Usually the attempt for murder carries a stiff penalty, too.
So they just need to try again? Funny how people can spend years in prison when nobody was hurt,just for firing a gun in the air to protect themselves, but attempted murder is not serious.
Why would it not? There was intent and planning* and method. What else would a law need? (I hope you aren’t going to tell me that this is one of those overly detailed laws?)
Planning is important to change from manslaughter - when a brawl spirals out of control, but there was no intent to kill - to murder: deliberate malice aforethought, not in the heat of emotions (or under influence) but with calm thought.
Is that only a misdemeanor, too, in your country? Or at least serious bodily harm?
So you disagree that attempted murder is serious, or do you disagree that they should be charged with it? I don’t quite understand why it’s just “ha ha misdemeanor, they are stupid” instead of “serious attempt to kill other people, lets put them in prison”.
Actually, i’ve called Bricker out on it before myself, and i don’t like it when one person makes a moral or ethical or normative argument and someone else then rebuts it with a legal argument.
But we also need to be clear, in discussions like this, to be clear about whether the argument we are making (or the question we are asking) is a legal one, or normative one.
Someone asked, “Isn’t attempted murder a felony?”
Well, the very simple answer to that question, which i gave, is that yes, attempted murder is a felony charge. But the very clear implication of the question is that the person asking it believes that this particular incident constitutes attempted murder, and thus should have been charged as a felony.
And this is precisely where it’s important to be clear about what we believe the law should be, on the one hand, and what the law actually is, on the other. As i said, i tend to think that someone setting up a trap like this in an area specifically marked out for human use, should be subject to a charge of attempted murder. If i were the person writing the law, the attempted murder statute would include behavior such as this.
But the question, in determining whether these people will be charged with a felony, is whether the Utah statue does, in fact, encompass this type of thing.
Look, i don’t claim to be an expert on the Utah penal code. I’m also not a criminal lawyer. I don’t know “what else would a law need” to make thisparticular incident susceptible to an attempted murder charge.
But, in my years of reading about legal cases in works of history and also in books specifically devoted to legal issues, and also in my time debating on these boards, it has become very clear to me that what a layperson thinks a particular law should say is often not the same as what it does say.
Look, this is very simple. On the normative, moral issues i agree with you completely: the behavior of these idiots should be enough to sustain an attempted murder charge. But legally, under the Utah penal code, i don’t know whether or not it does, and i also suspect that if it did, the prosecutor might have added that charge to the list. It could be that the DA is waiting, and will add the charge later.
I tell you what: since you’re the person asserting that the actions of these people could sustain an attempted murder charge, why don’t you look up the Utah penal code and support your assertion?
Wow, the ranger deserves huge props. That guy’s a mensch.
I believe he is saying that with the evidence of what they did, and the actual laws on the books in Utah, a charge of attempted murder is not possible. Or at least that is what the prosecutor appears to be saying. It’s unfortunate, but the solution is to charge the idiots with the maximum you can support, and work the change the law.
Are you truly as stupid as this post seems to suggest?
In case you are, let me answer your questions in the smallest possible words, and in the simplest possible manner.
So you disagree that attempted murder is serious
No dimwit. Attempted murder is very serious. Did you really ask that question?
or do you disagree that they should be charged with it?
This answer has two parts. The first part is that, in an ideal world, where i write the laws and get to define what constitutes attempted murder, these two people would be charged with attempted murder.The second part is that, even while i feel that this should be the case, it could in fact be that the Utah penal code does not actually allow for an attempted murder charge in this case. If that is true, then the DA is left in a position where he or she cannot, in fact make the charge, no matter how much i might wish it were otherwise.
I don’t quite understand why it’s just “ha ha misdemeanor, they are stupid” instead of “serious attempt to kill other people, lets put them in prison”.
Read this very slowly, so you grasp the issue: for me, their actions did constitute a serious attempt to kill other people. For the law, however, this may not be the case. I’m not claiming to know what the law does and does not allow in this case; i’m merely arguing that what it allows may not be congruent with your and my sense of what is right and just and moral in this case.
ETA: Telemark grasps the distinction i’m making here quite clearly.
For somebody who claims to not even know the actual legal code you seem pretty butt hurt that somebody even asked a question that you don’t know the answer to.
OK, here’s a simple question for you, then: If the Utah Penal Code defined attempted murder in such a way as to allow a charge of attempted murder for this particular incident, do you think that the prosecutors would have said this:
That quote is one of the main reasons that i’ve taken the position that i have on this issue.
If the prosecutors had simply said, “We’re working out the charges, and will decide what charges to file over the next couple of days,” that would be different. But the AP story actually says that the prosecutors themselves believe that the actions of these two people will only sustain the misdemeanor charges.
If the prosecutors do find, over the next few days, that they are indeed able to prefer a felony charge against the two men, i will be very happy. As i’ve made quite clear, i believe that what they did warrants serious punishment.
ETA: sachertorte, i initially read that sentence the same way that you did. it’s not very well written.
I’m not sure why they can’t be charged with a felony. What is the actual law in Utah? What if they had set a bomb somewhere but the authorities managed to disarm it before it went off? Would that be a felony?
I think what they need is to be beaten into a coma with a ballpeen hammer, but hard time would be acceptable.
eta: I wouldn’t be surprised if the prosecutors find some appropriate felonies to charge them with. The unusual nature of the acts here probably has them consulting the books to figure out what crimes they can allege.
I hope that you’re right. It certainly seems to me that what they did deserves more than a basic misdemeanor charge.
Here, for those who are interested, is the Utah Criminal Code’s definition of Attempt:
Note that the code does not have specific definitions of things like “Attempted Murder” or “Attempted Kidnapping.” It has a section called Offenses Against the Person, and then, in a separate section called Inchoate Offenses, it defines what Attempt means (as shown above), and lays out the way that Attempt crimes are classified. I’m not sure if all criminal codes do it this way.
It seems, to my layperson’s understanding, that what the prosecution is up against here is establishing intent. To what extent can intent, in a case like this, be inferred from the actions themselves? When the assholes in question claim that they were seeking to trap animals and not humans, what sort of weight is that claim given? I don’t know the answers to these questions, but they seem like the sort of things that would need to be answered.
Thanks for the brew…my primate Beeyotch!!!
Thanks for the links, mhendo. In the section on murder, the Utah law says:
Personally, I’d say that setting up those two traps show depraved indifference to human life, and they would create a grave risk of death to another. But I’m a layman, not a lawman.
How big does a rick need to be to graduate to a boulder?
I would call that thing in the video a big rock, not a boulder,
But maybe that’s just me.
Surely one must kill someone before being charged with murder.
That’s not being argued against. The discussion that’s going on is about whether setting a death trap for whatever random schmoe is unlucky enough to trip it rises to the standard (under Utah state law) of attempted murder.
Right, but the Utah Criminal code doesn’t have a specific entry for something called Attempted Murder.
What it has, as i explained above, is an Offense Against the Person called Murder, and an Inchoate Offense called Attempt. In order to determine whether someone has committed Attempted Murder, you need to look at what the Murder statute says, and also at what the Attempt statute says.
I had already quoted the Attempt section, and Punoqllads was simply looking at what he perceives to be the most important part of the Murder section.
What about conspiracy?