Common sense floated down from New York’s state Appellate Division last week.
The court reinstated an indictment against Jeb Corliss, the moron who tried to parachute from the top of the Empire State Building in 2006 before being stopped by security guards.
Why the indictment was tossed out the window in the first place is a question only the lower-court judge, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Micheal Ambrecht, can answer.
In an eight-page ruling last year, Ambrecht said that no specific law prohibits parachute-jumping from the Midtown skyscraper.
It isn’t hard to imagine how the jump might have ended in tragedy. Nonetheless, Corliss took Ambrecht’s blessing and, uh, flew with it – filing a $30 million lawsuit against the building’s owners on the grounds that the guards caused him “severe emotional distress.”
Well now, it seems, some sanity has prevailed: The appeals court revived the reckless-endangerment charge, although it lowered it from a first-degree felony to a second-degree misdemeanor.
Not that that ends matters: The jumper’s lawyer says he’s considering a further appeal to the state’s top court.
And who knows?
Maybe from that high platform, Corliss will attempt yet another of his high-flying stunts.
Here’s hoping he lands on Ambrecht’s head.