Case Study: State Of New York V. Robert Strong

Attila Nagy
9/18/2017
ENC3465
Legal Brief 3

State of New York v. Robert Strong

Facts
Robert Strong belongs to the Sudan Muslim religious faith, which later named him one of the leaders. As part of a well-known ceremony, he performed a religious exercise on the victim by plunging three knives into his chest to stop his heartbeat and breathing without any health repercussion thereafter. Even though this has occurred for over forty years without any fatality, the victim did not survive this exercise.
Issue
Is the defendant, who fatally exercised his powers of “mind over matter” through plunging knives into victim’s chest for ceremonial purposes, guilty of manslaughter in the second degree?
Rule
According to NY Penal Code Section 125.15,
One of his followers stated that the defendant had performed this ritual before without any injury. This suggests that the defendant was conditioned to believe that due to his religious power, he would keep successfully performing the religious exercise. It did not occur to him to consider any negative consequences because of all the successful rituals he participated in before. It is also acknowledged that these rituals flowed smoothly each time in the past forty
Harris sued H Robert Jones on the ground of intentional infliction of severe emotional distress. To analyze William’s claims, one must dissect the presented rule, starting with the definition of reckless. Reckless is defined as “involving a criminal degree of recklessness which causes injury to other persons or creates a risk of such injury.” In addition, extreme refers to “being so outrageous in character and so extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society.” Thus, Jones must act extremely and recklessly, which was indubitably not the case. There is a lack of evidence to prove Jones’ supposedly despicable character, and one can already tell that by acknowledging the lack of witnesses. Not only there are no witnesses, but the only person testifying for Harris (his wife) indirectly defies his claims by revealing his alcoholic and violent tendencies. Harris’ wife disclosed that once her husband threw a meat platter at her, and on several occasions, he overwhelmed her emotionally. Her testimony and the already said no apparent witnesses, all in all, question the validity of Harris’s claims and the benevolence of his character. Furthermore, Jones’ actions cannot be considered reckless or extreme because he never caused injury to Harris, nor did he act in an atrocious manner that would be deemed intolerable in this society. Given Harris’ testimony, it is acknowledged that