Urban Wild Cat wrote:
A lot of the time, people who kill other people get a lesser sentence if they can prove they didn't mean to, or weren't planning to kill the other person. (degrees of murder vs manslaughter, etc)
But why?
Let's say I was forced to press a button that would kill several thousand people -- i.e. I had absolutely no choice in the matter. Could I still be punished for a crime for which I could not be held responsible, no matter how horrible it was? Most people would say no, because it doesn't matter whether a person is the direct, objective cause of a criminal act, so much as whether they are
responsible. It is this
responsibility, rather than the objective nature of the act itself, that's the issue.
Killing someone accidentally is only a crime when it is the result of obvious negligence and irresponsibility. In this case, the killer can be blamed, and thus can be punished. However, having homocidal intentions is clearly worse than simply being irresponsible. The former is a case of not caring enough about others to take proper precautions; the latter is a case of not just not-caring, but actively wishing harm upon the victim.
Of course, one could object that if this is the case, why don't we punish people who have the desire to kill but are not in the position to fulfill their desires? Well, here's where things get complicated. Let's just say that
once a crime is commited, intention becomes the main factor in determining how to punish the perpetrator of the crime.
...Not sure if everything I just said makes sense. I'm pretty tired right now and it could be all full of holes. But meh.