I likes to eat my friends: Has the German justice system gone nuts?

Warning: If you haven’t heard about it, this is some disturbing shit. If you’re sqeamish, don’t read any more. If you can handle pretty much anything, read on.

So, this guy, Armin Meiwes, decides to act on a lifelong obsession; he wants to eat somebody. Being a techno-saavy guy, he puts up an add on the internet: I want to eat a well-built man. If you’re interested, let’s have dinner.

Turns out, somebody actually takes him up on it. Bernd-Juergen Brandes bought a one way ticket, met with Meiwes for an evening, and the two agreed to start the meal. Meiwes drugged Brandes, and cut off his penis and flambeed it. The two ate Brandes’ penis together, and, after Brandes passed out, Meiwes killed him, and cut him up into schnitzel. All of this was recorded on video tape for posterity. Over the following weeks, the bulk of Herr Brandes was consumed; he “tasted of pork”.

Eventually somebody turned Meiwes in; he readily confessed and provided any and all evidence needed to close the case against him. Thing is, what case? Turns out, cannibalism isn’t illegal in Germany. Not only that, due to the consensual nature of the act, the defense actually had a good argument that Meiwes was legally responsible only for “killing by request”, which carries a maximum 5-year sentence.

The prosecution wanted life for murder and “disturbing the peace of the dead”, but it was not to be: Meiwes got manslaugter, and 8.5 years max in prison.

OK, I don’t care how nice the guy was to his neighbors, we’re talking about one seriously sick individual. Heaven only knows what would have become of him in the states (one wonders…Texas?..is there an express line on death row?), but it sure as flaming Hell wouldn’t have been eight lousy years.

Well, Germany certainly has changed. I guess it’s a much more humane place than, oh, say about 60 years ago. Now there appears to be a new sort of madness, though I don’t know what to call it. Is this just a judicial SNAFU? Lack of legal forsight? I mean, can it really be true that “oh, so he AGREED to be killed, butchered, and eaten? Well, that’s not so bad, now, is it?” Could this really be a proper verdict?

Actually, no. I feel that he should not even have been convicted of manslaughter if all the reporting is accurate,

Despite the abhorrent nature of the ‘deed’ there are no laws against cannibalism and from all accounts, the ‘victim’ was a more than willing accomplice to the proceedings. Therefore, while Meiwes might be one crazy sicko, he really has not committed any ‘crime’…even manslaughter.

Just so you’re aware of SDMB history: An old colleague of mine was voluntarily cannibalized and killed. TM friggin’ I.

German criminal justice has long been lenient for my tastes. A typical murder sentence is about 15 years. On the other hand, they have extremely low rates of violent crime compared to the U.S. I’ve walked through the seediest parts of Frankfurt and Hamburg in the middle of the night without the slightest concern for my safety, something that I would never do in Dallas without armed escort. So who’s right and who’s wrong? Dunno, not worried. Just stay away from guys advertising for people who want to be killed and eaten.

Just so you know, kambuckta, consent is not a defense to homicide in the Anglo-American justice system. Nor should it be. You don’t get to kill somebody just because they’re completely fucking nuts.

Cannibalizing your own reproductive system with the aid of another being, consenting to it killing you and continuing to feed off of you. Everytime you violate consent you’re representing this archetype. You’re just scared of your own reflection, mortified by your own face, and as a result, unable to confront it. This archetype will hunt you down no matter how much you try to ignore it and gossip it away - the act of doing such only makes it stronger in fact. You don’t think that you do this every waking moment of your life? Feed upon yourself to your own demise in an attempt to make a contract with existence for the consent of your own life? Quibbles from the blind.

Pool The String! Pool The String!

And consenting to be killed is evidence of someone’s fucking nuttiness, and subsequent inablity to consent to things, such as being killed?

Of course, I could be reading you wrong, if you’re talking about the eater.

He is talking about the eatee being mad, I believe. The court found the eater to be sane, BTW.

Anyway, for reference: the court found that the preconditions of section 211 of the German Crimnal Code were not met, so they could not convict for murder. Section 216 (homicide on request) is in everyone’s mind meant for cases of terminally ill people, not for culinary purposes, so it was not applied.

Surely killing someone who has consented to being killed isn’t quite as serious as killing someone who hasn’t?

8 years may well be very lenient, but its not supprising Germany doesn’t have a law against cannabilism. I doubt they’ve ever had to try a case like this before.

Yes, of course. Although I’d call it “conclusive proof” of insanity, not mere evidence of it. Good god, if wanting to be killed and eaten by a stranger is not insanity, then the word has no meaning.

Also, do keep in mind the diferences between insanity for purposes of criminal justice and clinical insanity. The eater here is also completely insane, but he clearly understood the import of what he was doing.

Go Germany, I say. Legal systems in some of those European countries are so cool.

Out of curiosity… why do people think this guy deserves to be punished? For being weird? Are people against the idea of assisted suicide? I’m guessing it’s not a ‘life is sacred’ thing, since this seems to have caused more outrage (given it’s just one guy) than the whole capital punishment thing some countries have going. Naturally, if it can be demonstrated somehow that the guy is insane and a danger to society, he arguably should be locked up to keep others safe, but not as punishment for him.

~ Isaac

IANALOAD, but I’ve always thought of insanity as an inability to percieve what the rest of us call reality. Obviously the eatee knew what was going on, and it was entirely consensual (if you posit that he was able to give consent, which I do). Fucked up? Certainly. But if wanting to be eaten automatically makes someone incompetent, why doesn’t wanting to eat someone?

But obviously not too lenient for Armin Meiwes’s tastes.

This story reminded me of something I read about years ago…in Germany, after WWI, there was a celebrated case of a man who killed and ate something like 25 children! His name was Fritz Harrwood?. Anyway, as i recall, he was convicted and executed.
Seems that witha strong cannibal position, they would have had a law against it.

Normally the murder laws would cover acts of cannibilism, which is why there is no specific law against it. The idea of a consensual act of cannibilism probably never occured to the lawmakers, which isn’t all that suprising.

“Specifically, I’d like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders since it is less wasteful.” – Calvin, “Calvin and Hobbes”

You are thinking of Fritz Haarmann. He was possibly not a cannibal himself (though he sold cuts of his victims to unsuspecting customers).

This was not thought as necessitating a change in the law at the time as his victims did not consent.

BTW the prosecutors have announced that they will appeal.

My wife summed it up well when I told her about the case: “So, a psychopath managed to bag himself some poor schizophrenic.”

Put that way, it doesn’t sound quite so harmless and consensual. I would suggest that anyone who wants someone to cut off his penis and eat it with him has a bit more than ‘issues’. If he further wants to bekilled, cut up and eaten, he’s clearly in need of help, and not the carving knife kind.

As Minty said, consent is never a justification for murder. Just ask Dr. Kevorkian. He’s cooling his heels in the slammer, despite the fact that he was actually acting out of compassionate motives for people who clearly wanted his help.

Speaking of Kevorkian… He got 10-25 years in the slammer, and I would consider what he did to be not even in the ballpark with what this cannibal did.

Interesting sig.

If Brandes had killed himself without Mewes help, and then been eaten by Mewes would any German law have been broken? Or if Mewes stole a body from a morgue what would the criminal penalty have been?

There is a good question as too what a mentally insane person should legally be allowed to copncent to. Is suicide illegal in Germany? Would someone be legally alowed to cut off their own limb, what would be the cae if they requested and got help from someone in cutting off their own limb?

It seems to me the canabalism and the death in the Brandes/Mewes incident should be considered as two separate things in considering the legality and morality of what happened.

Brandes was undoubtedly mentally sick, but was he incapable of giving concent to the acts he weant through? If he didn’t die, but instead weant as far as the gental consumption with Mewes would this be a crimianl act at all?