Zombie CSU (47 page)

Expert Witness

I put this question to my experts: If a person were dying from a zombie bite, and it was known to a high degree of medical certainty that once that person died he/she would reanimate as a predatory and infectious zombie, would the law permit assisted suicide?

Campbell sees this as an enormously complicated issue: “This is not Holland.
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In as far as I know, aggressive euthanasia is illegal in most of the United States. Patients retain the rights to refuse medical treatment and to receive appropriate management of pain at their request (passive euthanasia), even if the patients’ choices hasten their deaths. Additionally, futile or disproportionately burdensome treatments, such as life-support machines, may be withdrawn under specified circumstances. Many States, for example, now permit ‘living wills,’ surrogate health care decision making, and the withdrawal or refusal of life sustaining medical treatment. At the same time, however, voters and legislators continue for the most part to reaffirm their States’ prohibitions on assisting suicide.”

Retired California civil rights attorney Allen Steingold believes zombies would require a change in the laws. “As the laws currently read we don’t allow euthanasia, assisted or not, and we certainly consider suicide to be a crime. This is funny when you consider that old wry comment that suicide is the only crime they can’t convict you for if you’re successful. However, if we consider the concept of zombies—I think it would take congress no time at all to draft legislation not only legalizing euthanasia for persons infected with a zombie disease, but they would likely go a step forward and make it mandatory. Understand, that there would be a lot of tragic misuse and misinterpretation of such legislation, but it would almost certainly be drafted and passed. The only time things are done quickly in congress is during a time of crisis. Look at how quickly everyone on both sides of the aisle ratified the Patriot Act, despite some hasty and questionable phrasing.”

Rabbi Shevack says, “Euthanasia of someone dying from a zombie bite, is the same problem of euthanasia in general. However, if in extinguishing someone from dying from the zombie bite one can prevent further spreading of zombieism, then such euthanasia would be warranted as an act of self-defense for the entire community.”

A sticking point here is whether the victim should be allowed to die first, which would then necessitate the killing of a zombie rather than a living person; or whether assisted suicide or active euthanasia would be permitted.

“There is no euthanasia unless the death is intentionally caused by what was done or not done,” observes Campbell. “Thus, some medical actions that are often labeled ‘passive euthanasia’ are no form of euthanasia, since the intention to take life is lacking. These acts include not commencing treatment that would not provide a benefit to the patient, withdrawing treatment that has been shown to be ineffective, too burdensome or is unwanted, and the giving of high doses of pain-killers that may endanger life, when they have been shown to be necessary. All those are part of good medical practice, endorsed by law, when they are properly carried out.”

Campbell insists that the general population would probably accept this. “A recent Gallup Poll survey showed that 60% of Americans supported euthanasia. Attempts to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide resulted in ballot initiatives and legislation bills within the United States in the last 20 years. And Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act.”

Dr. Gretz brings up this point: “I think the Catholic church (and many others) would say, ‘yes, it is immoral.’ As long as the person’s spirit is still in the body, it would be important to make them as comfortable as possible while dying and then cremate the body or something ASAP after their heart stopped beating.”

And if they then resurrected afterward as a zombie?

“At that point they probably don’t fit anyone’s definition of human anymore,” says David Chiang, a military legal advisor. “We might have to make some retroactive changes in the law once the crisis was over, but in the face of a crisis of this kind once the person has died the body—awake or not in the case of zombies—is a disease vector and not a human being. The rules would change.”

If someone killed a zombie—prior to a change in the law allowing such an act—would that be considered justifiable homicide? “That depends,” Campbell says, “on whether a Zombie is considered human life at this point? Probably not. It’s an oddity, it’s unnatural, and I think it would be treated as if killing a dangerous animal, so I don’t know that this type of suit would hold up in a criminal court.”

Plague of Zombies—
photo by Elizabeth Lopez

An attack of zombies would be viewed much the same as a terrorist attack—with an emphasis on “terror.”

Steingold agrees. “A zombie is a disease vector, not a person. A lawyer could easily argue that destroying one would be in the best interests of public safety. I don’t believe it would be viewed as an act of violence. However…if this were to happen in the earliest stages of a zombie plague, and if there is insufficient supportive evidence, either through eyewitness testimony or inarguable forensic evidence, then the person who kills the zombie might actually be charged. The same would hold if a person believed his next door neighbor to be a vampire or werewolf. If, after the killing, there was no evidence to support the claim then that person would, very rightly, be charged. Otherwise anyone with a grudge could say that the annoying neighbor next door was Dracula and that killing him was a public service. Some degree of proof is always required.”

Chiang also agrees on this point. “In fact, not killing the zombie might be seen later as a crime. Of course, you could simplify the dilemma by tying up the dying so that if they reanimated they wouldn’t be an immediate threat to anyone. Disposal could then be handled later when minds are cooler.”

Other aspects of liability play into the situation. If a person knows themselves to be infected with a highly contagious disease (in this case a zombie virus), what is his or her legal responsibility? Does he or she have to inform others? Is he or she required to turn themselves in to authorities?

Steingold says yes. “Such a person has a moral and legal responsibility to inform the authorities, either medical or legal…if possible, depending on the circumstances.”

“We only have to look to the most recent debacle with the TB carrier traveling on an airplane,” Campbell says, “and the mad hunt for him, the rounding up of people he had contact with, and his subsequent commitment to a hospital. This is also not technically criminal law but I think would be under a federal code for endangering the public.”

“In the event of a zombie plague—or even a potential zombie plague,” Steingold adds, “there is also the potential for imposing martial law. The government would be very forceful in its efforts to prevent a mass epidemic.”

“Martial law,” Campbell explains, “is government by military authorities when the normal machinery of civilian administration has broken down as a result of disaster, invasion, civil war, or large-scale insurrection. It is not to be confused with military law. Any trial of civilians held by military authorities under martial law would not enjoy the status of a court martial. This is a federal mandate and supersedes other state laws. Martial law may also be established within a state itself in substitution for the ordinary government and legal system during serious disturbances. Again, in this event, justice is administered by military tribunals. Usually while the military authorities are restoring order, their conduct cannot be called into question by the ordinary courts of law. After the restoration of order, the legality of the military’s actions might well be theoretically capable of examination.”

Would the government act quickly enough?

“Well,” says a skeptical Steingold, “we have a spotty record with that. I think that our national intentions are almost always for the best, but between knowledge and action there is bureaucracy and that can slow things down to a crawl. Or in the case of zombies, slow it to a shuffling walk. Sometimes we’re right on the mark with rapid response, and then we have something like Katrina and the FEMA debacle.”

Jason Broadbent, a civil engineer from Baton Rouge, takes a surprisingly more optimistic view. “Katrina was a total bureaucratic mess no doubt; but all of us are learning from it: The people, the local and state governments, and the Feds. We’re going to be looking at the Katrina thing for years. Laws will be written and rewritten because of it. Nothing in U.S. history has ever painted the government as clumsier or more ineffectual. Even the delays and screw-ups in the response to what was happening during 9/11 pale in comparison. And yet…I honestly believe we’re learning from that. God forbid anything else hits us again—be it planes flying into skyscrapers, hurricanes or the living dead—but I think the Feds would step up and do a better job.”

In many of the zombie stories, the culprit is some testing facility—a lab
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working on a new virus, some toxic waste being mishandled. I asked my experts to comment on what kind of legal response would ensue.

Campbell says, “This is a federal CDC function but I would imagine that the offending institution would be up the creek without a paddle.”

“Every administration loves a scapegoat,” says Steingold. “We’re very, very good at going after them like the Mongol Horde. If a crisis of this kind occurred, and we survived it, someone would have to pay. It would strengthen the government—and to a very real degree increase its effectiveness and the trust in which the people place in it—to have a non-governmental institution be at fault. The entire weight of the government, backed by intense public outrage, would smash them flat. I’ll bet you’d even have the liberal left calling for public executions.”

And if it turned out to be a runaway experiment from a government testing facility?

Campbell’s view of this is understandably dim: “Hey, the American Veteran’s Association is
still
trying to figure out why there is a history of experimentation at their facilities.”

Steingold believes such a revelation would be traumatic. “In that case I think every American, right or left, man, woman and child, would suddenly find themselves embracing the concept of anarchy. That would be far worse than any mass of zombies. That would be a civil war to end all civil wars; and we’d probably get the most severe kind of sanctions from other countries.”

How severe?

“Think ‘nukes,’” Steingold warns. “And who could blame them?”

The Zombie Factor

Zombie pop culture takes a mighty dim view of how the government and law enforcement would handle the crisis. Cops are usually shown as inept, undertrained, and unable to properly respond to the situation. For the most part, government officials are not even included in zombie stories, except as brief talking heads on a TV. One thing that’s fairly consistent in the pop culture view of the government handling of a crisis is that they would bungle the job or somehow use the crisis to further some dark agenda.

In his books
Down the Road: A Zombie Horror Story
and
Down the Road: On the Last Day
, author Bowie Ibarra paints a dismal view of how FEMA and similar organizations would handle things. As he sees it, the government has not, in fact, learned from their mistakes. He says, “Look at how forces controlled by the government have responded in critical situations: the WTO protest in Seattle; in my opinion, government-sponsored anarchists were sent in to disrupt the peaceful protest, trash the place, and then were led away, providing the excuse for the storm troopers to come in and rough up the peaceful protesters. Then look at Katrina. Not only was it an example of government incompetence, but an example of how humans would respond when holed up in a large space with little to no supplies or supervision (i.e., child rapes, fights, murders). There is a conspiracy claim that most of FEMA’s budget money is actually spent on creating prisons/camps for future use. REX-84
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is an interesting piece of legislature. Bottom line, the government forces would be told to try and secure citizens by any means necessary. The zombie infestation would only be half of the problem.”