This seems unnecessarily inflammatory.On Wednesday, the Star Tribune will publish an article praising the guilty verdict in the Janklow case (1).
A few months ago, a smoker burned down a house in SE Mpls. The fire killed three people. Why isn't that smoker facing 3 charges of murder?
Is it ok to kill when smoking carelessly, but not when driving?
It overlooks two important facts: Janklow voluntarily, intentionally and deliberately with full knowledge ran that stop sign while exceeding the speed limit. We know it was Janklow driving.
We don't know who the smoker was. And we don't know, and it is unlikely, that the smoker was aware they were risking a house fire. Further, he or she probably were not actively and intentionally breaking any laws at the time they were smoking.
In fact, we don't even know for sure it was a smoker, do we? It's only the fire department's best guess.
Now, if we were comparing a driving case to a smoking case where the circumstances were the same -- i.e. both actors knew what they were doing, did so anyway, and did so with knowledge they were breaking several laws, then yes, both the driver and the smoker should be guilty of negligent homicide.
But what's this got to do with Minneapolis specifically? I realize as a landlord, Bill might be a bit sensitive about the house fire, but I'm having trouble making a good case here. Is he saying Minneapolis should be actively looking to prosecute the supposed smoker? That Minneapolis needs to change something about how it handles these kinds of fires?
Chris Johnson Fulton
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