• TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Genocide requires intent. Whereas this alien just had a fleeting moment of anger at the time of his wife being murdered.

    Can he really be tried for genocide? It’s hard to say, but I’d say not. We all have dark intrusive thoughts, and in this instance it had disastrous consequences.

    It’s all moot anyway. If you have no means or intention to enforce a law, does it really exist?

    • JAM@reddthat.com
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      10 months ago

      The heat-of-passion is something to argue to mitigate culpability. Yes, he killed an entire species, and wasn’t exactly justified, but his emotions and passions were inflamed by the aliens murdering his wife making his actions involuntary.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Yeah but we aren’t talking heat-of-the-moment shoving someone into traffic during a bar fight, we’re talking heat-of-the-moment naughty thought during an aerial bombardment from a hostile force where his wife was killed.

      • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        We’re talking thinking something, at a moment of extreme stress and anger, after everybody on the planet he lived on was killed, including his wife.

        We aren’t talking someone physically doing something.

        You’ve never had any intrusive thought, ever? Can you affirm that you wouldn’t have an angry thought even if everybody on Earth was murdered, including loved ones?

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Genocide requires intent.

      Is that actually, legally, true?

      In other words, does the word identify the cause, or the effect?

      Can he really be tried for genocide? It’s hard to say, but I’d say not.

      How so? The facts seem self-evident.

      It’s all moot anyway. If you have no means or intention to enforce a law, does it really exist?

      You can still classify someone though in such a way, in hopes that in some future time you can enforce the law on them, having being previously judged as a criminal.