Should "He needed killing" be an acceptable defense in court?
2 years ago
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When is it right to kill another person? Is there a time when a certain person is too detrimental to society that they need to be removed?
Tags: life death murder killing
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Topic Details
This topic was started by Sam on June 12th, 2006. 92 grupies have voted on one or more of the 9 answers.
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In regards to the answer about self-defense:
What about defending other people? Is it okay to kill in defense of your loved ones? How about when your neighbor is beating his wife? Or you see some homeless guy on the street being stabbed?
This is quickly a slippery slope arguement.
I admit to playing devil's advocate across this entire topic. But the following question is in all seriousness:
If you allow that killing is acceptable in a certain circumstance, where do you draw the line between being acceptable and not-acceptable?
I am not a lawyer, but I am pretty sure the law states homicide is justifiable if such force is needed to keep that person from mortally harming another human being. And I think it should be justifiable to kill anyone that molests or rapes small children.
"If you allow that killing is acceptable in a certain circumstance, where do you draw the line between being acceptable and not-acceptable?"
It sounds as if you're assuming some kind of moral standard, and not just wondering where the line should be drawn in court.
If you allow that killing is wrong, and that there is a moral standard, then it is necessary to decide where the moral standard came from.
As to whether or not killing humans is something which a court should be able to justify, I would tend to say that killing of any sort which would be brought to court should not be allowed. If someone has proven that they will kill (excluding people with proper training and discipline such as war veterans) I believe they should be considered a threat to society.
Well, any court case such as that is decided on a moral standard, since it's decided by a jury.
And a jury can decide to completely ignore a law and rule however they want. A 'jury' is one of the most powerful groups in the American legal system.
So yes, I was giving this question a moral spin.
(Actually, I really added this question to stir the pot about justifiable homocide, considering the ongoing arguement about abortion. It's interesting to see the dichotomy of people's answers.)
if the person needed to be killed that badly, they should just not bother to find their murderer