Darkfeather
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Joined: 3/13/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: JustDragonflies
quote:
ORIGINAL: Darkfeather
You know, it is a sad day when someone can with a straight face can say it is fine to convict a person purely on intent. Who on this planet can say with absolute honesty that they have never walked into a bank and thought, wow if only... Or jokingly said to a friend, I wish Bill was dead. Think back far enough and very few people in the span of their lifetimes can not string together what, capability, opportunity, and intent? Its all in how you present it isn't it. Intent is an easy thing to show because everyone has it at one time or another.
For example, does a shady character, hovering around my 100k car, constitute a crime? No. does a shady character, looking in my said car's windows late at night constitute a crime? Hell no. But those here screaming for poor Gilberto's blood would have the person's head on a pike. Me, I would yes, wait until he actually, I don't know, committed a crime, until I said he was a criminal. Why, because I have been in that situation before, and wow, guess what, I was just looking for a stupid key that fell under the car, but wow, did the cop that came up on me have a pleasant attitude? To him, I was a black man standing next to a sports-car at night, you do the math...
I think you might have a fundamental philosophical problem with conspiracy being against the law, since it doesn't require the action to have been conducted, intentionally or not. But the bottom line is that, as was explained to you and the thread readers by the helpful lawyer on page 1, to do the things he did, whether he would have actually gone through with it in the end IS in fact a crime.
Also, I'd like to point out that legally, a joke (about wishing someone dead) is not "intent". Thinking to one's self "Hmm. I'd like to be rich and have all the money in this bank. I wonder how hard it would be to rob it?" doesn't mean intent, and it certainly doesn't meet the requirement which was pointed out to the readers a few times, again on page 1, I believe, about taking action to further the intent. So even intent alone doesn't appear to be enough, you have to take action.
So. If I said jokingly that I wish that Bill was dead. That'd be one thing. If I said it seriously, that's another. It becomes more illegal the more actions I take to make Bill dead. When I have figured out the steps I'd need to take for Bill to die, it's getting perverse. But when I go out and stalk Bill's address, meet Bill to assess his potential for being killed and then talk about killing Bill with my partner.... I believe that I'd be meeting the legal requirements to be charged with conspiring to kill Bill, because I obviously am doing that. I may never actually kill him, but in this scenario, I've conspired to do so. And that's illegal, whether you agree with it or not. And if I get caught doing it... I'll be charged just like this guy.
And none of that has anything to do with racial profiling, I might add. If the car scenario occurred, regardless of race, if a clean cut looking off duty cop was found, say... with a bag to put stolen items in, a tool to break in and had internet searches on their computer about how to break into cars: then again, they're meeting those criteria of having furthered their ideas along to conspire to commit the crime, again... whether they commit the break-in, in the end is different crime entirely. If they're caught standing there with all that evidence, they'd have broken some laws already for just taking those actions alone.
To answer the OP's question, I think the point that someone is starting to take action toward their fantasy, if it's illegal, is when it becomes criminal. I read some of the testimony that indicated that he told others that it was all just a joke and he'd never actually go through with such deeds. But when you start to look people up and target individuals, whether they're ignorant of it or not, you're beginning to break some laws,and if you're caught may be punished for it. And probably that's the way it ought to be. It might have taken him 10 days or years to work up to taking further action, or he might never have done so. But, to me, it's important for people to understand that planning, and taking action to harm others isn't appropriate conduct in our society and may be punishable. Be that as it may, I believe that the punishment should fit the actual crime that did take place and if I had any authority over sentencing him it wouldn't be life imprisonment. It would be more like a couple years of house arrest, a decade of counseling and a lifetime of monitoring (because I doubt even a decade of counseling could prevent someone from wanting to kill and eat people if that's something that they're already deeply sexually attached to).
My point is not whether it is legal, but is it right, sheesh. Everyone is more than happy to say conspiracy, intent, etc. But my point is is it right to convict someone purely on intent. And yes my example is just like his. No it was not a bigoted cop. It was just a case of spectators inside the supermarket, who happened to see me near the car in question, mis-judged my INTENT. They believed me to be a car robber, and called the police. The police in turn, came with the notion that I was there to break into the car, and then saw a black man there. They also mis-judged my INTENT. Luckily I present a nice clean cut image, so it cleared up in time, but what if I had my bondage supplies in my car at the time? Rope, ball-gags, crops, etc... What if I had say polaroids of woman I had tied up, strictly with their consent mind you, also in my car at the time? Imagine the shitstorm that would have created with INTENT. I definitely would not be typing this from my house, I can tell you, unless I had gotten a really, really good lawyer. But I seem to be in the minority here, as others seem to be fine with the way things are now
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RE: At what point does deviant sexual mental fantasy be... - 
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