What would a successful AK mean?/One interesting perspective

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 142962

Lealess wrote:
>


> 
> Legal niceties aside, what should Snape have done on the tower?  Legal
> niceties aside, should Dumbledore have ordered Harry to force-feed him
> what was, by all evidence, a lethal potion in the cave?  Shouldn't
> Harry have just turned around and said, as his conscience may have
> dictated, "Forget this -- you're wrong, there has to be another way."
> Once committed, Harry had no other way out, because Dumbledore
> insisted on pursuing his plan.
> 



Actually, I did ask him about Harry and the potion.  His response was 
that, in his opinion, this was a completely different legal situation, 
and one in which he would not even consider mounting a prosecution 
based on the available evidence.  Given what we know, there is no 
direct and incontrovertable evidence (i.e. none that a court would 
accept as proof) that the fluid in the cave was a poison, or any other 
substance controlled under the law.  Dumbledore was certainly weakened 
by it, but no more so than an elderly man might have been weakened by 
ingesting any number of perfectly legal substances.  Similarly, his 
condition on the tower is in keeping with an elderly man who has 
undergone extreme and taxing exertion, and may or may not be directly 
attributable to the potion.  In other words, in his opinion there is no 
clear and direct evidence that Dumbledore sustained significant and/or 
lasting material damage from the potion (i.e. no evidence that would be 
accepted in a court of law as being beyond a reasonable doubt, the 
standard a prosecutor would have to meet).  He offered that the fact 
that the mental effects of the potion cleared up almost immediately is 
actually a piece of evidence against the prosecution, as it establishes 
an initial presumption that the effects of the potion were temporary 
and would pass in time.  

I asked if the fact that Dumbledore called for Snape, an expert in Dark 
Objects that he has called on before, has any bearing.  His response is 
that this is at best only vague evidence, legally speaking, and absent 
any other direct statement from Dumbledore (i.e. I've been poisoned and 
I'm dying) it isn't a great deal of help to a prosecution's case.  He 
said the first thing he would do, if in charge of the case, would be to 
order an autopsy and thorough chemical analysis of Dumbledore's stomach 
contents.

Absent such evidence, he felt that the most Harry could be charged with 
would be reckless endangerment, and given the lack of incontrovertible 
evidence that his actions caused lasting or significant harm to 
Dumbledore, and given Harry's status as a minor under the law, he 
severely doubted a Grand Jury would hand down and indictment, and felt 
that the chances of obtaining a conviction would be essentially nil.  
Even if it could be shown by autopsy that the substance was a lethal 
poison, he felt that the chances of obtaining a conviction would be 
almost nil, once again given Harry's status as a minor, and given that 
a competent defense attorney could easily build a successful defense on 
the fact that Harry had no way of knowing what the potion was or what 
its effects on Dumbledore might/would be.  He pointed out that this 
contrasts completely with the case of Snape, who is an adult under the 
law and unquestionably knows that a Killing Curse causes death.

Once again, for what it's worth.


Lupinlore