The MPC approach is logical. Criminal law punishes moral culpability, not bad outcomes. That's why the act of killing another human may be anything from murder to no crime at all depending on the killer's intent. A would-be murderer's moral culpability is not lessened by the fact that he is thwarted from actually accomplishing his objective.
> Criminal law punishes moral culpability, not bad
> outcomes
For the sake of future discussions, just remember that these people are real, and there's mostly likely tremendous misfortune behind such a heinous act as murder.
No one gains anything from these 44 year long sentences.[0] He's been incapacitated for his entire life, and because of that, is seemingly going to be it for the rest of his life.
[0] Obviously if he's diagnosed as completely deranged there might be an issue of public safety.
If I shoot you purely by accident most people will agree that I shouldn't go to prison. It was an accident, I'm not a danger to society.
If I mean to murder you but my aim is off, or modern medical science manages to keep you from death, how is society better off exactly by keeping me in prison for a shorter time just because I wasn't successful?
The rational reason to put people in prison in the first place is because we consider them a danger to society. Am I less of a danger to society just because I was slightly incompetent on my first murder attempt?
That probably depends on how reckless you were. Stupidity combined with fondness for dangerous objects can be dangerous to society. Jail-time might be good idea.
> If I mean to murder you but my aim is off, or modern medical science manages to keep you from death, how is society better off exactly by keeping me in prison for a shorter time just because I wasn't successful?
Results surely must play some role. Let's imagine a world when tech is so advanced that murdering a person is really hard. Should all who attempt be punished same way as those that really put in the effort to get the job done?
Should a person be punished as if he murdered you if he was trying to kill you using voodoo magic or consciously trying to give you heart attack with insisting on you eating additional burgers?
> That probably depends on how reckless you were.
My point is that most people do recognize the importance of intent and future outcomes.
> Results surely must play some role.
Why do we put people in prison at all? Revenge is not an actual reason, which is where outcomes would matter. Future deterrence and security is a good reason. Killing someone isn't primarily a crime against /them/, but a crime against society made up by people who'd like to not live their lives surrounded by likely murderers.
If that's the goal it makes no sense to say "oh he stabbed that guy, but missed the heart by an inch, that's OK then". No it isn't.
> if he was trying to kill you using voodoo magic
And I agree. In a perfect world, justice would be only about intent. But we can't read people's hearts, and we can't explore all circumstances that would lead one to a punishable act. Worse, imperfect attempts at this can easily be abused by evil people to harm innocents. Therefore our legal system sticks to the only thing it can reliably measure - outcomes, sprinkling in some consideration for intent when the latter is obvious.
In a perfect world, we could probably also separate compensating victims from punishing the perpetrators. If I steal and wreck your car to save my wife who needs to get to the hospital ASAP, then in a perfect world I should go free and pay exactly nothing, but you should get a new car (or monetary equivalent) plus some reasonable opportunity costs compensation. Who would pay? The society, out of "shit happens" fund. But to work, this again would require probing intent, in order to avoid turning stealing cars into a replacement for taxi service. Since we can't reliably probe intent, we're stuck with punishing outcomes and creating incentive structures preventing such perversions from developing.
> The more I think about it I don't think they should.
Murder is very extreme example because it's very easy to kill a human if you decide to do it and even if you fail with a bit of luck things might have played out differently. Also murder is sharp. You can't kill a person just a little.
But consider theft. Someone who stole your insulin pump should be treated differently from someone who took some money or someone who tried to enter your house but couldn't open the lock and gave up. Or consider assault. Trying to hit someone shouldn't be punished same as hitting. I think mostly because you can hit someone to no effect (should be punished somewhat anyway) or you can kill with one hit. You'd have a problem to estimate what was attempted and what the punishment for attempt should be. ... you could have a rule that attempt is punished same as most harmless possible outcome.
...unless you are making a point just about murder and attempted murder. Then I'm inclined to agree that serious attempt and murder should be treated same if you can show that the attempt was to murder not just wound.
At least until we have technology that will make most deaths just temporary nuisances and there will be spectrum of how much you can murder someone.
>> if he was trying to kill you using voodoo magic
>Now you're just entering the realm of the absurd.
You are right. I just wanted to bring into focus some (very small fraction) of murderers that are so stupid that they attempt to use methods that couldn't possibly kill anyone and suggest that as technology progresses there might be more such people.
> Why do we put people in prison at all? Revenge is not an actual reason
That's the actual reason we put imprisoned people to death.
Which is a valid form of argument. He's showing you how absurd what you're saying is if applied literally. You don't get to duck out and claim he's off topic, you need to address his point which is perfectly valid. If intent is all that matters, then a superstitious person who believes voodoo works should according to you be charged with attempted murder; that's the logical outcome of your position, you owe him a real answer.
To prove a moral equivalence between 'murder' and 'attempted murder' the law should have to prove that person A tried to kill person B and failed, and then also prove that they would've repeated their attempts until success if they hadn't been stopped by law enforcement ...
If I try to murder you, fail, and then stop trying to murder you, I've inherently done something 'less' than if I had succeeded in murdering you.
This would also avoid creating a legal incentive for Person B to take extra action to complete a failed murder attempt which they might otherwise not take. If the punishments for murder and attempted murder are equivalent, then a criminal should never stop until the victim is dead once reaching the point of 'attempting' murder -- the not-dead person can testify against them making it (in general) far easier for the law to successfully convict than it would be if the victim had died ...
He attempted to murder a police officer, so why should benefit anything from it?
>He's been incapacitated for his entire life, and because of that, is seemingly going to be it for the rest of his life.
Of course. That's the point. That's the whole point of what a punishment is. You can't punish if you don't punish.
I understand. You don't want to punish criminals. You want to teach them how to become good. The thing about criminals is that they have no respect for nice people. So when nice peoples try to teach criminals to become good, the criminal feels like, "Why is this weak ass person trying to lecture me? I would break his neck if I am not in these chains. Talking as if he's holier than me."
Okay. You might say, "Well, if a criminal won't listen to a nice person, let's just have someone not nice teach a criminal how to become good."
Asshole: "Hey criminal, you need to be a good person." Criminal: "Fucking asshole, I'll break your neck."
Not gonna work either.
However, organized crime have found a way to do it (does not work guarantee to work 100% of the time).
The Boss: "Lowly criminal, I need you to be a good boy and not try to kill my family."
Lowly Criminal A: "No." The Boss's 30 henchmen kills him. Lowly Criminal B: "Okay. Fine. I will not try to kill your family."
Only death can deter a criminal, and that's not even guarantee to work 100% of the time (criminals back stabs their boss).
Anyway, as you can see, the above is even worst than our prison system.
However, if you feel you have a method of installing goodness into criminals, please feel free to share.
Just in case anyone was thinking that 44 years for attempted murder is a light sentence.
It was different in Stalin's time, though. Varlam Shalamov's Kolyma tales tells a very different story. But even he survived after having served 15 years.
Imagine two people stabbed identical twins in the same spot with the same intent at the same time. One dies, one lives. Should they get different sentences? It's just a roll of the dice.
Whereas, by contrast, the absence of death is the unintended consequence of, say, a shooting or stabbing (in any vital area of the body).
We can't go easy on an attempted murdered just because, luckily, the victim didn't die.
We also can't go easy on someone who killed using a punch just because death was unintended; the fact is that the victim died, and the fact is that not all punches are the same. They vary in intensity and area of delivery. A punch which kills (directly) must be quite a wallop, backed by a lot of rage.
My understanding is that logically there's that basic framework of required specific intent, then there are a few crimes that allow prosecuting for negligence, then very few crimes with strict liability.
I'm originally not from US so I'm probably still getting used that the latter two categories are quite common in US law (and that strict liability is even possible).
Probably depends on the state, but where I grew up (Ohio), murder of an on-duty officer is one of the few crimes where capital punishment is possible.
Attempted murder of a head of state, maybe 25 years or so? Assuming pre-meditation. Attempted murder of myself, 10 years at most, if not pre-meditated, otherwise if it was pre-meditated then some more, but with a chance of parole given good behaviour and maybe psychiatric observation.
Aggravating or other circumstances should be taken into account too, I'm sure that those judges would do their best.
44 years is excessive, by any measure. You're simply not talking about the same person any more. 22 -> 66, that's a life gone. Does the guy in that article look like a serious threat to you? To the officer he tried to kill? To anybody else?
All I see is an old guy who made a really bad dumb move when he was a lot younger, and probably a whole angrier than today. I also question the extra months after he served the many many years for a shoplifting charge when he was 17. That's just revenge, it has nothing to do with justice or having the best of society at heart.
Well he's old now, that was probably the point of his sentence.
> I also question the extra months after he served the many many years for a shoplifting charge when he was 17.
He did allegedly try to kill a cop afterall, I have no doubt the judge was not kind to him for that.
He's rehabilitated now, but you're right that 44 years wasn't necessary. I'd also say 25, tops.
Likewise, the 25 year sentenced individual might wholly repent after five years, and thus sit in prison for another twenty with no rehabilitative meaning, he just rots to serve as an example to others.
You need informed decisions in the process of removing people from society and when to reintroduce them. It is not something to write down on paper or try to set universal rules. You need extensive oversight to prevent exploitation of those given the power over the lives of others, but you need informed and intelligent decision makers with multiple opinions deciding when the dangerous are fit to participate again in society, not arbitrary number guessing.
And no, its not cheap. But its more expensive socially to have the redeemed rot and the vengeful run free.
I'll take that chance. For every how many people that just spent a decade in jail do you think there will be one that manages to squeak by observation and hearings for a decade?
How many people would you be prepared to jail to save one life of an innocent person?
A lot of them never should, that never repent and would always be a threat to others. But then you have those that rot in jail for decades after being completely rehabilitated by policies like mandatory minimums and extended sentencing like mentioned in this article waste their lives and our tax dollars on something that a board of active professional psychoanalyists should be able to see is a shut case.
It is easy to deceive an inefficient, corrupt, or lazy system when given per-case inspective authority. But it is not easy in the presence of a rigored well implemented system. Rather than try to simplify criminal justice to sentencing based on crime committed with fixed sentences taken from a textbook, we should appeal to reach the global maxima of justice, which includes curtailing the injustice of keeping those no longer dangerous behind bars perpetually.