The first thing to decide how to punish someone for this is justice for the victim, then comes deterrance.
Frankly, if 5 drops wouldn’t blind him, he should be blinded and his face mutilated. And THEN his assets should be seized to help pay for the damages to this woman. And he should be conscious. This would serve both of the above criteria.
There is anotherthread on this, maybe mods want to merge it?
I’ll summarise my position though.
It is a bad idea. I don’t agree with such punishments and feel that it is uncivilised and that the world has moved on from this.
It is a particularly bad idea to have the victim playing any part in deciding what the sentence is.
I think most of the responses here are fucking sick, and I’m horrified that they’re coming from my countrymates. I honestly (naively apparently) thought that our justice system was part of what makes “us” better than “them”. I have a lot of issues with it, namely that it reduces everything to dollars and prison time, but it’s still better than this barbaric bronze aged bullshit.
What I’d do, if I were Queen:
He’s going to pay the medical bills for the victim, for as long as she needs them, for anything even tangentially related to the injuries he gave her. She trips and breaks her leg because she’s blind? He’s paying for casting, for a housekeeper while she can’t clean, for a cook if she can’t cook for herself. This responsibility is his until the day she dies.
Financial reparations so that the woman who was attacked can afford a marriage, an education or a plane ticket out of that country, whichever she wants.
Penance in community service, where the attacker must serve several years working with the blind and acid attacked - feeding, clothing and bathing the most serious, driving functional ones to appointments, cleaning their homes, providing childcare, whatever they need.
My hope is that by making him responsible for his actions and putting him in the position to see the kind of suffering he caused, he’ll hang himself out of guilt. I’m not softhearted, I just don’t see what good causing one more blinded victim (especially if it’s done under sedation) will do - better to have him help out crippled people than become another crippled person others will have to help.
With a system like that in place, with no end for the financial reparations, I think long before the convicted will kill themselves from guilt, the victim would find themselves dead. In the case you made, it seems particularly convenient for her to ‘accidentally’ fall down a flight of stairs or off a train platform or into some other dangerous environment.
Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a great idea, but in practice, it just simply wouldn’t work.
I found this part of a Guardian article on the case quite a depressing reminder.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/13/iran-blind-criminal-acid
Well, this will surprise no one, but I think it’s wrong. I am generally against cruel and unusual punishment and I see no reason to deviate here.
Good point. Okay, then there should be a lump sum set aside for such things.
And I’d also like to apologize for the language in my previous post. I honestly thought we were in the Pit. I should have double checked before posting. :smack:
That may not work either: what happens with perpetrators who live around the poverty line?
I have absolutely no answers myself. I pressed “post reply” just to express my enormous confusion for this situation.
In this particular case where the perpetrator is unquestioned I don’t have a problem with this, but no, as a blanket policy it’s probably not the best idea ever.
Frankly I’m more bothered by the notion that the “civilized” solution is to throw money at her.
I don’t claim to be an Iran expert, but I’m thinking that the perp probably doesn’t have the kind of assets to support the victim with the best international care possible for the rest of her natural life. Even if he did, she is still blind and disfigured.
I’m not sure about Iran, but I know in China that the average life span after being blinded is 5 years.
It’s complicated but WhyNot, your approach allows people with the money to commit a crime as long as they can make reparations. If the perp was poor, then the punishment would be different. that flies in the face of “and justice for all” philosophy.
I’m not Socretes, but if that was my daughter that was blinded, I’d probably be for that eye for an eye.
And the current system allows people to commit a crime as long as they’re willing to do prison time - or, in this case, have their eyes burned out with acid - and the rich have better lawyers and, on average, do less prison time. I’m not sure what your point is.
I thought “and justice for all” meant that anyone can bring anyone to court, and that laws apply to the rich as well as the poor.
I don’t think punishments should be identical, I think they should be equitable. What’s a $200 speeding ticket to Bill Gates? Less than the dinner bill on some days. He should pay $200,000, while a person living below poverty level, perhaps $20 - a percentage of income and assets, not a fixed dollar amount.
I agree that, in practice, punitive justice is a bad idea. I prefer the system we have in place. For one thing, a person falsely imprisoned can be released and compensated. For another, capital punishment, as practiced in the West, eats more taxpayer money than even a life sentence.
However, in ethical terms, I genuinely can’t see the slightest problem with it. If there existed a foolproof lie detector, or an infallible band of psychics who could instantly ascertain one’s guilt or innocence, then I’d be positively gung-ho in my support for punitive justice. For one thing, it seems like an excellent way to bring true closure to the victims of violent crime. I find it hard to believe that even an Iranian prison is capable of inflicting such daily hardships as those that this psychopath’s poor victim will, through absolutely no fault of her own, be forced to endure for the rest of her life. Some people find the inner strength necessary to overcome such disabilities. A great many don’t. Blinding, disfigurement, and post-traumatic stress can create a prison just as disempowering as anything built out of bricks and mortar. Allowing her the opportunity to inflict her suffering on her attacker could give her a sense of empowerment that she may not be able to muster knowing that he was “merely” in prison.
We’re still better than them. They are aggressors. We are not. And sometimes you’ve got to get down into the gutter for no better reason than to keep the scum from crawling out of it.
Terrible idea. He’ll quickly run out of money and after that she’ll get nothing.
And where’s this money going to come from? You can’t get blood out of a stone.
Outside? In the fresh air? Interacting with decent people? Why?!? On what grounds does he possible deserve such luxuries?
Listen, some people simply don’t have the capacity for empathy. He may very well spend the rest of his life picking scabs off half melted women and feel nothing but boredom. Or he may feel a little regret, but not really enough to lose sleep over. He may very well learn nothing. And all the while his victim is suffering almost unendurable hardships, unable to work, unable to form relationships, unable to go as much as an hour without being reminded of her assault. I’m sorry, but it’s just not good enough.
Emerson wrote that “Murder, in the mind of the murderer, is no such ruinous thought as poets and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him, or fright him from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be contemplated.” Frankly, if your capacity for cruelty is so great that you can conceive and follow through on a plan to hurl battery acid in your ex-girlfriend’s face, then we, as a society, have the right to assume that you’re one of those people and treat you accordingly. That may not necessarily mean inflicting death or disfigurement, but it should ideally preclude your enjoyment of any comforts beyond those absolutely necessary to keep you alive.
From the other thread: (Literal) Eye for an Eye Punishment in Iran
I too am appalled at the sentiments of agreement in this thread.
I would guess that a vote for Sharia Law would succeed in this thread - the punishment is straight from the Qur’an (although derived from earlier laws).
I prefer the teachings of Matthew and more recently, Martin - who said “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind”.
I’ve merged the MPSIMS thread started by Johnny L.A. and the GD thread started by Xenocrates.
No, that’s just a retarded saying with no meaning. Not everyone is going to have their eyes poked out because most people don’t just have a moment of weakness and blind someone intentionally. Some people would have to go through similar punishments for different crimes but most people would get to keep their eyes, fingers, etc. because they don’t do stuff like that to others. The offender probably had some vague idea that this might happen right? It is all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
“The old law of an eye for an eye makes wife of cane salesman very happy”.
I’m surprised she’s allowed to administer the punishment herself instead of having a male relative do it on her behalf. That’s some kind of odd victory for women’s rights.
I don’t really think I would categorize that quote of Martin Luther King’s as ‘retarded’.
Good.
Fine by me, I would probably be up for a bit of pure angry burning revenge if that happened to me.
No shit … or the offense of turning down a marriage proposal.
Never happen. He would go broke and she would be shit out of luck. He would murder her and get executed. Or he just doesn’t give a fuck, would be peeved at having the punishment and would not learn a thing reom it. He would go around badmouthing her, the judiciary and the system to everybody. And still probably kill er.
I would. Shagnasty’s right, it doesn’t really mean anything. How, exactly, does “An eye for an eye make the whole world blind”? No amount of commensurate physical punishment will ever drag the state down to the level of one who instigates such violence purely for personal gain or to settle a petty grievance.