Stephan Turk

[Angilion]

[..] and yes you are still pointlessly nit picking....

I'll repeat myself:

I don't regard the difference between intending to kill someone and not intending to kill someone as pointless nit-picking.

You do. We have no common ground.

 

[dowie]

Its rather irrelevant - as has been stated before the case was mentioned as an aside - the defence used the fact you can use lethal force to recover property in Texas... that was the point. The shop keeper in this scenario, could have used that defence if it had happened in Texas...

Whether or not you believe his claim after the event that in firing an AK47 at moving vehicle, at night, he was only trying to stop the vehicle is irrelevant as far as that part of the defence argument is concerned... and has very little to do with this thread...

 

[Angilion]

My thoughts on these situations would be 3 tiers:

1. You and/or your loved ones are in legitimate danger and you kill the criminal there and then, that’s self-defence and should carry no punishment.

That is not necessarily true. You might think that it should always be allowed, but it's not true that it is always self-defence (or defence of others). There are circumstances in which it is possible to remove the danger without deliberately and knowingly choosing to kill the person who is causing the danger

Closest to the situation being discussed. You may not be in direct danger, but things happen fast, adrenalin is pumping, and although the criminal is now escaping it’s still a part of the crime as a whole, and even if the victim was shooting to kill, I still think that should be something other than murder, and carry a lesser penalty.

I think that deliberately killing someone who poses no danger to you solely because of something they had done in the past is murder. I would consider it possible that immediate revenge might possibly be some degree of mitigating circumstances to be taken into account for sentencing and later for parole. Maybe.

The whole event is over, but the victim happens to see the criminal at a later date and decides to execute them, then that’s murder.

So how long would you allow for revenge killing to be a lesser crime than murder? 1 minute? 10 minutes? An hour? A day? You allow it for some period of time (your second tier) and if you're making law, you have to have some degree of definition and clarity, even if you don't define it in terms of precise periods of time.

I think that the current system of law based on the idea of reasonable force is the best option.

Of course there are grey areas, but that’s what juries are for.

Equally true for a system based on reasonable force.

In general, I find it hard to feel sorry for criminals getting hurt while perpetrating crimes.

Which has no relevance to the law. Or, more accurately, it shouldn't do. I only feel sorry for criminals who are hurt while perpetrating crimes if they are deliberately hurt in a very disproportionate way (e.g. being tortured, maimed and killed for burglary). That has nothing to do with what the law should be. I hope you weren't trying to imply that people who think differently to you (e.g. people who think that reasonable force is a good standard to use) only do so because they feel sorry for criminals who get hurt while perpetrating crimes.