h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Should the courts prosectue people for the crime they commited or the intention that they had when they commited it?

Example: A person hits another, he falls and hits his head on something hard, this injury kills him. A second person hits another, he falls and lands on something softer and is just injured.

The first person gets manslaughter the second gets assault&battery. Is it right that two people who essentaily did the same thing get different sentances? Then agian if you were family to the person the first killed would you consider it justice if he got a relitively light sentance?

Discuss.

Thats a difficult one indeed, I am looking forward to seeing some opinions on this one.

Personally, I think the law already does a pretty good job of balancing intent and outcome when dealing with crime. For example:

Fred beats George in the head until he's dead, and then gives him a few more just for kicks

Fred punches George in a bar brawl and gets him just wrong, George dies.

Fred punches George in a bar brawl, George collapses, Fred calls an ambulance, George dies anyway

Fred punches George in self-defense, George dies

Fred punches George in a bar brawl, George is injured but doesn't die

Fred punches George in self-defense, George is injured but doesn't die

The charges and average prison sentences for these would be different.

I think most people would find a penal system that was based solely on outcome and not on intent to be unfair and unjust. However, it's simply not possible to have a solid penal system based solely on intent -- while we can objectively measure outcome, we can't objectively measure intent -- we have to make our best guess at intent from the testimony of the defendant, the victim (if surviving), any witnesses, or any other evidence.

Already in a system which tries to balance outcome and intent, people constantly try to manipulate the jury in court with claims of "It was an accident", "It was self-defense", "I was momentarily crazy", when none of the above were actually the case. If the system was based solely on intent, I would expect such post-hoc wiggles to worsen significantly.


Mikey

Do you think the average sentances should be different for (2),(5) or for (4),(6)?

If so then you are arguing that if you punch someone in self defence a factor outside of your control (e.g. where they land) should determine your sentance.

In any legal system you will get errors. Either you will punish the innocent or release the guilty. Personally I would rather release the guilty than risk being punished for something I didn't do. Then again this leads to more criminals on the street and a greater chance of becoming a victim. Thoughts?

having half a law degree (and no intention to up that proportion), the legal system, in most of the world i think, is based on the concept of actus reus (the act/thing itself) and mens rea (the intention). Generally in order to have committed a crime both need to be proven, ie intention AND the act.

Someone mentioned manslaughter before - manslaughter generally results in a suspended sentence, ie you don't actually do the time unless you commit another crime within a certain time period. So effectively they find that you committed the act, but due to not having the intention you don't get the penalty, unless subsequent behaviour warrants it.
Killing someone is, I think, the only act that has this kind of option, where there are still consequences despite not having intention, because it is sort of the "ultimate crime".

does that make sense?

Self-defence is another issue entirely. If you hit someone in self-defence you still intended to hit them. The issue here is not intention but a matter of excuse, ie it was reasonable for you to intend to, and to actually hit, this person. Self-defence is a defence not a denial of intention.

If you hit someone and didn't intend to hurt them then that's another thing again. Generally it becomes a matter of whether you were reasonable in thinking that your actions would not hurt them and the fact that they did would have surprised pretty much anyone. You still had the intention to hit them.

One case example I remember was when someone stabbed someone in the upper back (i think it was), pinning them against a juke box, at a bar in upper Queen St here in Auckland. They intended to stab them, intended to hurt them, but NOT to actually kill them. The knife itself hit a one-in-a-million spot in the spine that resulted in death. If i remember correctly stabbing was considered a sufficiently reckless action that it was considered murder, despite the professed lack of intent to actually kill, because a reasonable person would have known that by stabbing someone you were running the risk that you might kill them (ie being reckless).

am i making any sense at all? it took me quite sometime at law school to get my head around this stuff and am probably not very good at explaining it...

span

Yup seems to make sense.

Manslaughter is the big one for me because it is quite specially a name for a crime where the result was different to the intention.

It's nice to hear that the legal system doea deal with this in many cases. However I suspect there are problems:

Suppose I try another example. Fred gets drunk and drives home. He speeds on his way home, gets pulled over for speeding, is also found to be drink-driving and is arrested.
Dave also gets drunk and drives home. He also speeds. Only this time little Timothy happens to be crossing a road on his route. Due to his speeding and his drunkeness Dave hits and kills Timothy.

In both cases the actions were the same. Get drunk. Drive home. Speed. The only difference was circumstantial i.e. Timothy happens to be crossing the road at a bad time.

You can bet your bottom dollar (since neither of us live in a country that uses the dollar this is a very safe bet ) that Dave gets a penalty vastly more severe than Freds. Do you think that he deserved it considering that their actions were exactly the same? If not should all drink-drivers be punished more severely, or all people who end up hitting someone because of drink-driving should be punished less severely?

I think in a situation like Dave and Fred's there is actually a difference in terms of the acts committed:

- Fred: drink driving and speeding
- Dave: drink driving, speeding AND hitting Tim

I imagine their sentences for the acts in common would be the same or similar (depending on past history, speed involved, amount of alcohol, etc) but the difference in Dave's sentence would come in the part that applied to hitting Tim.

One of the things that is always difficult to work out, when looking at crimes, is what are the actual acts and what does the intention attach to.

The crime in this case, in regards to the hitting Tim aspect, would not be murder, as it would be if there was intention, but dangerous driving causing death (or something similar), which is what is called a strict liability crime, ie there is no need to prove intention, the committing of the act itself is enough. There are sometimes limited defences available to strict liability crimes (in this case it might be something like Tim was on roller skates and rocketed out of nowhere and Dave's ability to react was not impaired by alcohol and he was not already driving recklessly or dangerously by speeding). But in general if you commit an act that is considered a strict liability crime then your lack of intention would not result in an acquittal. It might be considered in the sentencing however.

The thing about the justice system that is so weird and hard to get your head around is that it is incredibly technical. I have realised in writing this posting that perhaps i would have done better to explain manslaughter as a type of strict liabilty crime, (although i tend to think about them as different which may be quite wrong) and thus not really unique.

Another example of strict liability is (some kinds of) pollution - not having the intention to pollute does not get you off the fact that you just dumped a whole lot of toxic waste in the river - this is because the action is so totally undesirable that even accidental releases are not acceptable in the eyes of the law and the lawmakers.

Also it's important to remember that there is a difference between finding someone guilty of a crime and then the sentencing. Everything we have talked about so far assumes guilt.

Sentencing takes into account a large number of factors, from serving as a detterent to others (the jury is still out on whether this actually works), recognising mitigating factors, whether the guilty person plead guilty or not, sentences for similar crimes and circumstances, the statute being applied, other relevant legislation, recent legislation regarding sentencing in general (to get an indication of the intention of the lawmakers both when the law was made and now), and so on. Punishment is but one of the aspects.

span, would strict liability be related to "duty of care"?

In torts, everyone owes a duty of care to their neibour. Eg, a delivery truck driver hits a power junction box and half an industrial street looses power.

The truck driver's employer is liable for the lost production of half that street - less incidentals and incedental damage ie, is liable for forseeable damage of the act of hitting that junction box.

Vaicarious liability made that street his neibours, to which he owed a duty of care.

Like a hunter mistaken for an animal and shot. The shooter had a duty of care, reguardless of intent.

I know (or at least have some vauge idea that) Dave would not get off under our current laws. The question is not what we actually do but what people think we ideally *should* do. You have stated factually how this would be handeled in a court of law, I'm more interested to see whether you conisder that the best way to handle it.

I think that Fred and Dave commited exactly the same crime and the only difference was a chance event that neither could reasonably have been expected to predict. I don't think Dave should be held responsible for a chance occurance.

I don't see that deterring future drink driving is acheived by punishing those who hit people more severly. Surely its the act of drink driving you want to punish if that is that action you are looking to deter people from.

So far as pollution goes if you dump toxic waste it is not an accident. You knew that it was going to be produced and you knew where you were going to put it and you knew that this act would cause harm. Dave did not know when he started drinking that it would end with him hitting a kid, thus he did not figure that into his decision - making it an accident. Our industrious Bob, who decided to get rid of his toxic waste by dumping it in a river knew exactly what effect that would have on the river and decided to do it anyway.

For the drunk driving example. I subscribe to the argument that the drunk driver had intent.

He intended to drink
He intedned to take his car
He, by having a licence and being of legal drinking age, knew the potential outcomes of his actions.

It's duty of care.

The hunter example. A hunter knows the potential outcomes of aiming a fireing a gun. It's better to make sure of the target and rist loosing the shot than to kill someone.

Id you reduce the sentence for Dave then people who go out drinking and take their cars know there is a maximum sentence no matter what the result.

just quickly

yes there is an issue of duty of care - you do owe a duty of care when you drive a car, or use a gun, or whatever - it's another way of saying you are responsible i guess

one of the things that bears thinking about is the concept of acting recklessly - ie doing something dangerous or potentially dangerous (eg driving a car, even when sober) and not taking sufficient care (eg drinking). you may well act recklessly without any intent to cause harm but there is still the chance of, and in some cases there actually is, a negative outcome, for you or for someone else. Should it not be a crime to act recklessly, especially if it does have a negative outcome?

some of the stuff AO said earlier brings up issues about whether you have committed a crime if you don't get caught - eg drink driving - this line tends to go where Schrodinger's cat lives very quickly, (particularly in regard to drink driving - how do we know you were drunk if it's not measured/seen/etc) and there are (i think quite strong) arguments that just because you don't get caught doesn't mean you didn't commit a crime.

sorry for brevity (well, compared to previous posts)
span

"I think that Fred and Dave commited exactly the same crime and the only difference was a chance event that neither could reasonably have been expected to predict. I don't think Dave should be held responsible for a chance occurance"

Part of the driving test is to show that you can perform an emergency stop, these days there are all sorts of hazard perception tests too (in the UK at least). Pedestrians stepping onto the road in front of you is something you are supposed to expect and be prepared for. Sometimes you still hit and kill them, but provided you have taken all reasonable precautions against doing so you needn't be held responsible. In other words, by being sober, restricting your speed, not being too tired to concentrate, and adjusting your driving to take account of conditions you have done all that can be expected in predicting the chance occurance and avoiding a negative outcome.

Dave should be held resposible for not taking most of those steps, and in fact intended not to take those steps. Fred is equally guilty but was 'lucky'. My preference would be to treat both harshly in this example, but that may be my in-built antipathy to dunk-driving

or even drunk-driving

Part of the 'problem' with punishing intent/ punishing result, is that if you harm someone, like Dave killing Tim in the above mentioned car accident, the friends and family of Tim will, quite naturally if not very philosophically, want some sort of retribution. If a chap gets drunk and speeds home and hits no one, then there is no person desiring retribution to be factored into the equation. But in Dave and Tim's case... Judges and Juries and the Government, in Britain at least, do seem to take into account the needs of the victims/bereaved to feel that their wrongs are avenged. We could quite happily argue for days about whether vengeance should be a factor or not in deciding sentences, but the fact remains that the 'average' member of the public does desire it and makes an awful fuss if they don't get it - witness letters and editorials in the National Press. So the Justice system tends to hand out sentences that take into account society-in-general's desire to avenge. Dave will get a stiffer sentence than your average drunk driver as a sort of 'blood money' for Tim's death.

I suggest that any discussion of vengeance - morally acceptable or not? be taken to another thread as it threatens to be big and huge and overwhelming and it'll take over this poor thread entirely.

Right first things first. Just to be clear: I think Dave and Fred are both guilty and deserve a harsh punishment.

What I am saying is that they both took a risk with someone elses life when they got into their cars and that is the act which should be punished. Whether they actually hit anyone or not is, as someone commented, a matter of luck. They should be punished for knowingly taking the risk - not for whether they happened to be unlucky enough to have someone crossing the road at the wrong moment.

In the example both were caught, since one was pulled over for speeding. If you commit a crime and don't get caught you still commited the crime - I don't think anyone disagrees with that. However to go off on a slight tangent I tend to think that there is often a difference between doing something wrong and doing something illegal. If something is not wrong, is illegal and I think I can get away with that I will tend to do it. Nobody heard me say that.

I'll jus' go start a vengance thread if there isn't one already.

I think a loaded driver is the equivalent of brandishing a loaded gun. An "accident happens" - the responsibilty lies with the one knowingly in control of the loaded weapon.

I think someone who brandishes a loaded gun and it goes off is as guilty (no more no less) than someone who brandishes a loaded gun and it doesn't go off. They commited the same crime (knowingly brandishing a loaded gun) the rest is simply a matter of luck.

We shouldn't prosecute bad luck.