Vigilante Justice Kills Wrong Person

[ShyGuyInChicago]

Do you agree with vigilante justice? Should people who do such a thing get leniency or be a acquitted? Do they deserve that if they kill/injure the wrong person? I heard of a news story about a woman who was raped and decided to run over her attacker with a car and kill him. But she killed the wrong man? Again do you feel sympathy for her? Should she get leniency? Does the fact that she killed the wrong man matter? On a side note I read a comment on this story and it was a woman asking if her rapist can be charged with the man's murder. Do you feel that should happen even though the law does not work that way?

http://www.wsmv.com/video/24699492/index.html

[scuba steve]

Vigilante justice can never be justified, in this day and age we should be socially above this which most of us are, unfortunatly there are those few (this women for example) try to take matters into their own hands to the extreme. I feel no sympothy for this woman and even if she had managed to target the right person I would still see her locked up for murder. Perhaps not on such a strong sentence as she may have been mentally unstable after the event (although i'm still sceptical over that whole issue), but either way social rehabilitation would have been a must.

[chazzrox2]

No no-one should take it upon themselves to dish out authority of that stature, it is the responsability of the police(or similar) to deal with those situations. Maybe if you are forced into a situation where only you can deal with the problem then yes, but you must face the consequences of your actions, maybe not the same jail time as normal but not a light warning either.

[Amnesiac]

It's a very difficult issue, and it really depends on the situation. I can respect people who try and prevent crime, but they have to be extremely careful in the ways they do it. I would say people should only practice vigilante justice if they know what they're doing.

[DarkHorses]

I feel sympathy for them, but we can't change the law for them. If it was suddenly okay to kill anyone you felt you had the right to then everyone would run the chance of getting murdered. I don't think these people deserve to go to jail, but the laws are in place to keep people in line, and it's something that has to be done. The law is the law. It's not always based on what was right and what was wrong.

[huginnmuninn]

i think its wrong but if some one attacked me or my family i would probably hunt them down

[Continuum]

It depends on the situation, like DarthEgg said. Fury can overcome and still can be justified because it's our natural reaction to events that may have scarred deep into our emotions. If the doer targets the wrong person, he/she must do his time. I would feel sympathy for her, since its an act of reckless rage.

[Ender]

Leave it up to the people whos job it is. It's not hard to dial three little numbers (9-1-1) and file a police report.

[steve1234]

I also think it depends on the situation.

The majority of times, it should be left up to the police, but there are many occasions where people lose all hope with the police (like here in the UK), as they often do stupid things like arrest house owners for attacking burgulars.

If someone gets raped etc, I can certainly understand why they (or family members or friends) would want to get revenge. Attacking them I can understand. I probably wouldn't do it, but can understand why people do.

If someone is being attacked or burguled, then they should have every right to kill the criminal in self-defence. I live in a stupidly politcally correct crappy country where sometimes criminals have more rights than the victims!!

The woman who ran the man over, I can sympathise with her, but its terrible that it was the wrong person. I think she should be punished for that, but maybe have more lenient punishments seeing as she was raped, which is a disgusting thing.

[Scooby Dooby Drew]

I think that perhaps more leniancy should be given, but not too much.
If you want vigilante justice, just turn the rapist into the police and get him locked up for the rest of his life. There's your justice.

[Nexus]

I think this case definitely deserves some leniency.

I'd go with voluntary manslaughter at most, not murder.

[Sith Lord 13]

Not guilty due to temporary insanity, brought on by PTSD. Applicable in many vigilante cases.