If someone intends to kill, shouldn’t that in itself constitute murder? I have this question everytime I hear that someone has been severly injured by another, and dies some time later, and the DA changes the charge from attempted murder to murder.
I suppose if you want to get technical, there must be a dead victim for murder to occur. But, to me, reason tells me that the crime is in the intent and the action and not it’s result.
I believe the reason why charges are termed “Sexual assault” instead of “rape” in many states is due to a similar line of argument…people who were commiting sexual crimes were not convicted of rape due to the fact that actual penetration or intercourse didn’t happen - even if it was being attempted or other acts were commited. If I am wrong or off base, I’d like to know.
However, last time I heard (and it has been a long time since I checked) an attempted crime generally has the same sentencing range as the committed crime would. So not having been successful does not get get the person out of jail sooner.
Consequentially, you didn’t actually cause any harm by attempting murder. Personally, I don’t think it should be a crime at all in the traditional sense, it shouldn’t have time in a penal institution as punishment. Attempted murder should be handled some other way, it doesn’t seem right to punish somebody who didn’t harm anyone. I think it should also depend on how far along the attempt the person was. It can be considered attempted murder at different points along the murder plan.
I suppose we lock them up figuring that if we don’t they’ll just try again, but that wouldn’t always be the case. If it were a spontaneous impulse, there wouldn’t be any future risk of another murder attempt.
No, but a harmful agent is identified. Prison serves many purposes… among rehabilitation (hopefully) and punishment, there’s the “protection” aspect: Protecting society from harmfu, and potentially harmful,l elements.
Well, a large proportion of murderers have already killed the only person they are ever likely to kill, whereas plainly this is not the case for attempted murderers. On this reasoning the attempted murderer should get a longer sentence, since this may be necessary to protect the potential victim.
But the actual consequences of a crime are always a factor in sentencing. Otherwise those convicted of careless driving should get the same sentence as those convicted of manslaughter by negligence.
In Virginia, the attempt to commit a capital crime is a Class 2 felony (life or 20+ years). The attempt to commit a crime: punishable by life, or more than twenty years, is a Class 4 felony (two to ten years); a crime punished at twenty years is a Class 5 felony (one to ten, or jail not to exceed twelve months); and felonies less than 20 years have their attempts punished as a Class 6 felony (one to fivem or jail not to exceed twelve months).
In other words, here attempt is punished less severely than the completed crime.
Consider for a moment if you were the intended victim of the murder and you knew that an attempt has been made on your life. Would you consider yourself to have not been harmed? Please consider any ensuing mental anguish has harm.
Actually a pretty good question. If we punish attempt less severely than completion, aren’t we just rewarding criminal incompetence? The criminal gets a break because his victim pulled through?
The Model Penal Code punishes most attempts as severely as the completed crime on the grounds that the actor presents the same danger and merits the same blame regardless of success. Much more widely adopted is the position that attempts should be punished around half of that of the completed crime (or more rarely, only mildly punished). The rationale for less severe punishments is generally that the loss to society is less severe (as noted above), and that somehow using the full retributive force of the law in “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” when neither an eye or tooth has been lost doesn’t do justice.
Not so. It is perfectly legal for me to think about killing anyone. If I were to take actions to achieve this goal however, I would be committing a crime; the crime is the action, not the thought.
Do you even know what attempted murder is? It doesn’t mean that the intended victim wasn’t harmed at all. It may mean that he had half of his brains blown out but still managed to cling to life as a vegetable. The OP was asking (rightfully IMO), why the would be murderer’s fate should depend at all on the victim’s tenacity to cling to life.
So DUI should get the same penalty no matter what the consequences? Even “attempted DUI”? A man who is so drunk he is trying to get into his car but cannot find the keys gets the same sentence as one who drives drunk and kills two adults, three children and a cat? What would the penalty be which would be adequate in both cases?
The difference is the drunk driver is not proactive. He doesn’t actually do anything. Attempted murder doesn’t punish intent, it punishes action.
Can anyone give me a good reason why a man who shoots at his victims heart, but misses it by a quarter of an inch, should be treated more leniently than a man who’s aim was more accurate?
Just to clarify, when I said “The Drunk Driver is not proactive” I was referring to the one in sailors hypothetical who couldn’t find his keys and therefore doesn’t actually drive anywhere.
Ah no…not quite. There is no crime against thinking about murdering someone (if there was, I bet a lot of people would be serving multiple life sentences). The reason ATTEMPTED murder has a similar punishment to actual murder is that the criminals incompetance is not a defense.
There is also FELONY murder which basically means if someone dies while you are committing a felony (ie dies of a heart attack during your bank robery) then you could be accussed of murder.