Dad charged in hunting death (Vt.) this is so sad

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090529/NEWS02/905290309/Dad+charged+in+hunting+death

ST. JOHNSBURY -- A 44-year-old Lyndon Center man is being charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of his teenage son while the two hunted for turkeys this month in Wheelock.

Vermont State Police say Kevin Kadamus was processed Thursday at the state police barracks in St. Johnsbury. He was cited to appear July 6 in Vermont District Court.

Police say 17-year-old Jacob Kadamus was hit by a round from a shotgun May 1 after Kevin Kadamus fired at what he believed was a turkey while the two were hunting off South Wheelock Road.

Police said at the time that Jacob Kadamus apparently left his original hunting area and crossed into his father's area.

The decision to charge Kevin Kadamus is consistent with the way other recent hunting-related shootings have been treated.

Fatal shootings in 2005 in Peacham and St. Albans both resulted in convictions. A Georgia man has been charged with manslaughter in the Nov. 23, 2007, death of a hunting partner in Milton. That case is unresolved.



In this Sept. 8, 2008 high school portrait, Jacob Kadamus is seen. His father, Kevin Kadamus, hoping to shoot a turkey during hunting season, hit his son on May 1, 2009. Shot in the torso, the boy died at the scene of the May 1 shooting. Now, his grieving father faces a criminal charge that could put him away for 15 years.
(AP Photo/Steve Legge)

it is tragic the man has to live with this but this is firearms 101. If people are not willing to accept this they should stick to playing games on the wii. Firearms are serious and being stupid has serious consequence.

It is not an accident, ever. It is a series of bad decisions that amount to negligence at minimum.

they talk about that all the time. It literally is part of every discussion "Now you've got to take that extra second and be sure" that sort of thing

The only possible accident would be a round getting so hot it cooked off: any other discharge is either deliberate or criminally negligent.

they also say that all guns are loaded/no unloaded guns. that just isnt true. cute saying to promote safety but not factual either.

I had the sad task of being the victim advocate out of the St.Jay office of the Stare's attny, in a case almost identical to this one. I didn't know quite how to handle the fact that the person charged with the crime was also, in a sense, one of the victims.

better to let a million ducks or deer get away than to provoke an unnessary tragedy
we had one of those here within the last couple years.
this dad was hunting turkey with his young son. the son was not familiar withh all the rules and ran ahead of his dad through some tall grass.
his dad shot him in the back.

at trial it came out that he had marijuana and cocaine in his system. guy's in prison now.

this is my home for the past 20 years (St. Johnsbury area). I never walked in the woods during hunting season... accidents every year in the hills of Vermont

Shoot irresponsibly and hit another person, you should be prosecuted. If the guy had been out shooting with a friend and killed him/her instead of having killed his son, would you still think he shouldn't be charged?

and they are accidents, not crimes.

again,

i know it is not the popular belief on this board that this man should not be prosecuted, but i hope the charges are dropped. i dont like it at all

and to be clear, be it a son or a friend, .... i wouldnt want them prosecuted.

and I take my eyes, for just a second, off the road, and let's say I hit a child crossing the street and she dies. I didn't mean to, and it will haunt me forever.

But, the fact remains, I was careless, and a child is dead, will have no future, and by my hand.

Will you dismiss me of any charge?

Sure, every time somebody drinks and gets into a car they "know" they run the risk of killing someone through that careless action, but doesn't a perfectly sober person who understands that they are operating a several hundred pound vehicle "know" that they too might kill someone if they neglect to remain vigilant by checking their phone, etc?

If I'm drunk, do I get a pass?

where i think there is a clear line and seemed to have been a clear line in our past as negligent. still, even with that. if we are talking about a bunch of inexperienced kids out drinking one night, getting in accident and one dies, then though i dont see it as a shit happens, i still see it as part of life. if the person was truly remorseful and effected by what they did, i personally wouldn't have a problem letting the person go, to get on with life. but i do understand as a society we wont do that, so i dont expect it. actually we did do it in the past, look at individual cases, not so much today.

the first scenario you state, we have all and will always not be fully attentive every sec of every time in our driving experience. we are only human. we have all been there. one reason or another. a person with a little fender bender is there cause of inattentiveness as well as the one that struck someone. just one is luckier than another. so if one is honest one cannot put themselves in a superior position to another. the inattentiveness is just a fact in driving as much as we can each and everyone hate it when it happens to us. to pretend otherwise is wrong

if that sec, not even a sec of glancing at drink took eyes off road and hit child, i would suggest conditions transpired for it to be more than just a look at drink, or same time looking at speedometer, or same time turning to look at child that screamed in backseat, or time looking at radio, or the house across the street at a rose bush.

my guess is the child darted out into the street and regardless would have been hit anyway due to carelessness on their part. an accident

when the child killed is a relative. I think all instances of negligence that cause death should be addressed equally. There are, of course, degrees of negligence, but I think that is a matter for a jury of peers to sort out. The child lost is not only lost to the family, but to society as well, and society has an interest in prevention of such instances as much as may be possible.

Charging a negligent person with a crime when that negligence causes death is widely recognized as a legitimate use of our court system.

I do think it would be more helpful in these matters and others if we placed a much greater emphasis on restitution above punishment. How powerful would it be if this gentleman were directed by the court to give x number of talks at hunter's safety courses for a couple of years about the horror of his own experience?

This whole thread reminds me of that incident. Feel so sorry for the dad, no matter how many years he gets if found guilty it won't do anything to replace the loss of his son.

and by here, I mean right here in the Northeast Kingdom where it happened.

If this father is prosecuted Cheney should have been also.

The usual two tier justice system.

Poor kid, poor father.

:cry:

This guy is suffering more than enough.

A human has died. We can assume there was the equivalent of a "coroner's inquest" or whatever is called for in cases of non-natural deaths in that jurisdiction. Apparently they have enough reason to believe the law has been broken.
If it is determined he did not break the law, he'll go free.

I don't understand your concern.

and at the time of investigation there is clear evidence it was an accident and a charge is not made against the person.

not something i just pulled out of a hat.

There are clearly exceptions made, especially in the face of public events.


I see nothing here that calls for an exception to a general rule. A death occurred by gunshot. I assume the legal procedures have been followed properly and it was determined charges should be made.

The only factor I think you are considering is the father's remorse. It's a reasonable factor to consider, but consider this also:
1. We don't know this guy. Maybe he hated his kid and there were reasons to suspect the accidental nature of the event.

2. We can't see the terrain. Perhaps there was some detail suggesting extreme negligence.

3. Perhaps drugs or alcohol use was a factor.


The mechanisms of the law are in place for these reasons. Barring abuses, we have to let the law work.

Just because exceptions exist, not every case need be an exception. I see nothing to suggest the court system is acting improperly.

not speaking to those events and i think it is pretty clear on my post that i am going strictly off the hunting accident without any evil intent or under the influence condition.

and from what i am seeing in our criminal system the last decade anyway, i do not see that it is a beyond circumstance that allows charges to be made in an accident, hence my post.

i am not approaching this in a legal argument. i am stating in my opinion that if this is an accident and clearly that can be seen in investigation, has in past and will be in future.... then i hope the man will be let go.

there are many ways you can argue my postion, but none of that really matters. for me we are in a trend in our society to have every oooops serve time.

i disagree with that approach

that the man should not go to jail.

The trial will be painful, but I doubt he'll be free of that pain in any instance.

I doubt we're far from thinking the same here. I assumed from your first post that you felt his grief alone should trump any legal necessities. It seems I was wrong.

I've said this a lot, but it bears repeating - there is no such thing as an accident when it comes to firearms. A shooting is either intentional or negligent (this seems to fall into the latter category), but never, ever accidental.

is shooting at. Don't just shoot at something that moves. I don't have any problem with him being charged.

There are several cardinal rules of hunting, and that's one of the key rules.

Always treat a gun like it is loaded.

Always keep the safety on, until you're ready to shoot.

Don't lean your gun on a fence or tree and then climb the tree or over the fence.

Never shoot at movement you cannot clearly identify as the proper target.



I quit hunting twenty five years ago, and hunters who lack good safety skills were my number one reason. There are far too many idiots out there who simply do not have the skills to be handling a weapon.

I feel for this father, but what was he thinking? A turkey? You'd shoot into brush without seeing it, knowing your son was out there, too?

We've become a prosecution obsessed society. Someone has to swing for every outrage, irrespective of the need for it.

Sid

their kids in their cars in VT? Seems like the DU consensus on that was that loss of the child is punishment enough. Why is that not the case in this (negligent) accident? The fact that a gun was involved? Does the offender's gender have anything to do with it? I mean, a (negligent) accident is a (negligent) accident, right?

The parent who is impaired due to drugs or alcohol is more culpable than one who merely gets overloaded and forgets to take a child out of a baby seat. If this man had been rip roaring drunk, we'd all be calling for his head.

I lean toward understanding and away from vengeance.

they do in Maine, whereas here they seem to kowtow to hunters that "accidentally" shoot and kill neighbors. They seem to think the shooters have "suffered enough" from the memories.

Leaving a child or pet trapped in a car during hot or cold water is negligent homicide (or dogicide). Likewise, shooting somebody because you didn't ensure they were your actual target is equally negligent homicide.

There was a case here not long ago where a brother and sister were walking on their own property, within 5 or 600 feet of their house at the edge of a field. Regular hunting season was over, but they didn't realize it was the last day of crossbow hunting season. The teenage girl was wearing white mittens, which a hunter mistook for a deer's tail. He shot her in the heart and she died at the scene, as I recall in her teenage brother's arms. How the fuck to you go from the tail of a deer to the girl's chest and not realize it's not a deer? That means he shot a couple feet directly *above* the tail...and thought he'd hit the deer?

I can't remember if they even charged the hunter. He definitely was let off. Everybody they interviewed said he'd "suffered enough." Bull fucking shit. He's still alive, shooting bows and arrows and mortally wounding whoever. A 17 year old girl is dead.

And yet, they talked about changing the law to require *written* permission to hunt on other people's property. Apparently it wasn't even agreed that he had permission to hunt where he was hunting.

Some forms of negligence are clearly more grievous than others, (i.e. drunken street race that results in a pedestrian death vs. loving grandma who accidentally runs over her granddaughter in the driveway)but that should be for a jury to sort out.

First, there's prosecutorial discretion. The DA can and may decide to present the facts to a grand jury with no recommendation. If the grand jury decides there is sufficient basis to believe the statute was been violated, they can indict. Or they can refuse to indict.

Second, the DA is always free to cut a deal, and usually does, based upon the case. There is no jury.

Third, DAs don't like to try cases where there are good defenses and the accused is not generally considered a bad person. Jury nullification looms.

Each state has its own statute for negligent homicide, and unless all elements of the crime are clearly present in the facts, there is no negligent homicide, and it would be a miscarriage of justice to prosecute.

Not every incident that involves someone's death and someone's negligence will result in a criminal case of negligent homicide, for that is a criminal concept, and we don't invoke it unless all elements of the crime are clearly present.

The police, the prosecutor, and the judge all exercise their discretion in determining whether the elements of the crime are present. Any one of them can shut the process down if they feel such elements are absent. They don't throw it to the jury, because the jury is never supposed to hear a case unless it meets the requirements of law of the state where the action is prosecuted. Fifty states, fifty statutes.

I was absolutely certain what I was shooting at. It's the first rule of hunting safety. Having said that, I must confess to some ambivalence about this man facing criminal charges. I can only imagine what the poor bastard is going through right now.