Father of Kidnapped Son gets Revenge

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by cosmictraveler, Jan 24, 2012.

  1. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    I fully understand the hatred as well, and I understand the natural desire to do harm to the accused.

    Well, quite obviously yes it is bias (how could it not be? An understandable bias is still a bias), but more to the point if a person were accused of raping a child it is natural for people (and especially parents) to be biased against that person. That's true, and this is key, even if the person turns out to have been falsely accused.

    People facing this sort of understandable bias overestimate the strength of evidence in the heat of the moment and act without a full and fair analysis of the situation.

    If the conduct you suggest were to become the normal convention, I have little doubt that prominent cases of innocent people being killed would arise. In that case, I presume, the family of the dead man would have a right to kill the parent who shot that relative (if they were sufficiently distressed by the death, that is).

    Rape isn't even punishable by death, as you no doubt know. It once was, and the Supreme Court has since held that such a punishment falls within "cruel and unusual" and is therefore now banned. Many states do not have the death penalty at all for any state level crimes.

    I don't have a problem with the death penalty per se, but I do want it to be applied dispassionately, which is quite the opposite of the situation of parents avenging their own children. In that way, state sponsored killing can be more acceptable than mere revenge killing without a trial.

    That you can't see any issue with a parent taking on the role of judge, jury and executioner is strange to me.

    I am legitimately curious, since you take this so seriously, what would be the parameters you'd set on such a right? Would this be for crimes against children only or could you avenge the death of an adult in the same manner? If a cop shoots your child in the course of your child committing a crime, could you kill the cop? Same result if the cop shoots your child by mistake? Is it limited to cases of sexual assault? Is it limited to first degree rape? (I imagine it is limited to intentional crimes against your child only, so that accidental deaths of a child could not lead to such a public execution.) Assuming murder were also grounds for this, could the accused's family legitimately kill you in retaliation for your killing the accused (or would the existence of the right preclude any action being taken, even if his family really wants you dead)? Does the accused at least have to be "reasonably likely" to be guilty, or is the good faith belief of the individual (likely grief-stricken) parent enough? Is there any application of laches to this right (limiting the time frame in which the execution may occur)? Suppose the rapist is let go for lack of evidence, but the parent is sure he is guilty, so later kills the guy? Same result? Is there any limit on the amount of pain that can be inflicted on the accused or is torture permissible (as it is also a natural impulse to want to inflict pain on such a person)?

    I don't really think this would be a societally optimal right to grant people, but that could depend on what the parameters of this new right to murder people without trial would be. It's somewhat akin to having the right to kill your spouse (or one's spouse's lover) if you catch him/her cheating you (and there are cases of acquittals on that basis). It's natural to want to harm your spouse in such a case, but the naturalness of the act I suspect it would have effects in some ways comparable to legalized dueling which was a greatly destabilizing force in late medieval Europe.
     
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  3. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    The evidence appears to be overwhelming in support of the fathers choice.

    I agree with Bells.

    This is normal and natural for a parent, especially considering the capricious and arbitrary nature of current "justice" in America. I won't bother to cite examples of serious violent criminals that get released against all common sense only to torture and kill innocents again - there are so many such cases in the US now.

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    When a judicial system appears to have broken such that it cannot protect the victims of violent crimes and instead appears to favour the criminals, it can come as no surprise that citizens take matters into their own hands.

    While one can certainly come up with all kinds of imaginative scenarios that absolve the miscreant of any and all blame and criminalize the protective parent, those all suffer from ignoring Occam's Razor as well as common sense. Obviously the son told the dad about the rape, LEO was clear on the abduction (a federal crime in the US) and the police had the crook in cuffs for cause. While he may have been innocent of all blame, the chances of that are asymptotically close to zero.
     
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  5. Bells Staff Member

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    I am not disagreeing with you on that point.

    I am not disagreeing with you there either.

    But in some instances, like in the case with the OP, there was no overestimating the strength of the evidence. Same as in the case of the child rapist who is wandering down the hall naked after having molested your child. I don't know of any parent who will sit there and consider if that naked man (as one example) is innocent. It is obvious he is not.

    The conduct I suggest is my own. I am not saying this should be the norm or would be the norm.

    What I said was that if someone had kidnapped and raped my child, I would kill them. Or to add on to that, I would maim them so that they would spend the rest of their miserable life regretting what they had done. That is my decision. It is not something I would advocate. It is also something that I would only do if I knew 100% that that individual was in fact guilty. There is no 'what if' in what I would do. So bringing them up is kind of pointless. It is my standard and my conduct for myself and it applies solely to the wellbeing of my children. And that is where it starts and ends.

    Certainly. Now consider what you would want to do to someone who raped your child so violently that they had to have reconstructive surgery, as one minor example. I won't even delve into the psychological damage and mental anguish involved, because we would be here forever discussing it.

    What I am saying is that if were my child, I'd kill the person who did that to them. I know full well the justice system does not have the death penalty when it comes to rape. I also know full well and have been involved in many many cases where the child rapist would be out of jail within a couple of years and reoffend within months of being released. I know of one who attempted to kidnap a child within 2 weeks of conditional release into the community. That person should never have been released or allowed out of prison. And yet he was. I know of others who were serial offenders and were in and out of the criminal justice system like a yoyo. And each time, they left a string of destroyed lives in their wake. Many of the victims and sometimes even their parents, commit suicide. Many others are so physically and psychologically damaged that any chance of a normal life non-existent.

    So reminding me that the criminal justice system does punish rapists with the death penalty is kind of pointless. I know.

    Believe it or not, I am against the death penalty.

    With one exception and that is what I brought up in this thread. And I think it is fair to say I would never expect the State to do it for me. Is it vengeful? Certainly. Would I be biased? Without a doubt. Would I sleep better at night knowing he/she was dead? Yes.

    It is strange to me as well.

    Ten years ago, I would never have felt this way. But now I do.

    I would die for my children, in an instant and without any questions asked. I would also kill anyone who harmed them in that particular way. Don't ask me to explain it, it's just how it is.

    My children.

    I stated the parameters very clearly in this thread. I also stated that the evidence would have to point to the accused and there could be no doubt.

    Is there a reason why you find that difficult to understand?

    Hardly the same thing, is it?

    You are trying to add 'what if's' and going somewhere that is very personal to me in nature by doing so. None of the scenario you have dreamed up applies to the circumstances I have mentioned in this thread.

    I am not the only one who feels this way. Many of the lawyers, police officers and even one or two judges have expressed the same type of sentiment. It is personal and I suspect, it stems a lot from what we have seen and what we know and the effects it has on the victims and their families.

    My point, in this thread, is that I fully understand that father's sentiment and given the chance, if it was my child, I would have done exactly the same thing.
     
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  7. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    Yes ma'am, agree completely.
     
  8. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    And he received a far more pleasant exit from life than most innocents end up getting in any case. If someone did that to my loved ones, I'd go Vlad the Impaler on them if I had the chance.
     
  9. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Last edited: Jan 28, 2012
  10. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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  11. Pandaemoni Valued Senior Member

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    Though I would presume that you feel that position is morally justified, which suggests that you'd find the conduct morally justified if engaged in by others (at least in the abstract, subject to many potential limitations based on the facts at hand). If not, and you are merely asserting that you'd engage in an immoral act, then I was not fully understanding your position.

    In any event, you'd be in a terrible position, and (though understandable), I'm not confident you or anyone would be able to accurately evaluate the evidence at hand. 100% certainty is elusive, and the aggrieved parties would be very likely to feel they are "100% certain" (or as near to it as humans ever are) even in cases where they are, in fact, incorrect.

    The point being that if you do exact a punishment greater than the law allows, the there is a much stronger argument that you should go to jail for it. Crime victims would almost always like to impose harsher penalties than the law allows. There were plenty of people who wanted to kill Bernie Madoff, for example. If we were to refuse to punish such acts, then we would be encouraging retributive justice by victims.


    So your anti-death penalty except that you'd allow the penalty without judicial process in the circumstances you name as long as your kids are the victims.

    Do you believe, as I do, that you should then be tried and convicted for (depending on the circumstances) manslaughter or murder?

    It is similar to me, in that both are circumstances of great outrage. If the bond between parent and child is sufficient to justify murder, then surely so cold be the bond between husband and wife. If the pain and outrage are sufficient to create the right, though, then that at east explains why juries have on occasion let men go for killing their wives (or their wives' lovers) in a fit of outrage.

    I do not agree that there are or should be standards that apply to you (and you kids), that are inapplicable when applied to others, so I was trying to find a rule of more general application. I now understand that you were not suggesting such a rule. I now wonder whether or not you think you should be let go without punishment for such an act (in which case, what you advocate is a special right for yourself only, that no one else enjoys).

    Again, I was seeking a general rule, not a highly specific one. Your specific rule strikes me as someone earnestly saying, "If I am ever confronted by assholes at work after regular business hours, I will beat them to unconsciousness" while coupling it with a sense that they would be somehow morally justified in that conduct (as I took you to be suggesting, though I am not less sure if you were saying you'd be justified). That proposed hypothetical conduct strikes me as a terrible idea (if it were one of general application) and makes me wonder at the specificity of the application as stated. (Why only "at work" and why "after business hours"? A general principle shouldn't be so limited, so in looking for a general rule, I have to question why the specific details were added and whter they are in fact material.)

    It never occurred to me that you were stating that you would kill such an accused criminal, BUT that that only applies to you in the specific context. That suggests of course that you disapprove of anyone else engaging in such behavior (which includes the father referenced in the OP) or in other contexts (if someone killed your husband, for example.)

    I also fully understand the father's sentiment. I also understand why a husband who finds his wife in flagrante delicto with another man, might shoot her and her lover in the act. I can empathize with both. In neither case do I think it would be prudent for we as a society to condone murder. I, for my part, could not justify me murdering someone in such cases and then getting away with a slap on the wrist, so of course I also feel that this father (and, hypothetically, you yourself) should be punished in such cases. That also would mean that if a cop had a chance to stop the father (or you) in the act, the cop should do so, even if lethal force were required to save the life of the accused.

    I am not sure that you disagree, though you may.
     
  12. Search & Destroy Take one bite at a time Moderator

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    You just wrote that you would prefer if the father were killed, instead of the rapist. Thankfully in the heat of the moment the cop works on intuition not rule-books.
     
  13. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    Point goes to Search & Destroy.
     
  14. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    No actually it doesn't, you cant call him a rapist because the murder robbed society of the chance to prove that charge

    innocent until proven guilty and now he never will be
     
  15. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    But the fathers son actually knew the man and identified that man as his abductor. That's how the police knew who to pick up and charge with the crime. So you don't think the eye witness was correct in knowing who his own abductor was?:shrug:
     
  16. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    You mean the father who was, as part of his pretrial, was found to not be able to tell right from wrong and who was also, beside his suspended sentence, sentenced to undergo treatment for Substance Abuse?

    That father?
     
  17. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Irrelivent, i may have this slightly wrong but anyway "no person shall lose life or liberty without due proses" seems the americans here not only have no respect for the law but none for the consitution either

    oh and since when is an eye witness statement, uncrossexamined enough to substantiate a charge with a penelty of death?
     
  18. adoucette Caca Occurs Valued Senior Member

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    Since when was Bells an American?
     
  19. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Bells isnt, she just has no respect for the law of the land and international laws to which we are a signitory ( such as the secondary protocal which forbids the death penelty and the human rights laws which forbid summery execution) which is shocking for a lawyer and someone who at one stage worked for the DPP
     
  20. CptBork Valued Senior Member

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    All well and good in theory, but if we're going to reason along those lines, would they mention gang rape and shanking as part of the prison sentence if he was convicted, or would they just call it 10 years in a dusty cell?
     
  21. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    That is non-logic. If someone is actually innocent until proven guilty then they should never be found guilty. I guess you meant to say: "considered innocent".

    Well, now that doesn't matter anymore..
     
  22. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    If my son was kidnapped by a very dangerous martial arts expert and upon being freed told me that he had been forcibly raped, that would be all the "proof" needed.

    As a parent it is my responsibility to protect my child, if you chose to harm my child it is my responsibility to go postal on you. My responsibility to my family trumps my responsibility to society.

    I strongly suspect that you are arguing this just for the sake of arguing it rather than for serious reason.

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  23. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    No actually im not. I belive in the rule of law.

    Edit to add: there is no statute in Australia or the US which gives a parent an exception to the murder statute when a suspect is in custody, you can spin it any way you like but you are in breach of the laws, international law and the consitution if your in the US.

    futher more on bells comment that a jury wouldn't convict. I rember a discussion we had years ago about euthanasia where i stated that juries are refusing to convict in these cases and bells your comment was "if no defense is offered and evidence is presented that the person is guilty and the jury refuses to convict the judge will overrule the jury for not doing there job". this would definity applie here. Your actions meet the requirements for muder not manslaughter, if the jury refuses to convict on your own words if the judge is doing there job then your going to jail for murder
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2012

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