Question for the lawyers

[james_davis_nicoll]

A Neanderthal steps through from another history; due to various events he strikes and kills someone here.

Can he be arrested for murder? Does a Neanderthal automatically count as a human in the eyes of the law? If so, how far from homo sapiens sapiens does a hominid have to be before they don't count as a person by default?

Comments

[alexseanchai]

I'm betting not very far at all. Because humans without disabilities who are caretakers of humans with disabilities have a nasty habit of murdering their caretakees and getting off clean.

[elf]

How good is his lawyer?

A good lawyer will get him established as human (because nonhumans that kill people are generally put to death without anything resembling a trial), and a foreigner who doesn't understand local language and customs. Arguing whether he "is" or "is not" human is a matter for lawyers, even though it'd seem like a matter for biologists.

Biologists can prove to the court that he is homo neanderthalensis and not homo sapiens. But that doesn't mean "not human" -- most humans today have some neanderthal DNA. How much is required to be considered "not human" has never been established by law, ergo it breaks down to "lawyers on the two sides trying to persuade the judge that their interpretation is more correct."

If the other side's lawyer doesn't have any great personal stake in getting him established as not-human (e.g. doesn't own a factory with neanderthal workers that he'd love to not pay), the judge will probably look over the evidence and decide, "meh, it talks like a person; it walks like a person; it pets kittens and puppies like a person; it breaks benches when it stubs its toe... it's a person."

At that point, it becomes a matter of "total stranger in a new place broke a law he didn't know existed."

Possibly, the lawyer will argue diminished capacity--he has neither the education nor, possibly, the brainpower to understand the set of laws around him.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

Baraminologists have, some, ah, interesting opinions on this (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html).

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Genetics show they successfully interbred, producing fertile offspring, with us: therefore, they count as the same species. How far divergent you can get before the kids are mules is difficult to say - nobody has done, say, the Chimpanzee test yet...

[sbisson.livejournal.com]

Didn't Robert Sawyer use something similar in a novel?

[(Anonymous)]

I suspect that sometime after the Neanderthal enters our history, prior to the killing, there are events would could be construed as being tacit acknowledgements of the fellow's status as a human for legal purposes (events like being greeted by governmental agents, being questioned by the police, etc.).

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Chimp/human has been tried -- didn't take at all. Don't chimpanzees have a couple more chromosomes than homo sapiens?

[fridgepunk.livejournal.com]

Ignoring the obvious "a neanderthal in canada or the US would be an illegal alien and deported", as the neanderthals were mostly found in I believe france, they'd be considered naturalised citizens due to being born in france to parents who were either also considerable as french citizens or to parents without statehood.

And then, if he's got a semi-competent lawyer, he'd plead not guilty on account of mental deficiency or the equivalent.

In short, it'd produce a terrible precedent to set AND THUS the neccesity of going back in time and wiping out all the neanderthals to avoid one of them coming forward and killing a frenchmun and thereby souring all potential human-hominid relations that we might develop via time travel.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If he isn't a human, then his status is "dangerous animal", which I don't think is an improvement.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Of course, this may be genetic essentialism. We do not accord children and the severely mentally handicapped the same rights as adult and undamaged individuals much less genetically divergent than Neandethals, and I suppose that Bob Xyglhm, the three-headed purple standup philosopher from the lesser Magellan cloud could be seen as deserving rights wider than the insane or brain dead.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Come to think of it, you may be right [1]. Now, if we only had a Homo Habilis handy...


[1] About the chromosomes: I'm not questioning your statement on it being tried.

[agent-mimi.livejournal.com]

Now, if we only had a Homo Habilis handy...

USENET is right over there ->

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The Gnarly Man.

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

Enemy combatant wielding dangerous technology ("steps through"? steps through what exactly?), and dealt with as such -- he hasn't entered the boundaries of the nation by any means that we approve of or control, nor can he prove nationality or citizenship with any government we might be disposed to think kindly towards, ergo, he's a dangerous invading enemy.

It isn't the kind thing to do, but it's probably the simplest.

In all practical terms, it probably depends entirely on what precisely are the events and circumstances around the death, and who died.

My guess is he'll get stowed away in some government controlled, probably military, scientific research facility and submitted to all sorts of tests and treated like a lab animal for the rest of his natural life, or shorter.

the neanderthals were mostly found in I believe france

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

In one of those meaningless coincidences, the maximum range of Neanderthals:



is roughly similar to the maximum range of the Celts:

[viktor-haag.livejournal.com]

My guess is that if he can act more or less like a person, even a "primitive one", he'll get treated like a person, but one with absolutely no rights whatsoever. Which is actually probably worse than "dangerous animal", because if he's presumed to be at least partially intelligent, then he's presumed to be responsible for his behaviour and heaven help him.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

If this happens in the US, I suspect he (or she, but I guess James said "he") would get killed by police in short order.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

He is not a lawyer.

[zotz]

One more pair. Human chromosome 2 was formed by the fusion of two ancestral chromosomes, the equivalent of the imaginatively-titled chimp chromosomes 2a and 2b.

[neowolf2.livejournal.com]

Chimps have one more chromosome than humans. The fusion event occurred before neanderthals arose (sorry Mr. Sawyer).

It's interesting to ask how interfertile neanderthals and humans were. As I understand it, the genetic evidence seems to show selection against some swaths of the neanderthal genome, possibly indicating fertility problems when crossing with H. sapiens.

As for human/ape hybrids. This reminds me of an old joke.

A scientist puts an want ad in the paper (this is an old joke, remember): "Man wanted for human/ape crossbreeding experiment. $5,000."

He soon gets a call from a subject. "I'll participate in your experiment on two conditions."

"First, my identity must forever be kept entirely secret."

"And second... can I pay the $5,000 in installments?"

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

depends on how much gold he brought with him, plus celebrity status, if he got a good lawyer, claims of specie-ism, and lets not forget the scientists who are trying to test and dissect at the same time.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Coincidence?

Not entirely a joke

[greatwhiterat.livejournal.com]

Sadly, this seems to actually happen.
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/yo1-v14n10

Re: the neanderthals were mostly found in I believe france

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I have a vague recollection of the Celts' original home being in central Asia.

I was also under the impression that the Latins were a franchise of the Celts.

(All this is many years old and may be mashed together from multiple concepts until it bears little resemblance to the original sources. Or it may be dead on. Usually I can tell which is likelier. This is not one of those times.)

If it's extra work to give the sources of the maps, never mind. We've all got finite time.

[sara-lakali.livejournal.com]

Wasn't this already explored in The Murders in the Rue Morgue? Admittedly, that was an orangutan, but still...