Lemon Lime

Imagine you are driving down a street. You’re obeying all the traffic laws. Your speed is slightly below the limit. Suddenly a puppy runs out in front of your car followed by a very young child. As fast as you can you hit your brakes and swerve. But they are too close. Although you desperately want not to hit the child your best efforts fail. She is struck by your car and dies.

At the same time, two blocks over, a man driving down the street sees a child just as young playing with a puppy in a driveway. He deliberately aims his car at the child and speeds up. He wants to kill that child. He succeeds. The child dies.

How similar are you and the man two streets over? Each of you has killed a four year-old child. Two sets of parents are devastated. Is the home of the parents of the child you killed any less empty than the home of the other parents? Will birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas be less agonizing for them?

The damage that was done when your car hit the child is almost identical to the damage done when the other man’s car hit the other child. Does that make the two of you the same? Do you deserve the same punishment? Our criminal law says you don’t. It judges you not by the damage done but by the intention with which you acted. Our criminal statutes are a set of rules. The purpose of our criminal justice system is to find the people who deliberately disobey them.

Almost without exception serious crimes require a mens rea (a guilty mind, a criminal intent). Someone who causes harm intentionally is a danger to society. Someone who makes a mistake isn’t. We all make mistakes. Some people (like you in this example) are just unlucky.

In this example two children are dead but the drivers who hit them could not be more different. You committed no crime. The other driver committed murder. One of you deserves to be punished. The other doesn’t. Our legal system deals in reality. We cannot control the world. We can only control our deliberate actions. The purpose of a criminal trial is to determine what actions occurred and what the intent behind them was. That is why the defendant has to be the focus of the trial.

It feels wrong that the suffering of the victims of a crime is not central to the trial. But the cause of suffering is not necessarily related to its magnitude. Do you feel more sympathy for one set of parents than the other? Or does your heart break for both of them?

The loss of a child is a shattering blow no matter what the cause. What if, on the day you were driving, a third four year-old died suddenly because of an undetectable brain aneurysm? Would the parents of that child experience a different grief than the others? Would their loss be less painful? More painful? Can the loss be measured at all?

Our legal system has many flaws but it knows the limits of human justice.

(Source: fripperiesandfobs, via )

furrrocious-forms:

La Chatte a la Defense

furrrocious-forms:

i can haz mies-burger?

The Internet: Perfect or Terrifying?

(Source: thingamajig)

Since after about 15 tries the Inside Alcatraz blog still keeps telling me I have entered the captca letters incorrectly here is my comment:

Stroud was a real person. Robert Stroud aka The Birdman of Alcatraz.

The term sallyport is also used to refer to a secure entry (like an airlock). When Alcatraz was a prison everyone going in or out (such as guards arriving for work) had to go through a sallyport. Of course there isn’t one now that Alcatraz is a park. That’s why Donovan’s mention of the sallyport gave him away to Rebecca.

loichay:

Periodic table of the digital industry by zabisco

thingamajig:

Don’t forget…

Now that’s a wreath

the-asphalt-jungle:

Lucille Ball - Christmas 1930s

(Source: the-dark-city)

carolathhabsburg:

This is super awesome!

Two ladies making an elegant “snow Lady”!!!

1891

(via )