Thread: Justice?

Originally Posted by gregs656

He was charged for what was effectively the revenge, his family was safe, his home was safe.

Well, that would be what's under question

At what point is the attack over? Just because an attacker is running away doesn't mean he's done

Finishing the fight during the fight is different than revenge

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

ok but how does this factor in as far as guilt or innocence of breaking the law?

It should mean that the court allows for the fact that it was an extremely stressful and frightening situation where the mans family was threatened, and that rational thought had likely gone out the window.

Surely trying to rob a mans home and tying up and threatening his family is counted as provocation and mitigating circumstances? And the guy didnt know if the crooks were going to regroup and come back either.

Sure, if he'd gone out, tracked the guy down and beaten him up days later that would be one thing. But in the heat of a moment like this, its not hard to understand how he reacted. Hell, I'd have reacted the same way. And frankly I'd rather go to prison than see anyone I love hurt.

A week later...it would be murder one probably here in the States. I have mixed emotions on that one.
-If they just broke in and stole things, no reason to track them down a week later.
-Raped my wife or daughter, I'd never give up on wanting revenge...would probably end up in prison if I couldn't hide the body well enough...

That's just me...

Originally Posted by Stubear

It should mean that the court allows for the fact that it was an extremely stressful and frightening situation where the mans family was threatened, and that rational thought had likely gone out the window.

In Belgium, you can be cleared of murder by proving reasonable cause of temporary insanity. This would be a slam dunk.

A couple of years ago there was a case of a jeweler being robbed for the nth time. When he was robbed again, he shot one of the fleeing robbers in the back and killed him (if I recall correctly). He got cleared as well.

Our law foresees that there can be circumstances in which you can break the law but not be punished for it.

Originally Posted by Bruno

In Belgium, you can be cleared of murder by proving reasonable cause of temporary insanity. This would be a slam dunk.
.

So does ours. Apparently, he either didn't plea temporary insanity or the jury decided he wasn't.

I don't know how long after the attack it's considered revenge, in this case, probably because of the extreme retaliation, it wasn't very long.

Originally Posted by IanS

Beating someone who is already restrained is an act of a sociopath. This judgment is actually the act of the justice system performing it's intended function: protecting society from sociopaths. If the criminal had still posed a threat, the man would have been perfectly within in his right to sneak up behind him and knock his head off with a bat. Surrounding a man and beating him as he lay on the ground with cricket bats as has been described in this thread... no offense, but if you consider that justified by anything, see a psychiatrist... that's a benchmark for mental illness.

Wow, where did you do your training in psychiatry or psychology? You really need to research your terms and criteria. Here is the DSM-IV criteria for what you are calling a "sociopath", which is a generic term. The actual illness is referred to as Antisocial Personality Disorder.
"a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood."
Did this guy beating the burglar abuse the rights of others as a child? Do you know? You claim to know the "benchmarks" for mental illness, but you don't know that people in mental health use criteria, not "benchmarks". Perhaps you need to learn a little psychiatry or psychology before you pretend you know what you are talking about. These men were not sociopaths, they were men responding to immediate danger in their minds.
The burglar was an immediate threat and the men who chased them down were mentally in a state of a brief psychotic episode. As the others here have used common sense to describe the adrenergic and sympathetic response of the men beating the burglar (flight or flight etc..). They at least did not attempt to make a diagnosis. In fact, your statements are so unfounded that the exact opposite is true. The criminal being a repeat criminal, is most likely a sociopath, and yet you have not the common sense to see that. You acuse the normal people of being psychotic and then make the true "sociopath" out to be normal. Amazing!

Originally Posted by IanS

A tiger would eat you if you encountered it in the wild. Does that justify going on safari and shooting it from your car? The qualifier for self defense is an immediate threat. It was not come to lightly. Push that envelope even slightly and the world descends purely into vigilantism. It isn't slippery slope, it's immediate cliff-edge. A lot of people have mentioned things along the line of "I'd be ****ed off and do this too." That's a rational decision taken with the consciousness that you are the violent offender, which you weigh against the consequences of that action. That doesn't make it justified. In fact it acknowledges how it is unjustified and simply veto's that rational with simple rage. And now to bring the issue I've already dismissed into it... do you really think this criminal would have gotten parole with 50 offenses on record if the guy that turned him over HADN'T nearly killed him? More than his own consequences, the husband most certainly didn't consider that his actions would create sympathy for this dangerous felon and thereby risk his going free. His rage has put society as a whole at risk because he is unable to control himself. He belongs in jail.

This man's rage was not rage, it was a Pavlovian response (look it up). The tiger is an animal with no higher function, it responds to humans as danger (another Pavlovian response). The animal does not know better about sensing danger as humans do, and the men even beating the burglar did it out of a sense of danger with an over exaggerated response.. Your example there is very poor, I'll give you a chance to choose a second one. Society is safer with more men like him and as most people here have said, he deserves to be congratulated. The criminal got what he deserved and probably got medical care after the beating (which he didn't deserve). Perhaps you should move the criminal into your home and care for him with love and devotion and help rehabilitate him . Since the rest of us need a psychiatrist for being sociopaths, you should be the bigger person and care for the normal criminal.

Let me preface this by saying that if I ran into a burglar in my house when I got home, I'd kill him. He took that chance by entering my house without my authority. That same chance was taking by the burglars in this situation.

That being said... this case is slightly different.

I voted the first option because this is not home preservation or self-defense. You were already out of danger and the suspect was in flight. This made the act shift from self preservation to vigilantism. They shifted from defense to offense.

What should have been done was to take whatever means necessary to apprehend and restrain the burglar until the police could be summoned. Two guys with bludgeons can do this simply without going to the levels that they did.

How about a brother of this man? He also took part in the beating of this burglar although he wasn't threated at all. Where did he get his rage?

Few years ago i almost got stabbed. I was at the only pub of this island with my wife and some friends. There was also some bad-mooded drunk fellow who tried desperately to find a reason to start a fight with almost everybody. When he got to us we told him to get quiet or leave after he had moaned for some time. Instead he took a knife, waved it in the air for few seconds and then tried to stick it into direction where me and my wife were standing. I don't know if he tried to hit us or not. It all happened very fast, within few seconds so i had no time to step aside. I took the knife away from him and then i gave him a little squeeze. My friends got there too and after we squeezed him a little more he got convinced that threatening people with knives is childish and stupid. After 10 minutes police came and took this guy away. I told the police that i wasn't sure if the man really tried to stab me or not or was he just so drunk he didn't know it even himself. I don't know what happened to him. Had i acted like most of gentlemen here seem to think, i should have cut his throat open in a name of a self defence.

Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

I voted the first option because this is not home preservation or self-defense. You were already out of danger and the suspect was in flight. This made the act shift from self preservation to vigilantism. They shifted from defense to offense.

Are you 100% sure he didn't run to get another weapon, or to try and capture the sone who'd escaped? would you take that bet if it had been your family?

Originally Posted by Sailor

Had i acted like most of gentlemen here seem to think, i should have cut his throat open in a name of a self defence.

Not quite. You managed to take the knife away and you were with a bunch of friends. And at no point was your friend tied up and threatened with physical harm, in your own home. Different situation.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Are you 100% sure he didn't run to get another weapon, or to try and capture the sone who'd escaped? would you take that bet if it had been your family?

I think I misread the article. This does not appear to have been a burglary. It appears that the criminals were there with the intent of doing harm to the man and his family.

Can I change my vote?