The Legal Aftermath of Liam Payne's Mysterious Death in Argentina

Whether you were a major One Direction fan a decade ago or were more into the members’ solo careers after the band's dissolution, you may be familiar with Liam Payne. Known for his soulful voice and charming stage presence, Liam transitioned from boy band heartthrob to a successful solo artist, captivating audiences worldwide with hits like "Strip That Down" and "Bedroom Floor."

Unfortunately, he unexpectedly passed away a couple of months ago. His death wasn’t unique just because he was an international pop star; it’s also different in that it occurred outside of the home country, in Argentina. Liam is from the UK.

Partying Turns Tragic

On October 16, Payne was at the Casa Sur hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, when he fell from the third floor. Emergency services responded to reports of a man acting aggressively, potentially under the influence of drugs or alcohol. An autopsy confirmed that Payne died from multiple traumatic injuries and internal bleeding, consistent with a fall from height. Toxicology reports indicated the presence of alcohol, cocaine, and a prescribed antidepressant in his system.

The circumstances surrounding his death led to an investigation by Argentine authorities, who concluded that he was alone at the time of his fall from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in Buenos Aires. Argentine prosecutors ruled out suicide as a cause of death. Additionally, it was found that he had the drugs in his system may have put him in a state of semi or total unconsciousness when he fell. This lack of protective reflexes during the fall further supported the conclusion that he did not intentionally harm himself.

The investigation also focused on the circumstances leading up to his death, including the involvement of drugs and alcohol, and charges were brought against three individuals in early November. The charges included "abandonment of a person followed by death" and "supplying and facilitating the use of narcotics." The individuals charged included a person frequently with Payne, a hotel staffer who allegedly supplied cocaine, and a drug dealer. The suspects were not named publicly, but Lead Prosecutor Andrés Madrea placed restrictions were on their travel and requested their arrest.

Investigation and Trials to Continue

Through last month, the investigation continued to gather evidence, including cell phone records and testimonies. A judge had decided to rule herself out of the investigation on a technicality, which slowed the probe. A few days ago,  prosecutors appealed that decision, seeking in part to "unlock the impasse,” but also to determine jurisdiction and possibly expand the investigation to include more suspects.

On December 5, the appeal court ruled in favor of prosecutor Madrea, allowing the investigation to proceed more swiftly. This decision opened the possibility of arresting one of the three men under investigation and potentially expanding the number of suspects.

U.S. Law for Drug Overdoses, Abandonment

The investigation remains underway, and it focuses on the actions of hotel employees filmed carrying Payne back to his room shortly before his fatal fall. While the search for answers into the pop star’s tragic demise continues, you might be wondering how it would go down if something like that were to happen to you in the United States.

This area of the law is complex and can vary by state. Here's a very quick rundown:

• If you were the one selling drugs that are nationally banned (like cocaine) its probably not surprising to you that you could face additional criminal charges after an untimely death. You could even be charged with drug-induced homicide in states that have such a law. Even if your state has no such law, you could still be charged with manslaughter. You can read more about drug trafficking and distribution laws here.
• What if you aren't selling, but just giving drugs to friends to party? If you call 9-1-1 or take an overdosing friend to the hospital, you may be protected by "Good Samaritan" laws. Again, however, state laws vary on the details.
• What if you give your friend drugs, they overdose or die, and you do nothing or run away? In other words, what happened to Liam Payne. This is even less clear, and doesn’t come up nearly as often on shows like Breaking Bad. Do we have laws that govern this in the U.S.?

‘Abandonment’ in the U.S.

We don’t call it quite the same thing in the United States, and so you probably wouldn’t recognize something by the name of the “crime of abandonment.” To make it more confusing, there are several different laws throughout the U.S. that do have the word “abandonment” in them, but have really nothing to do with the charges that the Argentine prosecutors are bringing here.

For example, you may have heard of child abandonment, which involves leaving a child without adequate care or supervision and is considered a form of child abuse or neglect. There’s also its cousin, dependent adult abandonment, where you leave say an elderly or disabled person who you’re responsible for without support. Those can be serious offenses that result in criminal charges. Spousal abandonment, on the other hand, can be considered a ground for divorce in some states and may affect the division of property or custody arrangements. And property abandonment makes your property subject to adverse possession, where another party can claim ownership. But none of these things are what’s going on with Payne’s case.

In Liam Payne's case and Argentina, "abandonment of a person followed by death" refers to a legal charge where an individual is accused of neglecting or failing to provide necessary care or assistance to someone in a vulnerable state, which subsequently leads to that person's death. This charge implies that the accused had a duty or responsibility to ensure the well-being of the person in question but failed to do so, resulting in fatal consequences. In Payne's case, the charge is applied to individuals who were allegedly responsible for his care or who facilitated circumstances that contributed to his death, such as providing drugs or failing to intervene when he was in a compromised state.

Do we have consequences for something similar in the U.S.? Well, sort of—there have been state courts that have ruled on similar principles. This issue is, like most crimes, something that would be decided at the state level rather than federal. But in the few cases we’ve had in state courts, it’s never the crime of “abandonment” or something similar in concept that is charged. Rather, the charges will usually be of some kind of manslaughter, and the principle of abandonment gets discussed in process of deciding whether or not a defendant is guilty based on a duty they had to the victim.

Do Your Duty

A New Jersey case from 2007 addressed the issue of whether a defendant had a legal duty to provide emergency medical care to a person who became unconscious after drug and alcohol use. The court ruled that the defendant had no such duty, and so dismissed the indictment for reckless manslaughter, which was based on the defendant's failure to call emergency services

That ruling distinguished itself from an earlier California state precedent set by a 1989 case, in which the court ruled that the criminal defendant owed a duty to seek medical attention for the victim. But in that case, the victim had injected himself with heroin in the defendant’s bathroom and became unconscious. The court found that the defendant’s actions—taking the victim from a public place where others might have helped him to her home, allowing him to use her bathroom to inject himself with heroin, and then abandoning him outside her home—created a special relationship that imposed upon her a duty to seek medical aid. The court concluded that the defendant’s failure to summon any medical assistance and her act of leaving him abandoned constituted a breach of that duty, which supported her conviction of involuntary manslaughter on the theory of criminal negligence.

There isn’t a ton of precedent on the issue in any state. But one pattern that seems to play out in case after case is that the duty owed to the victim by the defendant is an important factor. That duty, in turn, depends on the relationship between the two individuals, and how much the defendant’s actions contributed to putting the victim in danger in the first place.

Takeaway

Nothing in the article is legal advice. This area of the law is complex and highly dependent on where you are and the circumstances surrounding the death.

But, we can at least say to try not to put people in harm’s way in the first place. If you do, it's a good idea to try to help prevent a death whenever you can.

Related Resources:

• State Involuntary Manslaughter Laws (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
• What Is Manslaughter? (FindLaw's Law and Daily Life)
• Liability for Drug Overdoses (FindLaw's Law and Daily Life)