everlastingtongue

The death penalty threads got me thinking.

Why is attempted murder a lesser crime, with a lesser punishment, than actual murder? I can understand in accidental or negligent cases for example – where the might have not been the intent to kill. But suppose that I shoot someone with the intent to kill. Why should I serve a lesser sentence for being a bad shot, and why should I be punished more for being a good shot?

Maybe I don’t have my facts straight, but this really seems odd to me.

christ-on-a-stick

One thing off the top of my head....

Sorta like the differing punishments for, say, an assault that permanently injures someone (say they have to get a limb amputated or are blinded or something) versus murder. In the case of murder, they have not only lost a body part or ability but their whole life itself.

yelyos

Assault may or may not be attempted murder, so I think that it does merit a different punishment.

The question is, do we punish people based on what they wanted to do, or based on what they actually did?

Alonzo Fyfe

In the Philosophy of Law, this is known as:

The Problem of Attempts

And it has generated a fair amount of discussion and concern in the law journals.

It does not matter whether one holds a utilitarian conception of justice, or a retributivist view of justice, in neither system does it seem justified that a person gets a lesser punishment because -- because of forces beyond his control (e.g., the bullet struck a book that was in the victim's pocket and thus failed to kill him) -- he was thwarted in his attempt.

On the retributivist view, where the appropriateness of punishment depends on the intent of the criminal, it is certainly not the case that the presence of the book makes the would-be assassin less evil, or less blameworthy, or a 'better person not deserving of as much punishment'.

On a utilitarian view, the presence of the book does not change the consequences of the punishment. In our quest to deter murderers, we certainly want to deter those whose failure is attributed to pure luck.

yguy

If an assault is NOT attempted murder, it's called assault, not attempted murder. Attempted murder is assault with intent to kill.

SimplyAtheistic

I believe the laws are like this because it offers a sort of "safety catch". If a person doesen't kill someone they can always say " I just wanted to hurt him, not kill him". This way lawyers can push for attempted murder much easier because the judge knows there is a margin for error, and if they are wrong the criminal wouldn't be put on deathrow or anything like that.
Jake

Pyrrho

This is something that christ-on-a-stick seemed to suggest, but I will state it explicitly. The law has two things that it uses, one is intent, and the other is what actually happens. Both things are weighed when considering what should be done. Remember, the law is not a measure of ethics (although Thomas Hobbes would disagree).

Consider, for example, two pickpockets. One selects a person who happens to have only $10 in his wallet; another selects someone with $10,000 in his wallet. In both cases, the intent of the criminal is the same. But, the crime is different. In one case, it is a misdemeanor (petty theft); the other is a felony (grand theft) [this is in most states in the U.S.; check with a lawyer for your area].

Now, clearly, more harm is done in one case than the other, just as in murder versus attempted murder.

Now, let us suppose that we ignore what happens, and go with intent only. Well, obviously, if we consider two drunken people who get into two separate fights at a bar, one swings and misses, falls to the floor and passes out; the other swings and hits, killing the person who is hit. Both, as far as can be told from this, have the exact same intent, and, if intent only were used, both would have the exact same penalty. Do you think that that would be fair? Perhaps you do, perhaps not. I expect that we would get some difference of opinion, because the one probably does no real harm, and the other does.

One other thing to consider is this: Intent is more difficult to determine than simply what happened. Intent is always inferred from actions of some kind. Considering the two fights, we may not know if either intended to kill anyone or not. But the simple fact is, one did kill someone, and the other did not. This is much easier to determine than what was going on in their drunken minds.

Furthermore, if we push your idea to its logical extreme, then we would never be responsible for anything we actually do, just what we intend to do. Don't you think that would be problematic?

Loren Pechtel

Another thought on this:

Attempted murder charges are sometimes brought in the case of an attack which reasonably could have been lethal but that was not the specific intent of the attacker. Things like shooting somebody to stop them when you aren't legally justified in doing so.

Ted Hoffman

If we punish attempted murder as actual murder, we might also have to punish murderous intent (if it can be demonstrated that someone had murderous intent - eg discover elaborate plans in ones diary to murder someone else).

We should punish actions, NOT intentions.

Otherwise, one could easily kill and set it up to appear that they had no intention to kill.

Someone who is alive has not been murdered. So attempted murder cant be treated as murder.

Alonzo Fyfe

If we go this route, accidental killing gets the same punishment as intentional killing -- as does killing in self-defense.