Skin them all the same?
Competent people get paid more because they get shit done.
Competent criminals gets punished harder because they get more crime done.
Below a certain level, maybe.
- Successful murder does more actual harm, and thus if you weigh not just intent but actual harm, you get a more severe punishment (think, for example, of felony murder, where the perpetrators don’t necessarily intend to kill anyone but someone does die as a result of them committing a felony).
- Treating murder more harshly than attempted murder gives someone attempting murder a practical incentive not to follow through and finish the job.
You claim to be a Senior Wikipedia Editor, yet you provided a reference to StackExchange. Curious.
But are you also very smart?
Might also be worth noting that you rarely just get charged with the worst thing you did. We have so many laws and so many variations on what constitutes a crime. “Attempted Murder” becomes a litany of crimes depending on where you were standing, how you got there, what you were using to attempt the murder, who you were aiming at, why you wanted them dead, what you said and did before and after the crime, and what degree of collateral damage you inflicted along the way.
You could very easily face more time for attempted murder than actual murder, purely depending on how many charges the DA wanted to file against you.
That sounds pretty insane tbh
Over here in Germany and probably the entire EU punishments don’t stack.
If you commit multiple crimes doing a single act (e.g. in a bank robbery: violations of weapon law, trespassing, theft, threatening personnel, driving violations…) only the most severe one is prosecuted.
Multiple seperate crimes can stack but the punishment must be strictly less than the sum of punishments if they were prosecuted independently and must be less than 15 years (unless murder is involved).
There is no way in which you can get less time for murder than for attempted murder here.
Over here in Germany and probably the entire EU punishments don’t stack.
I mean, maybe that’s true. Idk. It’s definitely not how the American system operates. DAs have discretion in bringing charges and pushing for sentences. DA bias is, incidentally, a big reason for the racial/gender split in the prison population. The difference between involuntary manslaughter and capital murder is often what charge the DA chooses to bring.
But the turn of phrase “to throw the book at them” comes from the strategy of prosecuting for every conceivable crime, rather than the singular obvious one.
There is no way in which you can get less time for murder than for attempted murder here.
There are drug crimes that carry a harsher sentence than some murder sentences. The “Three Strikes” rule, notable in California, is a similar source of life sentences for non-violent crimes.
But the individual still has breached a hard line and stepped over regardless. Attempted and failed vs attempted and succeed are the same in my book because mentally they committed to this action and that’s an individual who can easily do it again.
Welcome to Moral Luck
Very interesting - two people run a red light, exact same crime unless one gets lucky and there’s no stroller in the crosswalk at the time
Depends on intent
Isn’t that manslaughter vs murder?
There are too many possible circumstances to encompass. Intent is the key aspect here. Like if you had some last minute change of heart or empathy, or came to your senses, your intent shows through. You still took actions that society condemns with the intent to kill.
Manslaughter is more like negligence, or really more like indifference to collateral damage.
For instance, texting while driving and hitting and killing someone on a sidewalk is manslaughter. You did not intend to kill or hit anyone, but your lack of ethics have no place in society at large. If that person was your ex, you’ll get first degree murder. If you have a 2 way dash cam that conclusively shows you never looked up or noticed the person, you might get manslaughter charges. If a security camera catches the rear view of the vehicle and there are never taillights and the weight distribution of the vehicle hints at a shift from acceleration, you’ll get first degree murder charges regardless of survival or death. Attempted murder is more like you threatened to run them over but you swerve at the last minute and did not hit them and it is captured on camera, or you cut the brake lines of their car.
I, a man, can laugh while I murder! No need for me to choose!
Because no one died.
Next!
