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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   30001 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 8, 2023

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Why is it suddenly so important to charge and punish Penny in particular?

Surely the fact that he killed someone should figure in the calculus somewhat, should it not? And in any other context, would you find compelling the argument, "sure, maybe Bob committed a serious crime, but we shouldn't charge him, because his victim was insufficiently punished for completely unrelated crimes"?

What if Joe was a dangerous criminal who escaped from death row, before running into Bob and getting killed in the altercation (Bob knew nothing of Joe’s history)? There’s no real loss here, so punishment would be gratuitous.

And I do think the previously revealed moral character of Joe and Bob should factor in our interpretation of the altercation. If Joe has proven himself unworthy of charity (in the motte sense) , then Bob’s words and actions against Joe should get the benefit of charity in the eyes of the law.

For something like 500 years, Anglo-American criminal law has considered the moral character of the victim, if unknown to the defendant, to be irrelevant to questions of self-defense. So if you are arguing for it to be taken into account in this case, you are arguing for a double standard to be applied.

Can you explain the rationale for the moral character being irrelevant?

Why double standard ? Don't you mean a different standard? Can you refer to, or imagine, a situation where I fall on the other side?

Can you explain the rationale for the moral character being irrelevant?

Note that I said that it is irrelevant if unknown to the defendant

Yeah, explain that argument.

The problem I have with it is that the case becomes about thoughtcrime.

It is harder (perhaps impossible) to ascertain the contents of Bob's mind, than the contents of Joe's rap sheet. Common sense dictates we start looking for the keys under the lamppost, ie with Joe's rap sheet. If Joe's rap sheet (and Bob's ) is empty or light, then we can veer into mentalism and voo, ask him to cry convincingly for the jury etc.

The argument is simple. Under Anglo-American jurisprudence, in order for a person to be guilty of a crime he must have acted [with the mens reas, ie the criminal state of mind] that is required of that crime. However, a person who acts in self-defense lacks mens rea. Thomas v. Arn, 704 F. 2d 865, 875 (6th Cir 1983).

So, the issue in a self-defense case is the defendant's mens rea, and whether the victim is a good person or a bad person is normally irrelevant to that issue:

The flaw in this argument is that it assumes the law of self-defense centers on the victim's acts and intent. To the contrary, the law recognizes the justification of self-defense not because the victim "deserved" what he or she got, but because the defendant acted reasonably under the circumstances. Reasonableness is judged by how the situation appeared to the defendant, not the victim. As the Court of Appeal noted, "Because [j]ustification does not depend upon the existence of actual danger but rather depends upon appearances' (People v. Clark (1982) 130 Cal. App.3d 371, 377 [181 Cal. Rptr. 682]; see also CALJIC No. 5.51), a defendant may be equally justified in killing agood' person who brandishes a toy gun in jest as a `bad' person who brandishes a real gun in anger." If the defendant kills an innocent person, but circumstances made it reasonably appear that the killing was necessary in self-defense, that is tragedy, not murder. The test, therefore, is not whether the victim adopted the third party threats, but whether the defendant reasonably associated the victim with those threats.

People v. Minifie, 13 Cal. 4th 1055, 1068 (1996).

However, because self-defense hinges on whether the defendant acted reasonably based on what the defendant knew at the time, if the victim had a violent history and the defendant knew of that history, that is relevant to whether the defendant acted reasonably. See, eg, California Criminal Jury Instructions 505 and 3470, each of which say, in part, "If you find that the defendant knew that had threatened or harmed others in the past, you may consider that information in deciding whether the defendant’s conduct and beliefs were reasonable."

Thanks for expanding.

I believe you need a guilty act too. And if the victim was clearly a bad person, and he deserved it, then society suffers no damage, and there's no guilty act. Is mens rea (thoughtcrime) alone, sufficient?

Yes, of course there must also be a criminal act. In murder or manslaughter, the criminal act is causing the death of the victim. In fraud, it is making a false representation. But you are trying to import a concept ("the victim was a bad guy, so there is no crime") which is utterly foreign to Anglo-American jurisprudence. That is fine, but you obviously can't complain because, in this particular case, the system is following principles that are not only well-established but also foundational.

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