What Donkeys and Elephants will probably disagree on

[aronnax]

Should people who commit crimes be charge on action or intention?
Can you charge a man who committed murder accidentally when he fired a loaded gun who he 100% believe it to be blanks?

Given the scenario:
A woman has an affair with another man. The husband in a bout of depression goes drinking. He gets drunk and in a frenzied drunken rage kills the other man. As he was drunk at the time, he was not of sound mind and decisions cannot be trusted to him.

Should the husband be charged for murder, or for a lesser sentence of irresponsible drinking? Why would be an appropiate punishment then in your opinion?

Second Question:

Imagine a Man commits intended murder. Does he deserve a second chance in life? (As in serve his time and rehabilitated into society.)

 

[Camikaze]

Intention absolutely. Sure, there are circumstances when this rule doesn't work, but the idea of the justice system should be aimed at rehabilitation more than punishment. If someone didn't mean to do something, then they don't really need rehabilitation. Sure, there needs to be a degree of punishment involved as a deterrent factor, but I'm all for forgiveness, and, as I said, rehabilitation.

Second question: everyone can have a second or even third chance. Once you get to the fourth it probably starts to get a little dodgy, though.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Action. It can be hard enough to prove actual crimes in court, and arguing intentions and such is very foggy.

1. Drinking is not illegal here. You can get plastered within your own home if you wish.

2. I believe in punishing the crime, after which you are free. Locking a person up for years punishes the people who are paying to support a criminal in jail, which is unfair to them. Take someone's life, and yours will be taken. If people knew they would have a finger or hand cut off for stealing, would they steal? It would be a good deterrent.

 

[plarq]

Action. It can be hard enough to prove actual crimes in court, and arguing intentions and such is very foggy.

1. Drinking is not illegal here. You can get plastered within your own home if you wish.

2. I believe in punishing the crime, after which you are free. Locking a person up for years punishes the people who are paying to support a criminal in jail, which is unfair to them. Take someone's life, and yours will be taken. If people knew they would have a finger or hand cut off for stealing, would they steal? It would be a good deterrent.

Death penalty is controversial, cutting off finger is certainly off the limit. It is cruelty and directly downplay the human rights condition of said country.

 

[Tee Kay]

Intention absolutely. Sure, there are circumstances when this rule doesn't work, but the idea of the justice system should be aimed at rehabilitation more than punishment. If someone didn't mean to do something, then they don't really need rehabilitation. Sure, there needs to be a degree of punishment involved as a deterrent factor, but I'm all for forgiveness, and, as I said, rehabilitation.

Second question: everyone can have a second or even third chance. Once you get to the fourth it probably starts to get a little dodgy, though.

I agree with this.

2. I believe in punishing the crime, after which you are free. Locking a person up for years punishes the people who are paying to support a criminal in jail, which is unfair to them. Take someone's life, and yours will be taken. If people knew they would have a finger or hand cut off for stealing, would they steal? It would be a good deterrent.

In this case, the man was drunk and not thinking clearly. It's unfair to take away his life for that.

Criminals should be paying for their own support through working while in prison.

 

[Camikaze]

Action. It can be hard enough to prove actual crimes in court, and arguing intentions and such is very foggy.

1. Drinking is not illegal here. You can get plastered within your own home if you wish.

2. I believe in punishing the crime, after which you are free. Locking a person up for years punishes the people who are paying to support a criminal in jail, which is unfair to them. Take someone's life, and yours will be taken. If people knew they would have a finger or hand cut off for stealing, would they steal? It would be a good deterrent.

But what is the crime? The singular action of wrongdoing, or the lasting intent? Sure, punish the intent a bit, but I'm no fan of manslaughter convictions.

As for someone drunk committing a crime, whilst you cannot use drinking as an excuse for being able to indulge in criminal behaviour, it does shed some doubt on the mens rea thing.

And don't get me started on the death penalty. I'll try not to bite.

 

[aronnax]

And don't get me started on the death penalty.

Let us keep it that way. This is Intention VS Action. Not Death penalty Thumbs up or down.

 

[Brighteye]

We don't make windows into men's souls.
You can keep the thought police, and I'll punish actions, not intentions.

If a man kills another when firing blanks it's an accident, I agree.
When a man intends to kill another but doesn't get round to it because he's too busy playing on the computer it's not a crime even though the intent is there.

 

[Camikaze]

I'm not arguing for intent being the only qualifier. Action still needs to be there for any prosecution or punishment. But, when the action does occur, intent should carry precedence over the actual act.

 

[MeteorPunch]

In this case, the man was drunk and not thinking clearly. It's unfair to take away his life for that.

Bottom line, people need to be responsible for their actions. Having a "drunk clause" is extremely exploitable.

"Alright guys, before we go murder and rob, drink some for a lesser penalty if caught."

Criminals should be paying for their own support through working while in prison.

Agreed.

 

[aronnax]

Bottom line, people need to be responsible for their actions. Having a "drunk clause" is extremely exploitable.

"Alright guys, before we go murder and rob, drink some for a lesser penalty if caught."



Agreed.

But the intent to kill is there when one is in a sound mind and hence should be punished for murder.
We dont punish the insane or mentally unstable when they commit crimes, because they have no idea what they are doing.

 

[amadeus]

Action.

Conspiracy to commit murder is an action, not just an intention... there are steps that need to be followed through to be suspected of such a crime.

 

[Kyriakos]

Punishing someone based on his intention would not solve things, since the intention may have been far more serious than the actual outcome. For example imagine a child who thinks that if he sticks a pencil inside one other child's hand, the other child will die. This would mean that his intention was to kill. But all that would happen would be to make the other child be in danger of poisoning.

 

[aronnax]

Punishing someone based on his intention would not solve things, since the intention may have been far more serious than the actual outcome. For example imagine a child who thinks that if he sticks a pencil inside one other child's hand, the other child will die. This would mean that his intention was to kill. But all that would happen would be to make the other child be in danger of poisoning.

But in this case we are dealing with a child who has no idea the gravity of his actions nor the maturity to properly think in the making of such a decision.

 

[plarq]

Conspiracy to commit murder is an action, not just an intention... there are steps that need to be followed through to be suspected of such a crime.

Agreed. We cannot punish intentions without substantial evidence. We can, however, punish those murderer wannabes for intimidation of victim.

 

[MeteorPunch]

We dont punish the insane or mentally unstable when they commit crimes, because they have no idea what they are doing.

So let them roam the streets to do it again? Doesn't sound like a plan to me.

 

[JollyRoger]

It takes both. Certainly you should punish someone who kills in cold blood pretty severely and maybe not punish someone that kills in self defense at all. You would punish someone differently for mere public intoxication less severely than someone who kills while intoxicated.

If true rehabiltation is demonstrated, a second chance (after some term of inarceration, of course) should be seriously considered, but not absolutely guaranteed for more severe crimes.

 

[Ayatollah So]

It does take both. That said, action is more important. Once you control for "what was the evidence available to the person at the time," intention has a pretty limited relevance. For example, a carpenter poorly secures his tools to his belt, and works on a roof in a sparsely populated area. There is netting below to protect any pedestrians, but by awful luck the dropped hammer somehow bounces beyond the netting, hits someone below, and kills him. The killing was accidental and unintentional, but the more important point was that based on the evidence available to him, the carpenter had little reason to believe that his carelessness could lead to a death. A similar action in a big city with no safety net would be much more blameworthy, even though both acts were unintentional.

 

[illram]

It should be based almost always on both, and sometimes only on action if the crime or infraction is minor. Speeding doesn't require intent for instance. You do it you pay. Murder obviously requires intent, and the severity of your punishment rides on the level of your intent. And don't forget that sometimes we substitute things classically not considered "intentional" such as recklessness in to qualify as the requisite intent necessary for the crime, because we as a society have agreed that for certain things there is an objective level of normal behavior that if you fall below, you can't just escape culpability because you "didn't mean it." E.g. accidentally running a red light and killing someone.

Which is how we have been doing it for a while BTW.

 

[Nylan]

This is like asking if it is the kingpin or the goon who is responsible for a murder. I don't see why intention and action have to be separated...both must be taken into consideration.