Re: Troy Davis execution
 

It depends if you have intent to kill.

Whether you are drunk or sober if you intentionally kill someone, unless it is in self-defense or in the defense or someone else, it is murder.

If you get drunk and deliberately drive over someone's head knowing it will almost certainly kill them, it is murder. If you get drunk and accidentally hit someone because you are drunk and cannot control the car properly, that is not murder, since there is no intent to kill.

It is still of course a very serious offence, and I believe would be classified as manslaughter.

It may even be classed as "involuntary manslaughter" since there is the absense of intent. You have no intent to harm, but you have behaved recklessly in drinking so much that you cannot safely control the potentially lethal vehicle which you are controlling.

But in a nutshell I think the classifications are

1) Murder - killing with the intention to kill
2) Voluntary manslaughter - killing with the intention of physically harming, but not killing
3) Involuntary manslaughter - killing through neglect or recklessness, with no actual intent to harm or kill


Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

Punishment is difficult to judge since it serves several purposes

1) Justice - if someone commits a crime society punishes them as their just punishment relating to the crime
2) Rehabilitation - as well as punishing the crime, society has a responsibility to rehabilitate the offender to ensure they are ready to be introduced to society
3) Protection - in cases of serious violent crimes, society must protect innocent people and ensure the person is not released if they are still capable of offending

I personally do not agree with capital punishment on a number of levels. Two murders do not cancel each other out, and capital punishment can be argued as just that - legalised murder.

But even casting aside that moral debate, the far more fundamental reason why I cannot agree with capital punishment is for the reason's CanadaJimmy has given. There have been cases in the past where, at the time of the trial, overwhelming evidence pointed to the accused's guilt. Then, years later after the execution, new evidence has come to light proving the accused could not possibly have committed the crime. The state therefore being guilty of murdering an innocent man, with no possibility of parole.

Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

Oh, please.

So what happens when people are SO afraid to slip over the speed limit that they spend more time looking at their speedo than they do at the road ahead?

An alert driver who is fully focused on the road ahead and its surroundings driving at 45 kph is FAR safer than a driver at 40 kph who has to keep looking at his speedo every few seconds for fear of drifting over it slightly.

Catching people speeding a few KPH over the speed limit is just easy money for the police. They should be catching the people who are actually driving dangerously.

On the motorways/highways the people who weave in and out of people's braking distances, undertake, and who drive too close to the back of other cars are far more dangerous than those who are going 10kph over the speed limit but driving alertly and keeping adequate braking distance to the car in front.

It's about time the police put some perspective on things rather than looking for easy, tangible prosecutions from people going slightly over the speed limit.

Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

My experience of Canada so far (mainly BC) is that the drink/drive rules are stricter than here in the UK.

In the UK an adult man can drink 2 pints of medium strength beer over the course of an hour and be under the limit when he then drives a car (it does depend on the individual of course).

In BC, Canada he can be over the limit on half that.

Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

That's an interesting point.

IMO there can only be 4 justifications for deliberately taking a human life
1) Self defense
2) Defense of another innocent person
3) Assisted death where a sane-minded person decides they want to die
4) Rare cases where killing the person in an assassination would save many lives (which I guess is an extension of 2) on a bigger scale)

In the case of Saddam Hussein, once captured he was not capable of further killing, and therefore I do not see that his execution was justified. He had committed HIDEOUS crimes and I have no wish to trivialise them, but did his execution actually save any further lives?

Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

Yes, it is much worse. If you're wrong, and new evidence comes to light which shows they cannot have committed the crime, you can let them out of the concrete box.

Once you execute them, they are dead.

Plus, two murders do not cancel each other out - whether it is state-legalised murder or not.

Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

Because we are not just Canadians or British Citizens.

We are human beings.

Personally I very much care about potentially innocent human beings being murdered by the state in which they live, regardless of their nationality.

I am sorry that you feel so little humanity that it's "not your problem" and as long as it's Americans it's ok.

Wayne.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

You are, of course, completely correct. The way to stop meglomaniacs in the future is to show them that, once caught, you you treat them far better than they treated their victims. One could even let them out if prison to attend signings of their autobiography.:thumbsup:

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

You're right. Because when you don't execute criminals it's the same as letting them attend launch parties for their book.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

I said nothing about criminals. I don't believe one should execute people for stealing a bottle of water but I don't believe there is much amiss with executing those that have killed more than the digits most people have on their hands and feet. Maybe it would be better to simply execute them when they resist capture. Shit, can't do that, been tried and the public outcry was too much.

The old days were much better, then one could gas an entire district without so much as grumble (Hussein not Hitler):huh:

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

*sigh* Humans Humans Humans

When is the end of the world suppose to happen again?

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

Doesn't matter. He was subjected to the laws of the appropriate jurisdiction. What you and I think about those laws is irrelevant.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

Dec 21 2012 isnt it?

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

What people think about laws is what leads them to be adopted in the first place, or subsequently changed. Laws get changed all the time, I would have thought that as a lawyer you would have realised that.

It must be nice to live in a moral vacuum where you dont have any opinions on "right and wrong", although it must make for dull Friday afternoons.

Re: Troy Davis execution
 

On the contrary - what we all think about the capital punishment laws is at the very heart of this thread's debate.

Wayne.