From the comments to yesterday’s post (about assholes who need a good beating) come these wise words from Reader GMC70 (who is a fine man, despite being a lawyer):
“I’ve thought for a while there should be a ‘he had it coming’ defense.”
In one of John Sandford’s Prey novels, there’s a situation where a well-known major-league scumbag has been arrested, tried, found guilty (after unimpeachable evidence) and imprisoned for the murder of an equally well-known (but minor-league) scumbag.
To everyone’s surprise, a few months later the dead guy is seen, very much alive, at an upscale cocktail party. Like all Sanford’s scenarios,the plot is quite complicated, but the question then becomes when to let the prosecuting district attorney (whom everyone hates) know about the murder victim who wasn’t.
One of the better lines is when someone asks what to do about the convicted scumbag, and the priceless response is: “Leave him where he is. You know he’s killed somebody before.”
I can’t help but think that this is not an uncommon situation in criminality — where the bad guy may not be guilty of this specific crime, but that’s not to say he hasn’t committed others.
As a hitman once explained: “These guys I’ve whacked? Most of them are seriously evil. After all, nobody takes out a contract on a nun.”
as I get older, I’m very tempted to start hanging around courthouses and distributing pamphlets on jury nullification
JQ
I have long believed that any federally elected official, upon leaving office, should do 5 years in prison. We all know they did something that merits at least 5 years in prison. At the state level, probably two years will suffice.
6 months in prison for every year over 2 in office sounds about right.
When I was a kid my dad occasionally whacked me with his leather belt notwithstanding I had proclaimed my innocence. If he later determined that I was in fact innocent I demanded compensation like ice cream, candies, a new bike, etc. etc.
Dad only said “Sorry for this one but no doubt you were guilty of a similar crime I never found out about so you get nothing and be quiet or I’ll whack you again”.
He was right.
This is why juries find people “Not Guilty” and not “Innocent”.