Justified killing or murder?

[The Magic Pudding]

The legal system seems to have worked quite well, the thing was investigated and put before a jury.  Further action against the father would hurt the family and hence the child, let them heal if they can.

[Crow]

I don't know what I would have done in a similar situation, but I am guessing it wouldn't have been much different. If that was the case then I would have been happy to do the time.

How old was the daughter? I remember in school there were girls at the age of 13 that had boyfriends in there 20's and were open about their very active sex lives and this was before the internet and mobile phones being popular. It wasn't a common thing but everyone knew it was happening.

Edit:Never mind about the age thing, even though it doesn't state her age the father is only 23 so I assume the girl couldn't have been no more than eleven. Thats fucked up. Big time. Guy gets a pass in my book.

[En_Route]

Justified.

Natural justice, yes.

Legal justice, of course not. This is a blatant travesty of legal justice. Unless (as in the UK at least) it qualifies to be mitigated on the grounds of 'diminished responsibility'.

It illustrates exactly the inadequacy imperfection of legal law. It appears that natural justice has been served and the perpetrator vindicated, despite - not because of - the law. I suppose we should be grateful that the system provided the framework for an emotional plee to natural justice to overrule legal law.

I  personally have no idea what natural justice is.It strikes me as another of these unverifiable and slippery abstractions like God that people are apt to invoke to make sense of our haphazard existence. From a pragmatic perspective, I would not like to live in a society where a killing of this nature is not put before a judge and jury While it is easy to say the child rapist deserved all he got, not that I personally would, the same  lack of rigour could apply in other cases where perhaps your sympathies might be rather more divided.

[Guardian85]

Having been in situations where I have had to use force to defend others from attack I can relate to the case on one level. It is very difficult to estimate on the fly how much force is required to drive off or subdue an attacker. Sometimes you have to cause real lasting harm to achieve this. I once broke a mans wrist to stop him using a knife in a fight. Should I be charged with assault?

That the molester died and can't have his day in court is unfortunate. But the father was, if the facts of the case are correct, perfectly justified to intervene when he caught this perpetrator red handed. If he had not caught him in the act it would of course not be justified defence. Given the facts of the case I would say that the death of the molester is excusable at the least, if not justifiable.

[Asmodean]

I once broke a mans wrist to stop him using a knife in a fight. Should I be charged with assault?

Charged, yes. Convicted, not if you can prove defence of self or a third party. As for the necessary force, you use less than you want and stop when the immediate danger has passed, no?

Given the facts of the case I would say that the death of the molester is excusable at the least, if not justifiable.

I don't want to speculate without the full picture, but in general, I lean towards neither excusable nor justifiable.

[Siz]

I have no idea what natural justice is.It strikes me as another of these unverifiable abstractions like God that people are apt to invoke to make sense of our haphazard existence.

Luckily for me, I have a grasp on what I consider natural justice. It may be different from yours but with consensus we have the basis from which we can formulate fair legal law.

What other tools can we use?

[Ali]

For those of you who think this is a "travesty of justice" would you feel the same if the molester had not died?  Meaning, if the same situation happened - father walks in on a grown man raping his 5 year old daughter, punches the man - but the man is only injured, does not die, should the father go to jail for assault?  And secondary question, if you feel that the father punching the man in this circumstance was inappropriate, what would a more appropriate response be?  Calling the police and waiting for them to show up while the man continues to rape his kindergartener?

[Asmodean]

If the guy he attacked lived, he should have been charged with assault and if he wanted to plead self-defence or defence of third party, given that opportunity in court.

[Ali]

So is there any appropriate response that he could have given that would not have resulted in being charged with a crime?

[En_Route]

I have no idea what natural justice is.It strikes me as another of these unverifiable abstractions like God that people are apt to invoke to make sense of our haphazard existence.

Luckily for me, I have a grasp on what I consider natural justice. It may be different from yours but with consensus we have the basis from which we can formulate fair legal law.

What other tools can we use?

If natural justice is as subjective as you seem to acknowledge, isn't saying "This is /isn't in accordance with natural justice"  just a rather
grandiose way of saying "I think this is right/wrong". This is by the way is not meant to be in any way personal to you; I am interested in how people freely use these concepts which to an amoralist like me lack any objective foundation. How law evolves is a subject in its own right which I'll reserve for another time.

[Asmodean]

So is there any appropriate response that he could have given that would not have resulted in being charged with a crime?

Any non-criminal response, yes.

[Tank]

So is there any appropriate response that he could have given that would not have resulted in being charged with a crime?

Depends what you call by appropriate. As is stands the child has been molested AND witnessed a murder committed by their own father. If the father had acted in a less aggressive manner and removed the molester, confined them and called the police, the child would only have been molested. Which is a better result for the child. I'm not saying that the father's action were not unexpected under the circumstances but if the father had been able to control his emotional response the child would have been less traumatised than they probably were. The father would probably not have committed a crime they could reasonably argue citizens arrest was appropriate action under the circumstances. But that is in hindsight and expecting a father to behave that way is unrealistic IMO.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I don't really think that anyone who kills someone against their will should be exempt from charges, no matter what the scenario. As some other people have suggested, it's unlikely that this guy is going to be punished very harshly for what he did, but, to me, it's just how the process should work. If you kill somebody, you have to explain what happened, even if it seems clear cut.

[Stevil]

Depends what you call by appropriate. As is stands the child has been molested AND witnessed a murder committed by their own father. If the father had acted in a less aggressive manner and removed the molester, confined them and called the police, the child would only have been molested. Which is a better result for the child.

We will never know, but if the father hadn't been able to control the molesterer then the father might have ended up murdered and same thing for his daughter. Rape is an extremely violent crime. Quite a few of them end in murder.

[Ali]

So is there any appropriate response that he could have given that would not have resulted in being charged with a crime?

Any non-criminal response, yes.

Can you elaborate?