Are all these school shooters, attacking actual public schools, being charged with terrorism?
There’s little need to up-charge school shooters. Many of them are killed on sight. Those that are captured (Dylan Roof, for instance) get life without parole or the death sentence.
But in NYC, a single murder without a terrorist motive only gets you to 2nd Degree Murder. That means you’ll be out in 15 years. The “terrorism” addendum is necessary for life without parole sentencing.
There is no objective measure of criminal conduct. It’s all malleable. Prosecutors and judges and juries ultimately make these decisions case-by-case. And the results can be heavily weighted by wealthy, socially influential private interests who want to see an example made of a particularly offensive or terrifying individual.
“The Law” is a complex often contradictory abstract rubric that has to be applied to individual circumstances based on incomplete information by imperfect people. That’s the whole reason we have both a prosecutor and defense, plus an (ostensibly) impartial judge to adjudicate procedure and a jury to determine guilt/innocence and sentence.
If you could just put data into a computer and have it spit out perfect verdicts, the entire judicial system would be unnecessary.
There’s little need to up-charge school shooters. Many of them are killed on sight. Those that are captured (Dylan Roof, for instance) get life without parole or the death sentence.
But in NYC, a single murder without a terrorist motive only gets you to 2nd Degree Murder. That means you’ll be out in 15 years. The “terrorism” addendum is necessary for life without parole sentencing.
Yes, but the charges should fit the crime not be selected to ensure the desired outcome
There is no objective measure of criminal conduct. It’s all malleable. Prosecutors and judges and juries ultimately make these decisions case-by-case. And the results can be heavily weighted by wealthy, socially influential private interests who want to see an example made of a particularly offensive or terrifying individual.
I mean that’s what the law is supposed to do, maybe it doesn’t work like that in the US.
“The Law” is a complex often contradictory abstract rubric that has to be applied to individual circumstances based on incomplete information by imperfect people. That’s the whole reason we have both a prosecutor and defense, plus an (ostensibly) impartial judge to adjudicate procedure and a jury to determine guilt/innocence and sentence.
If you could just put data into a computer and have it spit out perfect verdicts, the entire judicial system would be unnecessary.