Can anyone tell me of a court case where a person killed someone, the friend of the victim killed the murderer for revenge, and the friend was found guilty of man-slaughter?
2007-03-09 13:44:04 · 3 answers · asked by desperateperson 3 in Politics & Government ➔ Law Enforcement & Police
The Georgetown Law Journal is full of cases such as you speak of. Go to: www.georgetowncle.org and insert the search terms under: Deadly Conduct; or: Aggravated Offences Against Persons. This should give you an avenue to find exactly what your looking for.
GOD BLESS/GOOD LUCK!!
2007-03-09 13:56:25 · answer #1 · answered by Chuck-the-Duck 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This will depend greatly on the state, but there is a basic concept in law known as a "heat of passion" defense. However, for this defense to work the defendant would have to have had very little time to reflect on his actions, like a husband finding his wife with another man and in a rage kills one or the other.
This is what is known as an "imperfect" defense. It does not excuse the entire criminal act, it merley reduces the culpability of the party by reducing the mens rea (or the intent).
In most jurisdictions, this lowers the level of the crime (usually by one level i.e if A is the highest level felony the person would be given a B felony).
However, if the person's motive is revenge and they contemplated their act there is no defense (save for an insanity defense). Quite simply, they can and should be convicted of the highest level of homicide. So, there would be 100s of cases that fit your critera (this is basically a common scenerio in gang wars--Blood kills Crypt, Crypt kills Blood in revenge.)
2007-03-09 22:28:13 · answer #2 · answered by strangedaze23 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
how about the kennedy case?
2007-03-09 21:53:06 · answer #3 · answered by david s 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋