Son kills the man who raped his mother
Is his sentence the right thing, too light, or too harsh? I’m asking in both the legal and moral sense.
Legally I think he needed to be punished because we can’t have people running around claiming vigilante justice all the time. Morally I find nothing wrong with his actions.
I understand perfectly why the young man did what he did, and I’d be tempted to do the same in similar circumstances. Most men probably feel the same way I do.
That’s precisely why he has to be punished.
Yep, the guy deserved it. He should have gotten a $1000 fine for cleanup purposes, and 30 days community service.
He’ll probably be out on parole in a year.
If someone raped anyone in my family, they would suffer a lot more than that man did. I don’t believe in the death penalty, or prison, for rapists. My punishment is much worse. Complete removal of the genitals, among other things. I’m proud of that boy.
While I don’t agree with the son’s confrontation of his mother’s rapist, I can see the thought processes behind doing so, especially if his mum didn’t want to go to the police (which I’m assuming, since there was no mention of it in the article). In his place, I can see most people wanting to go around and knock the man around a bit. Not smart, but understandable.
As for his punishment, he did something that directly contributed to a person’s death. In a civilized society, I think that that needs to be punished. Even if he only assaulted the man, he deserved to be punished. If you make a choice to do something illegal, you need to be prepared to take the consequences. If it’s notimportant enough to take the risk, you shouldn’t do it. I do, however, think that the court did the right thing by reducing the charges.
Peace - DESK
I’m confused, did he kill the rapist, or the grapist?
I feel for the kid, but he broke the law, and acted as a vigilante. He clearly deserves at least some prison time.
Let’s get this straight.
-The asshole raped this guy’s mother
-Guy goes to have a little talk with the asshole, bringing along a cricket bat
-Asshole jokes about how raping his mom was “only a bit of fun”
-Kid whacks him, he falls and hits his head
-Dies three days later from the fall, not from the cricket bat
-Docs said if he wasn’t drunk and on drugs he would’ve lived.
Hmmm. Seems pretty cut and dry to me. This kid deserves AT LEAST six months unsupervised probation. What he did was wrong.
That sentence seems fair enough to me considering he’ll be out most likely after a year.
I would think in that situation I’d have tried to kill the mofo. I’d expect prison time for it and accept the punishment coming to me. Society can’t have people taking the law into their own hands no matter how justified you may feel they are.
I read about this a week or two ago, before he was sentenced. I agree with general consensus - the boy does need to be punished; he broke a law and, accidentally or otherwise, he caused the death of another. That said, I completely understand his reasons for doing so, and would likely do something similar if I was ever involved a situation like that, and would have thought any sentence much longer than the one issued would have been unfair considering the circumstances.
Of course the boy should be punished. No rapist should be allowed a death as quick and painless as that. The kid was sloppy.
What the hell are you people talking about? The guy was accused of being a rapist, not convicted. I’m so damn sorry your buttons were pushed, but what if the mother lied to her son? Do you think there might be the tiniest possibility that the son then lied about the guy boasting about it? Cone on now-someone comes up to you with a weapon accusing you of some awful crime, and your first instinct would be to deny it(whether you did it or not), not brag about it.
I’m sorry to piss off some of you who are cheering this kid on, but what happened still doesn’t justify murder.
Manslaughter is a generous deal. If I were prosecuting him I would have tried for second degree murder. He got off light.
Well, the guy was on drugs. He was probably feeling pretty invincible.
I think the sentence is fair. While it would have been best for the mother to go to the police immediately, I don’t think this deserves a murder charge, since the kid’s attack wasn’t premeditated and it wasn’t actually the bat that killed him. Isn’t manslaughter supposed to be for crimes like this, where the attacker does not directly contribute to the death, but instead commits it indirectly? Like vehicular manslaughter?
I agree wholeheartedly. A criminal’s illegal actions does not constitute an excuse for responding with illegal actions of your own.
You can say all sorts of things might have happened. I think any discussion on the subject has to assume that the information we have is correct. If not, then there’s nothing to really talk about.
This is somewhat along the lines of what I was hoping would be discussed. Just because his actions were illegal, do you think they were wrong?
I think what the boy did was morally and legally wrong.
I wouldn’t give him a harsh sentance because the crime appeared to have been a crime of passion. I find criminals interesting, and although I am FAR from an expert, this boy sounds like a perfectly normal boy who had one bad incident. If I were the judge in the case, I would carefully weigh the boy’s past history, his schooling, his general attitude, etc, before pronouncing a judgement. If I found this incident to be a one-time freak accident and the boy expressed enough sympathy, I would give him a sentance, but a light one. I wouldn’t want his future ruined because of this incident.
Now, I have not read all the details on this case, and it would be impossible for me to. Therefore, all my judgements are based on what it publically available. If there were any evidence that the facts appear to be different than what they seem to be, then I would weigh more heavily against the boy.
As for the moral part - I can completely understand the boy’s response. However, we have laws, courts, legal systems, all that fun stuff for a reason. He did not have irrefutable evidence this man really was his mother’s rapist. Yes, the man admitted to raping her, but I have read far too many false confessions to take one as fact, especially one said by a known drug user. What if he killed an innocent man? I sincerely doubt that this was the case, but it could’ve happened.
Now, I hate to use the slippery slope argument in this case, but I do think it should be considered. Suppose the accused rapist had a relative and the relative killed the boy for the murder of his/her relative. If we did not know the facts of the first case and were just presented with “individual kills boy who murdered his relative” a good deal of people would consider that action justifiable. Of course, you could just argue that if you looked enough at the case, the first one would appear, but I have found that isn’t always so. A line should be drawn somewhere and I think it should be drawn straight away.
This is not to say that if one of my family members were murdered I would not want to kill the individual responsible. Right now, I regard doing so as lowering myself to the level of the criminal. Perhaps I would change my mind.
In this case, yes I do.
I think most of us would agree that unless you’re faced with an immediate threat of harm, hitting someone with a cricket bat is wrong. Secondly, some may disagree, but I feel that revenge is not a valid excuse for physical violence.
Yes, what the alleged rapist did is wrong, and from the story, I’d say that it sounds like the guy was a real asshole whose passage few will mourn. However, as the old adage says, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” The end result is that a man is dead from the actions of this kid. He does not have the authority to give out the death penalty to whomever he feels deserves it.
We as a society do not determine the “worth” of the victim before punishing offenders-- or, at least, we shouldn’t. Yes, the alleged rapist was apparently scum-of-the-earth, but he was still a human being with rights which should have been respected— not for his sake, but for ours as a society.
There was a case in New York City about twenty years ago where a young girl of grade school age was raped by a known neighborhood creep. When she ran home crying and bleeding, she told her father who had done this to her. He immediately grabbed a baseball bat and ran out to beat the guy. Others joined in his search for the perp. They found him and the father beat him to death. IIRC, the DA declined to prosecute since he did not think he could get a conviction due to a temporary insanity situation and overwhelming public support for the father.
If the facts in the OP are correct, I think this case should have been handled similarly. This guy was an unrepentent rapist. The kid flipped out.
I might charge him with assault and require a significant period of counseling. The son needs help - not punishment. He probably saved other women from a similar fate at this rapist’s hand.