AndreRoy
Registered User
- Jan 3, 2018
- 4,466
- 3,593
Playing a contact sport = consent to contact (that would be illegal on a sidewalk)
better example IMO would be .. "If youre driving recklessly in a bumper car race ...."
'Reckless" would be based on a reasonable person under the circumstances. "Reasonable person" = average player, "circumstances" = written and unwritten rules of sport but generally accepted acts
The “generally accepted acts” part is where injury/death inflicted during a sporting event can cross the line from tragic accident to criminal action.
For instance, McSorley’s attack of Brashear was clearly in no way a generally accepted act in the sport of hockey, and so crossed the line into the realm of criminal assault. Hitting somebody into the boards, on the other hand, is a legitimate part of the sport, and so even if a player was to injure another by boarding him in such a way as to commit a penalty under the rules of hockey, it would be difficult to stretch that into a criminal violation unless it was truly egregious - I’m talking so long after play was stopped that no reasonable person could think the puck was still live. (Fighting would make for an interesting case study: it’s against the rules and in any other [non-combat] sport would be a clear case of assault, but it is a widely accepted part of hockey. Not sure how that would turn out in court.)
When it comes to the incident at hand, I think everyone can agree that intentionally kicking a player with one’s skate is clearly not an accepted act in hockey. On the other hand accidentally cutting someone with a skate has been known to happen in the sport. So even though intent isn’t required to convict somebody of manslaughter, I think it would need to be proven in this case in order for Petgrave’s actions to be deemed reckless and beyond the realm of accepted sporting activity. Just as an accidental high stick would not lead to assault charges while McSorley’s attack rightfully did.
So the question then is did Petgrave intentionally kick Johnson? If he did then he is guilty of manslaughter, even without intent to kill, because to intentionally kick somebody with a bladed foot is both grossly reckless and not a reasonable action to take in the sport of hockey.
The problem, however, would be proving this beyond a reasonable doubt. The publicly available footage is grainy enough that proving Petgrave didn’t have his skate clipped may be impossible, and that is sufficient to induce reasonable doubt in a juror’s mind. Even though I personally think he did it on purpose, I couldn’t vote to convict based on what I’ve seen.