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A fact from Killing of Ramona Moore appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 July 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Latest comment: 9 years ago12 comments2 people in discussion
The old title was as clearcut a presumption of guilt as it gets. The suspect's known, the trial's booked and the coroner hasn't even said how she died, let alone why. Way too soon. InedibleHulk(talk)06:05, 7 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
It was really long, but it wasn't a bit convincing. Refuting each of your loosely-related points would be a waste of time. If you insist on making Wikipedia a shittier worse place for untried people by presuming murder before the autopsy even gets to homicide, that's on you. InedibleHulk(talk)04:42, 8 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
The investigative authorities in question had formally accused the defendant of homicide before they even found the body; that does not require an autopsy. Should they reverse their opinion and drop their charges, we can rename the article.
I do not and will not take seriously the on-wiki arguments of people who feel they cannot make their points without using foul language. If you can't do so, you should seriously reconsider whether you are emotionally fit to be a Wikipedian. Daniel Case (talk) 05:54, 8 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Amazing. You complain that this article uses "murder" in the title prematurely and in a way prejudicial to the defendants' presumption of innocence, yet blithely refer to "the two people O.J. Simpson killed" even though he was acquitted of the crime at trial, a trial in which a great deal of exculpatory evidence was introduced and considered (And don't say "civil case" because that required a lower standard of proof).
As for the two other cases you mention: Zimmerman was pleading self-defense (negating intent while not denying the act) from the start so the editors working on the article (I wasn't one and can't speak for them) decided to title it so (I would suppose); as I think I've already stated on your talk page (belying your assertion above that you read what I wrote and further reducing your credibility in my opinion), Li was found not guilty of an act no one denied he committed by reason of insanity, again a defense that negates intent, so changing the article title was appropriate. Daniel Case (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Fun Fact: Not a single source used in the article (or the article itself) says Ramona Moore was murdered, yet we do in the title. How is that not plain and simple original research? InedibleHulk(talk)16:27, 9 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
And neither calls this a murder. There's “You can’t charge me with murder without a body”, "Mr. Bonie was charged with second-degree murder" and "her murder".
Latest comment: 9 years ago24 comments4 people in discussion
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
An RFC a couple of months ago came to no consensus on this issue. The police and the coroner are allowed to call a a homicide a murder (i.e., an intentional one) based on evidence other than the decedent's body (the discovery of which, in this case, has forced the continuation of a trial that was about to start). And calling it a murder does not, whatever InedibleHulk argues, automatically convict the defendant, as its usage here ("The suspect in her murder, Nasean Bonie, 29, was indicted and returned to court Wednesday for a hearing.") would suggest can be understood if properly phrased. Daniel Case (talk) 16:39, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Regardless of how you choose to interpret the RfC on the BLP issue, consensus was much clearer on the OR issue. Many of those who felt it wasn't prejudicial still spoke of requiring sources to say so. Like I note in the above section, zero of eight sources here call this a murder, only using the term to describe the accusations, which have not been tested in court. Even if this description were harmless, it's still not backed by any sources. All eight sources do say Ramona Moore died. InedibleHulk(talk)21:20, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
{[ec}}Even the one I quoted just above? As I already said, whatever the legal distinctions between "homicide" and "murder", both terms are prejudicial, and readers will search on a case like this under "murder" because no alternate theory of the homicide exists in the public record at this point, and a grand jury indicted Bonie on that charge (granted, second-degree murder, but murder). That distinction between the crime and the defendant exists in other reportage on the case: "Nasean Bonie, Moore’s building superintendent in the Bronx, was indicted for her murder last May despite the lack of a corpse." And see also the WABC-TV story quoted above.
If all the usage in the media supported your take on this, I might be willing to agree with you. But there isn't a consensus in the media, and there wasn't a consensus here (the close of the RFC did not indicate any difference in consensus between the two policies implicated, so your interpretation is well, original research, as far as the RFC's result is concerned). Daniel Case (talk) 21:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Yes, all of them. "Suspect in her murder" is synonymous with "person suspected of her murder", and an indictment is just a sort of accusation. Why should we base this title on a theory at all, when "death" is a 100% verifiable fact? InedibleHulk(talk)22:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
The underlying point is that an investigative finding of murder, and the resultant criminal charges, can be made without a body in evidence. Daniel Case (talk) 21:45, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Actually, before we ruin our Saturday night, I felt a touch of wikimagic and a compromise just occurred to me:
Too wordy. And again, investigators don't make "findings" of murder. Just enough clues to press murder charges. Then the court finds the defendant guilty or not guilty. InedibleHulk(talk)22:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
That one isn't terrible, but not exactly common form for non-storybooks. When (if?) someone beside you and I shows up, with actual power to answer this request, they can consider that Option B. InedibleHulk(talk)18:48, 11 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
Fine. Perhaps we should consider this a model for other, similar situations (And, of course, when (and it will probably be when) Mr. Bonie pleads out or is convicted, the article goes back to its present title). Daniel Case (talk) 03:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.