Woman is in a house and is violently raped by a man whom she thought was a family friend. She suffers severe symptoms of PTSD including nightmares and can’t stand being touched by another human including her husband. Husband tracks down man and kills him.
You are on the jury, the prosecutor has asked for a first degree murder conviction. Would you vote to convict?
Yep.
Yes, of course. Even if you thought this one guy was perfectly justified (dubious), it is still a terrible idea to let people engage in vigilante justice because they will often get it wrong.
That said, I might be inclined to find him guilty on some kind of manslaughter charge if that were an option.
I haven’t heard a second of testimony yet, so who knows how I’d vote.
In my state, to be first degree, a murder has to have aggravating circumstances, like murder committed in the process of abusing a child or spouse, or killing a judge or witness. So if it was first-degree or nothing, I vote Not Guilty.
If manslaughter is an option, then I agree with Richard Parker.
Regards,
Shodan
This.
I’d vote to convict him for premeditated murder. Because that was the crime he committed; you don’t get excused for committing murder just because you have a good reason. We have a legal system to punish rapists.
This is giving me flashbacks to the first episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS.
Shodan beat me to it; I don’t see first degree murder in the description of events.
Thirded.
First degree, of course not. Too many extenuating circumstances. A prosecutor would try for an appropriate and realistic charge, and then the jury vote would depend on the presentation of evidence, which would be a great deal more complex than that presented by the OP…
I think it’s very plausible that I’d convict on first degree murder. Based on the scenario, the husband committed a premeditated homicide. Premeditation makes it murder, and “gee I understand he must have had a hard time with everything” doesn’t un-make premeditation.
But obviously my opinion is subject to change if more facts come in.
Convict but recommend a lighter sentence, maybe something like 10-20 years in prison.
Agreement.
(There is some validity to the “I haven’t heard evidence yet” p.o.v., but it’s too much like arguing with the hypothesis. The evidence was presented in the OP.)
Would it make any difference if the prosecutor had decided not to go after the rapist because he didn’t believe the woman’s story?
I think he’s guilty of something between manslaughter and first degree murder according to local statutes regardless of why the police didn’t go after the alleged rapist. Assuming of course that the defense has stipulated the facts of the actual killing.
It would make me more likely to convict. If the prosecutor wasn’t sure, then the man’s confidence is more likely to be misplaced.
First Degree possibly not although with the premeditation indicated in the OP I would go murder rather than manslaughter.
What’s the definition of first degree murder in this jurisdiction, and has the prosecutor shown evidence that this matches that definition? If so, then yes.
The basic issue here is lynching; the idea that when somebody is guilty of certain crimes, we should just bypass the legal system and let the public (whether it’s one person or a mob) carry out an execution. Or a vendetta, where people retaliate for crimes committed against them or somebody close to them by committing an equivalent crime back against the criminal or somebody close to the criminal.
These are bad systems for administering justice. They should be opposed not just because they often produce bad results but because they’re wrong even if they produce the right result. We have a functioning legal system (and if it’s not functioning right, we have the means to change it) and that’s how we should administer justice.