Justified killing or murder?

[Asmodean]

It is not always easy to determine where that line goes, I suppose, although from where I sit (In relative safety, I might add) it doesn't seem all that blurry. It's not about what the perp might do, but what the perp is doing. Using your logic, it would be legitimate to hit a car thief on the head with a hammer for dragging your aged grandmother out of her car. Violence is, after all, being done and you have no way of knowing that he won't decide to shoot heror something.

I follow a different strategy: let the asshole have the car, then let the police deal with him. The rest I leave to chance - a lesser chance, as I see it.

Again, I think this points to a major flaw in your logic, namely some kind of cold calculation when seeing this violent act about whether it's life-threatening or not. Does that really matter? If violence is being inflicted upon a loved one like this, I don't think the distinction matters anymore. There's already being harm done, and you have no way of knowing if it could potentially get worse.

It should matter when it comes to the aftermath. Mitigating circumstances or not, a serious crime has been committed, and I, for one, see it as my duty to avoid committing such unless the benefits far outweigh the risks (and I am not talking about the risk of getting caught or otherwise in trouble with the law)

If you kill or seriously injure somebody because you couldn't think straight, what responsibility do you have (being otherwise mentally healthy) for not pausing to consider the situation before you went in weapons blazing? I'd say quite a heavy one.

[Stevil]

What does "a penis already in her" have to do with waiting for the police?  Like, oh well, she's already raped, may as well wait for the cops. 

Could you imagine the daughter's testimony? While I was being raped, I yelled out for dad to help, but he just stood there at the doorway and watched. I kept yelling but he did nothing, it must have been a good 10 minutes, he just kept watching.

[Asmodean]

Would you prefer her testimony to sound something like: Then dad rushed the guy and fell over, clutchign his throat and there was a knife in it...

Or maybe: I saw dad come in, but then he ran out and left me there for four days...

[Stevil]

I think the issue is whether having overpowered the rapist, the father  lost his self- control and proceeded to beat him so badly that he died. On the basis that he did not intend to kill him and the intense provocation he was suffering, this looks like manslaughter with very  significant mitigating circumstances, not meriting a jail sentence.

We don't know all the details.
Who would blame him for getting angry in the moment?
Who could say he had fully overpowered and constrained the rapist?
Is the father really a threat to society? For what purpose would there be to punish him?

[Ecurb Noselrub]

I would say that knowing that someone else (particularly someone you trust to take care of you like your dad) was there and didn't do a whole lot to stop the rape would be at least as damaging as the rape itself.  Rape damages your ability to trust and have relationships with people anyway, even people that you previously loved and trusted like your parents.  Actually having your dad there and having him not do much to stop it would be....unthinkable.  I don't know how you would get past that. 

Right. As a father, I would much rather have my daughter say "my daddy killed the bad man who was hurting me" as opposed to "my daddy was on the telephone while the bad man kept hurting me."

We don't know exactly what would have happened if the father had followed Asmo's approach and refrained from doing any violence to him.  Possible scenarios include, among others, that the man would have continued to rape the girl or that the man would have attacked the father, gained the upper hand, and killed him and the girl.  We do know for certain the outcome of the course of action taken by the father in this case. The father took the opportunity that he had to save his daughter and it resulted in his daughter not being assaulted anymore and in the rapist's death, who will now never rape the girl again.  I'm certain that she is thankful for this, and one father-daughter bond has probably been firmly sealed.

[Asmodean]

We don't know all the details.

Precisely the reason why I try to discuss in in generalised terms.

Who would blame him for getting angry in the moment?

For acting on his anger with fatal consequences? I certainly would. Not for the anger itself though.

Who could say he had fully overpowered and constrained the rapist?

That there is a very good point. However, the thing did end in a death.

Is the father really a threat to society? For what purpose would there be to punish him?

If he has the tendency to "lose it" under less extreme stressors, possibly to the point of killing or seriously injuring a third party, I would say yes, some rehab may be beneficial. The court (Court-appointed psychiatrists, really, I suppose) would have to take a stand on that.

[Tank]

What does "a penis already in her" have to do with waiting for the police?  Like, oh well, she's already raped, may as well wait for the cops.  

When the damage is done, I'd like to think I'd choose a path that aggravates it the least - not at all, if I could.

Admittedly not being an expert on the issue, I think being raped for two minutes and witnessing your would-be rescuer getting a knife to the throat is more traumatising than being raped for five or seven minutes.

The damage is not "done" at the moment of penetration.  It continues for as long as the rape continues, and then for long, long, long after that.

I would say that knowing that someone else (particularly someone you trust to take care of you like your dad) was there and didn't do a whole lot to stop the rape would be at least as damaging as the rape itself.  Rape damages your ability to trust and have relationships with people anyway, even people that you previously loved and trusted like your parents.  Actually having your dad there and having him not do much to stop it would be....unthinkable.  I don't know how you would get past that. 

That would be about the worst possible outcome as the child would fell utterly abandoned.

[Asmodean]

That would be about the worst possible outcome as the child would fell utterly abandoned.

If the kid is actually aware of the father's presense in the first place, perhaps?

[Ali]

The bare minimum would be running for the hills and THEN calling the police. Depending on the exact circumstances, even that may be enough and by far the wisest course of action.

Honestly, this is about as helpful as saying "The wisest course of action would be to fly around the world fast enough to rewind time, and go back and invite the rapist to a movie so he'll be tied up watching The Avengers rather than raping your daughter."  

There is simply no way I could "run for the hills" if someone was hurting my son.  I would literally die first.

[Stevil]

If he has the tendency to "lose it" under less extreme stressors, possibly to the point of killing or seriously injuring a third party, I would say yes, some rehab may be beneficial.

The reason why they have a jury of peers is to come to a collective understanding of "normal". What would a normal father do in a situation like this? Would it be normal to get angry and act on that anger?

[Asmodean]

The reason why they have a jury of peers is to come to a collective understanding of "normal". What would a normal father do in a situation like this? Would it be normal to get angry and act on that anger?

I think it would be quite common, not sure about normal. That said, to the best of my knowledge, the juries do not consist of a representative sample of the population. What are they? 10-15 people? Not much, statistically...

[DeterminedJuliet]

I find the "not getting physically involved" response pretty impossible to fathom. Even if this guy agreed that it'd be the most rational thing to do (which he may or may not), you're talking about an emergency situation where you're probably reacting on instinct. I mean, geez, my kid fell and split his lip once (drawing a lot of blood, but not really doing much damage) and I reactively grabbed him up in my arms before I could even process what was happening. My brain just saw blood coming from my son and totally went into parental instinct mode. I'd find it very, very hard to believe that this father could have approached the situation calmly and rationally, even if he wanted to.

[Asmodean]

Let me construct another hypothetical from your example:

A kid, who is playing on carousel, falls off and is still on the ground with some blood gushing here and there. A parent runs over and picks the kid up, unwittingly aggravating a neck injury. Kid ends up a quad.

It's not a very medically sound example, but it will do for the purpose. The point is, and this is a personal observation, that thinking before acting generally yields more favourable results than just acting.

[Stevil]

Let me construct another hypothetical from your example:

A kid, who is playing on carousel, falls off and is still on the ground with some blood gushing here and there. A parent runs over and picks the kid up, unwittingly aggravating a neck injury. Kid ends up a quad.

It's not a very medically sound example, but it will do for the purpose. The point is, and this is a personal observation, that thinking before acting generally yields more favourable results than just acting.

Would you convict that parent? Throw them in prison?

[Asmodean]

Would you convict that parent? Throw them in prison?

Depends.