quote:You just came too close to triggering my own rant on mandatory sentencing and similar "conditions make no difference" restrictions.
The tradeoff is between uniformity of sentencing and ability for judicial discretion. I have no idea where the happy medium is, but both extremes are terribly unjust.
posted
Chris- I'm not an advocate for mandatory sentencing. There just never seems to be a middle ground. It's one thing for people to consider the conditions when deciding about a person's guilt. It's another when they push and push until there's no way a person can get punished for what they did AT ALL, because there will ALWAYS be extenuating circumstances. You can always blame what you do on how your parents raised you, or any of a million different things. It's very difficult to pin anyone down in any situation in this country.
I love it when I post and I see that someone just said what I was trying to say, but when they said it it was shorter and made sense.
posted
Ok, let's say I want to kill my worst enemy and sneak into his bedroom and fire several shots into his bed. Then I sneak out of his house. Only, he wasn't in his bed and the shots did nothing but put a few holes in his mattress. What would I be charged with?
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posted
While I'll talk about conditions all day, I'm also a strong proponent of taking responsibility for your actions. There's a middle ground and it can (and should be) sought, but where it lies can change.
love it when I post and I see that someone just said what I was trying to say, but when they said it it was shorter and made sense.
Yup. TomDavidson has the evil habit of doing that to me. I write a nice long speech and find that he snuck a two-sentence response in first.
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quote:Ok, let's say I want to kill my worst enemy and sneak into his bedroom and fire several shots into his bed. Then I sneak out of his house. Only, he wasn't in his bed and the shots did nothing but put a few holes in his mattress. What would I be charged with?
In some states the "purpose" level of culpability with regards to circumstances is defined by the perptrator's state of mind - if events were as the perpetrator believed them to be, could the crime have occurred. So you might be able to be charged with attempted murder.
In other states, impossibility is a defense for attempt. If your actions could not have harmed the victim (let's say the house was empty), then no attempt charge is probably possible.
But burglary (breaking into a dwelling with intent to commit a felony) is a no-brainer in any state.
In most states, there's probably enough of an act to qualify for attempt by breaking in with the gun and firing the shots.
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I always loved that you'd get charged for attempted murder for that one. I mean, the guy wasn't even there! You'd be upset enough if you wounded the guy but didn't get him and got charged. I mean, at least you hurt the sucker. But to not get him at all? How frustrating.
Not that I advocate violence, kids. I just keep expecting to see this on a TV show or summin'.
Wait, was everyone still talking?
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Oh, and BTW, Bob, in that scenario, no perp in his right mind would admit he was trying to kill the guy. He'd say he was so mad that he shot holes in his mattress.
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The debate is about whether Islamic preacher, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, should be refused entry into the UK because he preaches that Muslims should use their ability to arm themselves as human bombs to attack their enemies. In addition some sides argue that he has "ties" to terrorist organizations. The UK Govt. has granted him entry and has not limited his ability to preach because he doesn't represent a threat to incite violence.
On the other hand, the US has banned him from entry.
Just my opinion but I think that the difference in policy between the US and UK is related to how recently each has been attacked.
There are, however, stark differences in ideology and law. The Prime Minister's answer at question time was straight forward: Here are the three criteria that have to be met to ban him. They've not been met.
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How's that different than the U.S.? The criteria might be different, but that's how it works here.
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