Wow. I totally disagree with the sentence. If he is guilty of murder, he should be doing some time.

__________________
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” - Edmund Burke

Negligent homicide..that essentially means it was an accident. A stupid accident, but still an accident. No point in sending him to prison for all eternity, no purpose is served.

__________________
Poor Spot! He was tired of being thought of as stupid. "I'm gonna join Mensa," he said to myself, "and then I'll be legally permitted to wear the society's insignia--a tattoo of a little map pin pushed into my flesh--and then everyone'll know that I'm not dumb at all!"
Spot Joins Mensa
by James "Kibo" Parry

I had a similar arguement on my other board about this. Murder is murder.

Negligent homicide isn't murder. It's accidentally killing somebody. Murder is intentionally killing somebody.

Negligent homicide is acting like a jerk and not paying attention and backing over your buddy. Murder is getting him in the headlights and intentionally running him down.

__________________
Poor Spot! He was tired of being thought of as stupid. "I'm gonna join Mensa," he said to myself, "and then I'll be legally permitted to wear the society's insignia--a tattoo of a little map pin pushed into my flesh--and then everyone'll know that I'm not dumb at all!"
Spot Joins Mensa
by James "Kibo" Parry

From the article...

Some accident. And by the way negligent homicide isn't just an accident, its an accident where you fucked up bigtime. That is, you didn't want to kill him, but its pretty much all your fault.

Just as well he wasn't a teenage boy in Ga getting head from a teen girl, he'd be in BIG trouble. He only killed an Iraqi so he can walk. No biggie eh?

__________________
Blowhards-R-Us

Explain please how one "accidentally" stabs someone 17 times?

__________________
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” - Edmund Burke

Wrong. He took the life of another human being, and IMO, unjustifiably so.

The Iraqi WAS violating light discipline. Smash his phone and knock his cigarette out. Rat on his ass. Tie him up. Get him off the line.

But stab him 17 times with a bayonet? I don't see it.

__________________
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” - Edmund Burke

This is where I’m tough on crime. The killer should be locked up for a long time. If the killing was an accident, then the killer should be kept out of society so that his clumsiness won’t result in another “accident”.

It reminded me of the fact that there are so many drunk driving “repeat offenders”. I just don’t see how our justice system allows people who have been convicted time and time again to drive. It even allows people who have committed serious accidents to be back on the road after a fine and perhaps a brief time in jail. Anyway, this is probably a different rant suitable for a different thread.

__________________
"Extremes to the right and left of any political dispute are always wrong."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

The thing about accidents (not really applicable in this case...perhaps a little bit) is that oftentimes the person failed under pressure. That is, they should have acted differently but the events that put them into that position weren't really that fault. Its hard to justify punishing someone if they find themselves in a situation which is extremely unpleasant which they then make the wrong choice about.

If you are tailgating someone and they stop suddenly because a child is in front of them, and you rear end them and kill them, it IS an accident. Were you acting stupidly? Yes. Is it reasonable to think that it would end in death? Probably not.

The thing about drunk driving is that we are essentially punishing people for a crime they *might* commit. We don't really care about them driving drunk, we care about the increased risk of killing someone when driving drunk. So we are basically saying "its illegal to do something which might injure someone"...that is punishing them for what could have happened, but didn't.

People don’t arrive in positions by magic in a puff of smoke. They arrive at locations by a series of choices that they make. If you don’t consider yourself capable of working effectively in the pressure of a “war zone”, then don’t sign up for the military.

Why was he tailgating? If someone needs to drive to a particular place and arrive on time, he is to prepare and depart for the place early so that he will not have to rush and tailgate. No. Accidents don’t happen out of the blue. They are caused.

Drunk driving is a crime in and of itself. It is illegal to drive while intoxicated or while merely under the influence.

__________________
"Extremes to the right and left of any political dispute are always wrong."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

Your first paragraph is poor logic, at best. NO ONE knows how they will react under the pressure of combat until they actually are in it. Standing guard duty stateside is one thing. Odds are good your biggest challenge will be trying to not fall asleep.

Standing guard under hostile fire conditions where you can come under attack at any second is whole different world. The Marine was correct in that the Iraqi WAS violating a basic premise of concealment by displaying lighted objects. That's all a sniper needs.

How he handled the violation, IMO was wrong. But don't go second guessing the pressure of fearing for your life every second, and don't think you can sit back here and rationalize it prior to joining.

__________________
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” - Edmund Burke

As I said its not terribly applicable for this situation. But regardless of how the people arrive at their locations to be held responsible for those choices they need to have been able to predict what would happen. If I walk outside and see someone having a seizure and I need to decide whether to help them or call 9/11, yes my choices brought me into that situation but to say that I am somehow responsible for being in that situation is ludicrous.

We can't all act perfectly in every situation. Yes sometimes people are late. Because that causes them to kill someone does not mean they are a murderer. Expecting people to act ideally in every situation is stupid. Then we are essentially punishing people who get unlucky. If thats the standard, might as well just jail people randomly and save on cop salary costs.

And pray tell, why exactly is it a crime? Because we are afraid of what MIGHT happen not what has already happened.

Perhaps my comments were over the top and perhaps they were not. I am reconsidering my comments. I do think that people should be held more accountable for the choice that they make than they seem to be held today. There is too much “psychobabble” today that seems to excuse people for behaving wrongly. The “temporary insanity” plea is used way too often to be an honest legitimate defense each time. People should be more responsible for their own responses to emotional events. Theft is kleptomania. Arson is pyromania. People seem to be given sympathy if they simply say “Gee. I didn’t know”. “I didn’t know that if I drink alcohol and drive, I might hit someone”. “I didn’t know that if I signed up for guard duty, I might face a dangerous situation”. I’m sorry but I don’t buy those “cop-outs”. That’s b.s. The bottom line is that people must get to know themselves and their limits. If you think that you can’t take the heat, don’t be a cook. I thought about joining the military years ago. I thought about what I would do in a dangerous life-threatening situation. I learned that I am too self-preserving. I would shoot first and ask questions later. I also don’t like the notion of blindly following someone else’s orders without my asking questions. I also don’t want to take the chance of “accidentally” killing an innocent person. Therefore, I decided that the military is not for me.

__________________
"Extremes to the right and left of any political dispute are always wrong."
—Dwight D. Eisenhower

Just as prosecutors load up on crimes (i.e. charging 40 different crimes for the same act), Defense attorneys load up on defenses. The temporary insanity plea rarely goes anywhere and its a hard one to prove. We have over 2 million people in US jails, the US has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the worlds incarcerated population. If there is anything we are in this country, its not soft on crime. I hear this crap over and over like people are just walking out of US jails. In the "land of the free" we imprison a higher rate of our population than almost any country in the world. The idea that we don't punish individuals enough is ludicrous.

No, its not. Most people steal shit somewhere between the ages of 14 and 18. They aren't all kleptomaniacs. Kleptomania is when someone can't help but steal. They can't control it.

Please cite me a case of someone, anyone who got out of it because they said "I didn't know that if I drink alcohol and drive, I might hit someone". That is something that simply doesn't happen. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse in this country. Feel free to go into a court and plead that, you will get no sympathy.

Yes, lets start throwing people in jail because they happen to be stupid and unlucky.