I almost clicked YYA, but in fact I'm not convinced that in most cases the difference between sentencing is SO huge. Plus, the law requires that punishment be focused on the result rather than the intent. Results are easier to measure, and sentences can be adjusted according to evidence of intent and/or feelings of remorse. So, in my mind, it DOES make sense that results are the primary factor in deciding punishment

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Exactly. You can lie about the intent, but the outcome is an absolute.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

On one hand, the intent decides if the guy would do it again, whih is what punishment tries to fix. On the other hand, no harm, no foul. And maybe simply getting caught will be deterrent enough. Although the first reason I better, I NW'd because you can lie about intent. At least things like murder take intent into account due to severity.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

In many cases, though, it's hard to lie about intent. "I swear, officer, I didn't mean to stab her repeatedly!"

by Anonymous 11 years ago

You could say "officer, I only stabbed her because she was trying to kill me first"

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Which can be proven or disproven based on the evidence.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Maybe, but maybe not. Nothing is concrete. Which is why instead of saying someone is innocent, they say they are not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Okay, but I don't think it's relevant whether they're telling the truth about intent, since even if they were lying, the lie would be the same for any outcome. For example, if you're going to say, "I only stabbed her because she was trying to kill me first", you would be saying that no matter whether or not she died.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Even then, it's undue force. If she tries to kill you, you disarm her if possible If not, then you sever her tendons or something or knock her out. Chances are, after the first stab or two, she'll start begging for mercy and all subsequent stabs will be undue force.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Think of it like this. There are two equal criminals who decide to kill a woman. Let's call them criminal A and criminal B. They both have the same intent (killing a woman). Criminal A kills the woman and gets their prison sentence. Criminal B kills the woman, and finds out afterwards she's pregnant. So criminal B unknowingly killed a mother and her unborn child. While both criminals had equal intent, the outcome was different because criminal B unknowingly took two lives instead of one. The crime was the same, the intention was the same, but the outcome was different. I see what you were trying to say with the post, but try thinking of it from a different perspective.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

That's my point exactly. The criminals had the same intent and did the same action - stabbing (or shooting, or whatever) a woman. Why should they be punished differently? Punishing B more severely won't bring the baby back to life.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Well I guess I see it that regardless of his intentions, he killed a baby as well as the woman. Even though it wasn't intentional, that's still another life, and deserves more punishment. It doesn't matter whether he did it on purpose or not.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Why? If you accidentally killed a baby - like dropped it while holding it - you wouldn't be punished because you didn't do it on purpose.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

If you accidentally killed someone by hitting them with a car, you still get punished, just not for the same amount of time as if you meant to kill them. If you dropped accidentally killed a baby, you'd get punished for negligence.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

Right, people should definitely be punished for recklessness or negligence. But when they knowingly commit a crime, it doesn't make sense to change the punishment depending on how successful they were.

by Anonymous 11 years ago

It doesn't when you can prove that they were set on doing whatever it is they were going to do, but a lot of the times you can't. You could have been carrying a bomb on you because you are an engineer or some shit and you were going to work and you had brought your work home, but might have been caught carrying the bomb. It doesn't mean you were going to use it to kill.

by Anonymous 11 years ago