Intent as part of the law makes sense imo, I want someone who planned a murder punished more harshly then someone responsible for a death due to a foolish decision, for example. One should be 1st degree murder the other manslaughter or whatever. The problem comes in when they want to make the same crime worse due to intent via hate crime laws, those are an abomination.
The problem is - they/ the DA can enforce 'intent' anyway they feel...
Kyle Rittenhouse, the Kenosha Kid, is attacked by multiple people in a mob event... and uses deadly force to defend his own life... and the prosecutor wants to charge him with murder...
That is going to come down to debate in court... about 'intent' - while Kyles entire FUTURE hangs in the balance... and how can the DA pretend to know what Kyle was thinking...
Ya that is horseshit for sure. I personally don't care if Kyle went there hoping to get the chance to lawfully kill some rioters, knowing they are violent thugs who attack indiscriminately. I don't think that was the case but even if it was i don't care. Reason being, the only people who are dead/injured are people that attacked him. It's on video, you can watch him being attacked. It doesn't matter what his intent was in that case, what is he supposed to do just sit there while a guy is smashing him with a club?
Now if he had shot his attackers, then basically acted like it was open season and killed other rioters that were not a direct threat to him i could see intent being more relevant.
Maybe I should have clarified in the original post that the intent factor is definitely abused sometimes (like in Kyle's case if that's what they intend to use to try to get him) imo, but it also has a place, like the example I gave about murder vs manslaugher.
Intent as part of the law makes sense imo, I want someone who planned a murder punished more harshly then someone responsible for a death due to a foolish decision, for example. One should be 1st degree murder the other manslaughter or whatever. The problem comes in when they want to make the same crime worse due to intent via hate crime laws, those are an abomination.
Agree...
The problem is - they/ the DA can enforce 'intent' anyway they feel...
Kyle Rittenhouse, the Kenosha Kid, is attacked by multiple people in a mob event... and uses deadly force to defend his own life... and the prosecutor wants to charge him with murder...
That is going to come down to debate in court... about 'intent' - while Kyles entire FUTURE hangs in the balance... and how can the DA pretend to know what Kyle was thinking...
Ya that is horseshit for sure. I personally don't care if Kyle went there hoping to get the chance to lawfully kill some rioters, knowing they are violent thugs who attack indiscriminately. I don't think that was the case but even if it was i don't care. Reason being, the only people who are dead/injured are people that attacked him. It's on video, you can watch him being attacked. It doesn't matter what his intent was in that case, what is he supposed to do just sit there while a guy is smashing him with a club?
Now if he had shot his attackers, then basically acted like it was open season and killed other rioters that were not a direct threat to him i could see intent being more relevant.
Maybe I should have clarified in the original post that the intent factor is definitely abused sometimes (like in Kyle's case if that's what they intend to use to try to get him) imo, but it also has a place, like the example I gave about murder vs manslaugher.