who should be held responsible the cult leader or his followers?

Question

if a leader of a cult told his followers to go kill and rape innocent people and the followers did it who should get the hars punishment the leader of the followers

Answer 1

The Bible says that people that don't love the truth, HEAP UP to themselves false teachers because the people love to hear lies. So, the real blame is on the people that finance these false teachers and cult leaders.

Without an audience and people giving them money, cult leaders are out of a "job".

Answer 2

If that's shown that the minister in specific reported the follower into committing a criminal act, then definite, the minister could be held criminally to blame. If the minister can provide advice of a typical nature that the follower interprets into criminal habit, then no. The minister has no longer in specific reported the follower to devote that acceptable act. If any expert consultant (preacher, criminal expert, scientific expert, etc) tells you that it truly is totally properly to kill somebody who assaults you, after which you blow away somebody who stated something mean to you, then that consultant isn't reliable. yet while he tells you to go out and kill people who disagree along with his opinion, and you do it, he shares the criminal duty. Proving that he stated it to you, nonetheless, is yet another element.

Answer 3

All responsible parties should be held accountable for their actions, whether they are brainwashed or not. Depending on the severity of the crime, some followers have seen more lenient sentencing on the part of some judges and juries. For instance, Patty Hearst, while on trial for armed robbery, her defense relied heavily on expert testimony of Dr. Margaret Singer arguing that Hearst had been brainwashed by her captors in the Symbionese Liberation Army and was not in control of her own actions or mental facilities. Hearst received a relentively lax sentence of seven years (of which she served 21 months) as a result. She would eventually be pardoned completely by former President Bill Clinton.

As for the Manson family, at the time of their trial, critical examinations of the concept of mind control were in their infancy. While some of the defendant's attorneys attempted to mount a case for undo control on the part of Manson over his followers, there simply wasn't enough information and research available for such a defense to be successful. All five defendants were charged with murder, convicted and given the death penalty. This sentence was later commuted to life in prison with the possibility of parole after the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty constituted cruel and unusual punishment (a ruling that has since been overturned). Curiously enough in this particular case, convicting Manson himself proved to be the trickiest of all, since he hadn't actually committed any of the murders, only ordered his followers to do so, all of whom were still slavishly devoted to him at the time and would have easily testified that they were acting on their own and fervently proclaimed Manson's innocence.

One of Manson's followers, Leslie Van Houten, was able to secure a second trial seperate from her former co-defendants several years after her initial conviction, where her attorney attempted to argue that it was only under the influence of Manson that she was capable of criminal behavior and for this reason, she should not be held directly accountable for her participation in the events of August 10, 1969. She was once again convicted and sentenced to life in prison, suggesting that perhaps juries aren't yet open to accepting any notion of a "the devil made me do it" defense.

As for followers "killing and raping innocent people," as dangerous and harmful as some cults can be, exhibiting such extremely violent behavior is, fortunately, rare but, quite unfortunately, when it does happen and is finally exposed to authorities or the public at large, it is generally too late to act in an effort to prevent massive tragedy along the lines of Jonestown or Waco. In both of those cases, the persons responsible for killing and raping ultimately suffered the same fate as their victims and lost their lives in the climax of each cult's demise ("demise" being used somewhat liberally in the case of the Branch Davidians, who still have a handful of active, surviving members), so the question of whether or not these people are responsible for crimes committed in the name of and at the behest of a controlling leader haven't really been raised to a level of national debate.

Answer 4

The classic example of this is the Charles Manson case in California, where he was jailed for life for just that. His followers who committed the murders also went to jail, but I am not sure for how long, but most of them I think got 20+ years of hard time. In the US courts at least, that precedence has been set.

Answer 5

All of them. The cult leader for power-mongering and the followers for stupidity.

Answer 6

If the leader knew better, then he or she is certainly accountable. If not, then they are accountable anyway because they are dangerously unaware. Same for the followers. Though they may be broken people who don't know better, even they are accountable for their behavior.

Answer 7

All should be held responsible, the leader because he brain washed them to do it, and the followers because they were stupid enough to be brainwashed.

Answer 8

I don't believe in the he told me to do it bit,it does not wash with Judges either

Answer 9

both

Answer 10

both