Making certain the punishment always fits the crime.

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I get angered every time I hear about a basketball player who points a loaded gun at a person with witnesses getting off of manslaugher with four minor charges while a neglegent person who falls asleep at the wheel ends up in jail for 6 years.

In addition to clearing up technicalities, especially those that keep critical information from juries, I think crimes should be more clearly defined.

For example, I think there should be 6 different possible charges for murder. The jury and the jury alone decides which charge is most appropriate and the judge verifies whether the charge meets the situation.

Each charge should have an appropriate punishment and this helps ensure that the punishment always meets the crime. I think such clear definitions (the current ones are far too ambigious and too few) for all crimes, not just murder would help make the punishments more fair and just. I also think that every effort should be made to ensure that the jury gets as much information about the situation as possible as well as warnings as to what the information means and let them make up their own minds instead of arbitrarily deciding that crimes commited when the person was a juvinile that may point to a pattern being kept from them

Accidental Murder - When the person clearly had no intention of hurting anyone and didn't do anything that he could have known would put someone in risk. I think this should almost never lead to time in jail.

Neglegent - When the person had no intention to harm anyone but does something stupid they shouldn't have that put people in additional harm and led to a death. Example: falling asleep at the wheel by not pulling over when they felt tired or driving fast and leading to a death.

Gross Neglegence - Refer to Ted Williams case. This would be a relatively serious crime.

Neglectful - Neglecting to help someone you accidentally or neglegently hurt. Example: Running away from the scene of an accident etc leading to their death. This would be a very serious charge.

Intentional - A definate intent to harm someone.

Defensive - You kill someone who tries to harm you or an innocent individual.

Aggravated - The person loses their temper over something not too significant and harms another person leading to their death. This would be a serious charge as well.

Reasonably Aggravated - The person loses their temper over something significant. Example, a father going out and killing the person who raped his daughter.

If the victim isn't killed but could have been, the guilty should charged with a crime based on the category above that the crime describes
with the prefix "Attempted" attached to it and face a similar but slighly less severe punishment.

What do you think?

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It just proves that if you have enough money to hire the best defense, you can get away with murder in this country.
Would a poor man with a run of the mill lawyer have faired as well as Williams.

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I think clearer definitions of the crimes would help reduce some of this equity. Don't you?

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your ideas are generally good, but the problem is how to make (or better: is it actually possible to make) accurate definitions.
It would still leave many different interpretations.
I may like your suggestions pretty much, but still I totally disagree with some details: for example, I don't think it's same (not even close) when someone falls asleep while driving and when someone drives retardedly fast (I am not saying first one is not crime if murder is commited this way, just that I think that latter is much much worse)

Problem is that I think thousand people would make thousand different "lists".

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I'm not talking about people that drive extremely fast and recklessly myownusername, that could qualify as gross negligence.

And to be fair, falling asleep at the wheel is very irresponsible too. If you're feeling sleepy or tired or have lacked sleep for a while, you have an obligation to pull over.

There is no list as you speak of. It's not if you did this, you would automatically qualify for this charge. The jury decides which charge is most appropriate based on the seriousness of the crime based on all the facts.

As it stands now, the lowest sentence you can get is manslaugher which often encompasses a significant amount of time in jail. If the jury decides something wasn't that serious, they are forced to give you a misdemeanor with essentially no jail time. This is why many people who fall asleep at the wheel either end up in jail for 6 years or don't go to jail at all. I think we as a society would benefit by giving the jury more choices.

I also think that we would benefit from giving the juries all the information involved in a case and letting them decide the relevance of that information for themselves.

In the Kobe Bryant case for example, the "victim" was taking antipsychotic medicaton for a psychotic disorder. What is significant about this is that she failed to take the medication for a few days before the alleged rape because her friends hid all her pills from her as she was depressed at the time. She had previously attempted suicide by swallowing many pills and her friends hid her pills whenever she was in a bad mood.

Failing to take the medication she was on for a few days would lead to greatly increased sexual promiscuity. Thus it is reasonable to assume that she may have thought that she was raped but at the time of the crime, she wanted to have sex and simply doesn't recall her feelings and actions at the time as a result of being off the medication. It's an episode as her psychiatrist put it.

Unfortunately, the jury of the case will likely never hear any of this because the victim's mental state is rarely admissible as evidence and probably won't be even in this case. This is why I think the jury should be presented all the information and allowed to decided just how significant the information is.

What is even sadder is that in Colorado, the law makes no distintion between serial rape and date rape. Thus if Kobe is convicted of this, he will spend atleast 20 years in jail, and could possibly spend the rest of his life in jail for a crime he didn't commit and may have only been convicted of because the jury didn't have all the informaton.

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I said that I agree with you in basics.
And, also, I haven't said that falling asleep while driving is not crime at all if you killed someone because of your irresponsibility. Just that it's not same as driving fast on purpose and killing someone.

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For the most part I don't think you really change anything here and you also introduce a whole new problem.

Most of your definitions are already in place so in effect all you are doing is suggesting that the existing terms be changed to match yours. That's just word play with no real effect.

The idea of allowing the jury to decide what the person is guilty of is a bit scarey though. In our system, it is up to the state to identify what law has been broken, charge the person and prove the case against them.

What you are suggesting is a system where the state just decides that something is wrong, arrests someone, finds any/every possible thing to bring up in court and then lets the jury deccde if a law has been broken and if so, which one. How exactly, is a person supposed to mount a defense for themselves when they don't know what it is they are being accused of?

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Re: Making certain the punishment always fits the crime.

Centroles wrote:

I get angered every time I hear about a basketball player who points a loaded gun at a person with witnesses getting off of manslaugher with four minor charges while a neglegent person who falls asleep at the wheel ends up in jail for 6 years.

No doubt your anger stems, in large part, from the inadequate reporting of these kinds of cases. It is seldom true that the public knows as much about the facts of the case as the jury knows. That's why some jury decisions are seen as inexplicable.

Centroles wrote:

For example, I think there should be 6 different possible charges for murder. The jury and the jury alone decides which charge is most appropriate and the judge verifies whether the charge meets the situation.

That would simply replicate the functions of the grand jury. Or are you suggesting that we get rid of that?

Centroles wrote:

Each charge should have an appropriate punishment and this helps ensure that the punishment always meets the crime. I think such clear definitions (the current ones are far too ambigious and too few) for all crimes, not just murder would help make the punishments more fair and just.

Have you ever seen the definitions for homicide, as contained in a criminal code? Here is the relevant section from Illinois. Which of these definitions isn't clear?

Centroles wrote:

I also think that every effort should be made to ensure that the jury gets as much information about the situation as possible as well as warnings as to what the information means and let them make up their own minds instead of arbitrarily deciding that crimes commited when the person was a juvinile that may point to a pattern being kept from them.

As I have mentioned in another thread, there are public policy reasons for keeping juvenile records sealed.

Centroles wrote:

Accidental Murder - When the person clearly had no intention of hurting anyone and didn't do anything that he could have known would put someone in risk. I think this should almost never lead to time in jail.

"Accidental murder" is an oxymoron, since "murder" always implies intent.

Centroles wrote:

Neglegent - When the person had no intention to harm anyone but does something stupid they shouldn't have that put people in additional harm and led to a death. Example: falling asleep at the wheel by not pulling over when they felt tired or driving fast and leading to a death.

The criminal laws already cover this type of situation. In Illinois, it would be either involuntary manslaughter or vehicular homicide.

Centroles wrote:

Gross Neglegence - Refer to Ted Williams case. This would be a relatively serious crime.

This would be covered under either involuntary manslaughter or second-degree murder.

Centroles wrote:

Neglectful - Neglecting to help someone you accidentally or neglegently hurt. Example: Running away from the scene of an accident etc leading to their death. This would be a very serious charge.

How does running away from the scene of an accident amount to a homicide?

Centroles wrote:

Intentional - A definate intent to harm someone.

This would be covered under first- or second-degree murder.

Centroles wrote:

Defensive - You kill someone who tries to harm you or an innocent individual.

This isn't even a crime. It's an affirmative defense.

Centroles wrote:

Aggravated - The person loses their temper over something not too significant and harms another person leading to their death. This would be a serious charge as well.

This is not a crime. These are simply aggravating circumstances.

Centroles wrote:

Reasonably Aggravated - The person loses their temper over something significant. Example, a father going out and killing the person who raped his daughter.

"Reasonably aggravated" is as much an oxymoron as "accidental murder." And insofar as someone kills while acting under a "sudden or intense passion," he would be guilty of second-degree murder.

Centroles wrote:

If the victim isn't killed but could have been, the guilty should charged with a crime based on the category above that the crime describes with the prefix "Attempted" attached to it and face a similar but slighly less severe punishment.

That's pretty much what the law does now.

Centroles wrote:

What do you think?

I think your proposed solution is largely unnecessary. The laws already cover these situations quite well.

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Making certain the punishment always fits the crime.

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