state that it was the gunmans fault, not the guy trying to stop him, provided he didn't deliberately endanger innocents in the process.

[cyberghostface]

damage inflicted by Otto whilst being subdued by Spider-Man is not Spider-Man's fault.

Except it is. Because it was his invention that caused Otto to lose such control. There is nothing to indicate that at this point Otto would deliberately have knocked debris over into the crowd. It only happened because of Peter's webbing.

There's no real world comparison but the closest thing would be if let's say a criminal was trying to get away, the policeman shoots out his tires, the criminal loses control and drives his car into the crowd. EDIT: Actually not a policeman as Spider-Man's a vigilante.

Otto may have been committing criminal acts but it was Spider-Man's incompetence at deliberately making someone lose control of a dangerous weapon while innocent bystanders were nearby that caused what happened. It's negligent homicide on his part.

[kuronotenshi]

Spider-man isn't innocent in it, But Otto -is- to blame.

At what point is Otto's choices to be a criminal forgiven? A court of law would likely find that Otto -was- responsible for the death, it would be manslaughter because...as stated earlier. It happened in commission of a crime. Even if Otto wasn't actively committing a crime at the time, he was a wanted FUGITIVE regularly enough at the time, that in itself is a crime.

For a real world Metaphor - Guy decides to rob a bank. Criminal action. Random Civilian at bank has a gun, gets the drop on the robber. Shootout occurs as it's likely to happen. Civilian shoots the gunman in the arm, gunman loses control of the weapon, kills a bank teller. Guess what, Both are technically to blame, and the civilian will have to live with it, even if they are cleared of wrong doing. Dude robbing the bank gets hit with Murder or Manslaughter because..hey...he chose to be a criminal and try to rob the bank. Still the criminal's fault the teller is dead because if he hadn't tried to rob the bank, the teller would still be breathing.

And as a point of order, Peter never said 'it wasn't my fault'. In fact, one of his flaws was that he took responsibility for FAR too many things. As compared to Otto who apparently couldn't take responsibility if it were a living enemy of his he could murder and walk around in their skin because he made enough mistakes in his own life, time to steal someone else's and mess theirs up also.

Edit:

Wanted to add.... Peter taking his responsibility for the death of Captain Stacy had been used by writers for years as a driving force in hero-ing SMARTER not HARDER. Like Uncle Ben pushed him to be a her in the first place, so to did taking responsibility for both Stacy deaths. It became an important part to the character to not make that mistake again.

[auggie18]

If you cut the brakes in a criminal's car and then the criminal ran somebody over because he couldn't brake, then it would be your fault.

Spider-Man made sure Otto couldn't control his tentacles. Otto's out of control tentacles lead to the death of Captain Stacy.

I think you could probably get away with charging Spidey for criminally negligent homicide.

[sadoeuphemist]

The equivalent here is if the criminal is attacking you, trying to hit you with his car, so you shoot out a tire or something so he loses control, and he smashes into someone. The criminal is still to blame for driving around trying to hit people in the first place.

[auggie18]

That doesn't change the fact that you would still be responsible for the pedestrian's death. The criminal is to blame for trying to kill you (attempted murder on you, manslaughter on the person he ran over) but you are also responsible for the person he killed. (Criminally negligent homicide, particularly given the fact that you aren't acting in any official peacekeeping capacity.)


Spider-Man is still at fault here. Maybe not to the degree that Otto is, but in a more real world situation it'd be hard to imagine he wouldn't see at least a little jail time. (Or possibly a suspended sentence.)

[rdfox]

For the record, under my reading of New York law, Otto would, depending on the situation, be guilty of either first-degree manslaughter (depraved indifference homicide) or felony murder (if he was committing a felony at the time), while Peter could be charged with criminally negligent homicide for his part in it.

Most likely, Peter would get one year suspended plus five years probation (this is light; usually, CNH is 1-3 years in jail, but he'd probably get consideration for his actions to help the public in the past), while Otto's sentence would depend on the charge. If he was merely a fugitive and not actively committing any crimes at the time, then it'd be man 1 and he'd probably get a sentence of 7-10 years, eligible for parole in 3 with good behavior. However, if he was committing (or fleeing after committing) an unrelated felony at the time, the charge of felony murder would carry an automatic life sentence, and I don't see the judge being likely to leave the possibility of parole on the table, unless it was part of a plea bargain with the DA. (And if the DA had eaten his Wheaties that morning, he could always seek the death penalty, and maybe get it, using Otto's past record.)

Either way, these days, even if they were acquitted in criminal proceedings, you KNOW that both Otto and Peter would be on the hook for massive judgments against them in the inevitable wrongful death suit that the Stacy family would file against them...

[icon_uk]

Thanks for the better informed assessment of the legal situation. :)

I don't think the fact that the guy who died was a respected and long serving Police Captain would help anytone in the legal system be inclined towards leniency.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

Not toward Otto, but anyone in law enforcement would be sympathetic toward the situation Peter was in.

[jkcarrier]

Busiek and Ross' MARVELS covers some of this. All the evidence points to Otto as being solely to blame, and Otto is too proud to admit that Spidey could mess up his tentacles like that, so Spidey is essentially off the hook. He was still "wanted for questioning", though, until he was finally officially cleared a few years later.

[rdfox]

Disclaimer: I Am Not A Lawyer. Most of my knowledge of criminal law in the State of New York actually comes from watching too many episodes of the various Law and Order shows. However, these are pretty clear-cut cases that fit pretty much perfectly into the categorizations of the law.

As for leniency, what Fredneil said. Once they got the actual facts and evidence sorted out from what Triple J was screaming in the papers, the cops and the DAs would sympathize, and Peter would likely get offered a no-jail-time deal like I suggested. (Even Otto would likely be offered a deal, simply because it would save the people the time and expense of an actual trial. Something like 3/4 of all actual cases never go before the jury for just that reason...)

[jlroberson]

You're all wrong. Obviously the kid set Capt. Stacy up.

Fear the wrath of Timmy.

[big_daddy_d]

Which Spidey's deliberate actions were to confuse and trip up Otto in order to beat him, not to kill people. Unfortunately every time a hero fights a villain, people are at risk of being caught in the crossfire. To blame it solely on the hero is unfair as you have these criminals whose sole intent involves harming others and in comparison, if the heroes weren't there, the end result would have been much worst.

[espanolbot]

Peter's life is full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted.

[auggie18]

Wow, I've never seen this before. It does come off pretty manslaughter-y on Spider-Man's part.

[chrisdv]

Hmm... Anyone know where we might find a large net to stop falling debris from hitting civilians on short notice? Anyone? Spider-Man?

[icon_uk]

That would be the Spider-Man who's just been punched several times in short order by cybernetic piledrivers?

[chrisdv]

Well, I'd hope he'd remember that he has his web shooters...

[cainofdreaming]

Lots of Darwin awards to be in that crowd of onlookers. Otto has pulled whole exterior walls of multi-storey buildings on top of people just to keep heroes too busy to catch him, staying that close is akin to taking dancing lessons in a minefield.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

Yes. Otto wasn't just some nondescript face in the crowd who happened to have tentacles attached to him. He was a supervillian (or "arch criminal" if you're living in the Adam West Batman series), so ignoring him wasn't an option. Ultimately, George Stacy's death was a result of his actions.

[cyberghostface]

Ignoring him wasn't an option but making him lose control over his tentacles in an area surrounded by civilians wasn't a smart move either.

[cainofdreaming]

It wasn't smart, yes, but I'd say there's a good chance that Otto would have done something similar anyway. He has used the tactic of dropping stuff on people to prevent pursuit repeatedly during his career.

[cyberghostface]

He didn't, though.

[cainofdreaming]

Because he didn't have the chance to.

[cyberghostface]

He was battling Spider-Man for three issues here and he never made any attempt to knock a building on someone until Spider-Man rigged his tentacles to lose control.

[cainofdreaming]

Was he in a situation where he needed a distraction because Peter was close to beating him during those three issues? He doesn't go endangering people just for the heck of it, like the likes of Carnage, only as a means to an end.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

What was the alternative? Waiting until he had Otto in a place where there were no civilians and dong nothing until then?


The context missing from this is that Peter didn't choose to fight Otto on the roof. His plan was to take Otto by surprise inside an apartment, where there were no civilians, but Otto attacked him first, so he, not Peter was the one who chose to have the fight in that area. GIven that Peter was already attacked, his choices here were to use his webbing and make Otto lose control of his tentacles or to let Otto beat him to death.


So we have the entire sequence of events being started by Otto's criminal actions, Otto choosing a place to fight Peter that put civilians in danger, and Otto putting Peter into a situation where he was forced to make Otto lose control of his tentacles. I don't see why Peter would bear more responsibility than Otto for George Stacy's death.

[yvonmukluk]

Hmmm...

I know context is for the weak, but cyberghostface I'm getting a suspiciously partisan vibe on the subject of Otto Octavius from you lately, leaving out that sort of key information. I have had it with supervillain apologists!

[cyberghostface]

A.) I can only post 1/3 of an issue and B.) context doesn't really change Spidey's actions here. It wasn't a do or die situation that Ock forced Spidey into, Spidey tried getting the better if him and didn't consider the potential consequences.

[skjam]

Cyclops presumably has a very biased recollection of those events based on his own "world that hates and fears me" past. Spider-Man and the X-Men didn't know each other well back then--and in subsequent years, Spider-Man has been a real stand-up guy whenever he's interacted with the mutants. So Cyke disbelieves the part where the papers blamed the death of Stacy on Spidey rather than Ock.

[bizarrohulk]

Whether Peter or Otto was responsible for Captain Stacy's death has no bearing on what happened to Xavier, though. Xavier's death was neither an accident nor due to the actions of a supervillain (unless you count Cyclops himself as a supervillain, which I'm more and more inclined to do).

Don't try to make sense of the comic book blame/responsibility game

[silverzeo]

Writers tend pull this BS out of their butts all the time. Case in point: Wonderman in Earth's Mightest Heroes.

Does Tony take any responsibility or the time to point out that he could just said, "Simon, I bought your project would stay afloat, you have full control." and would have prevented ALOT of trouble for everyone... but no.... in fact, when Wonderman was calming down, Tony comes in, makes him mad, and starts everything all over again....

Re: Don't try to make sense of the comic book blame/responsibility game

[md84]

It's odd that the only incarnation of Iron Man that is good with people is the Ultimates one, given that everyone else in that verse is a jerk.

Re: Don't try to make sense of the comic book blame/responsibility game

[silverzeo]

Tell that to the French people on the plane that was taken over by terrorists, when they were about to have a "break through" negoations.... does the Ultimates have a "thing" for the French... they always make them into cowards in a cartoony sort of way...

[stolisomancer]

Actually, I didn't want to bring it up, but I killed Captain Stacy.

Also, I shot the deputy.

[junipepper]

Damn, I was just about to claim responsibility for that! ;-)

[cainofdreaming]

Well, there's still Jean DeWolff. You might catch some flack from a certain former reporter with that, though.

[skemono]

Oh good! 'Cause I know who shot the sheriff, but I never could figure out who shot the deputy.

...did you also shoot J.R., by any chance?

[jlroberson]

That was me. I was only 11, but goddamn it, those are MY initials.