In a just world, Albert Garcia Jr. would have to eat a Big Mac stuffed full of glass as punishment for this heinous crime.
When a police officer visited the McDonald's in the Bronx he asked for the usual -- a Big Mac.What he didn't realize is that the worker who prepared his dinner Saturday night allegedly added shattered bits of glass to his meal.
After biting into the sandwich, the officer quickly realized something was cutting his mouth and throat. He examined the burger and found bits of glass embedded in it, police said. ...
The worker, Albert Garcia Jr., 18, was charged with assault in the first degree, criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment, police said.
In my book, that's attempted murder.
Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons: "Attempted murder? I mean, what is that? Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?"
If the cop had died, it would have been murder. the trouble with proving attempted murder is proving the specific intent to kill. If all the guy wanted to do was to hurt somebody real bad, it wasn't attempted murder.
Mark: Sideshow Bob is the best. "The Bart, the!"
X: My understanding was that purposefully performing a dangerous act that ends up killing someone is second degree murder, but is it just manslaughter? For instance, shooting a gun into a crowd of people and killing someone isn't just manslaughter, right?
Homer: "Must kill Moe.. Weeeee! Must kill Moe.. Weeeee!"
The specifics of murder law vary by state. You would have to look it up in the NY Penal Code. It shouldn't be too hard of a task, really. For some reason, penal codes are generally well-written and easy to understand.
If you go to snopes, they say killing someone from glass in food/drink is pretty much impossible. If the pieces are too small for you to "feel" while you chew, they won't do any real damange to you internally. For it to do any harm, you would feel it in your mouth and not consume it:
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/poison/glass.htm
So the charges they listed sound right.
DM: Interesting, thanks for the pointer. But if the guy intended to kill, then does it matter if his method was flawed?
I sat through an attempted murder trial here in Canada this week (which is why i stumlbed in here - research)
in canada the "impossiblilty" of the attempt does not matter - only that you had the specific intent and acted on the intent beyond "mere preparation"
in a case here, a man pointed a gun at the woman, pulled the trigger but the gun jammed - he had intent and he acted - guilty
the tricky part is proving intent