What Sort of Crime is This?
Let’s do another exercise:
Here are the rules: You don’t have to worry about the actual law. You get to decide.
You do get to worry about how this ruling affects all other rulings.
Scenario One: Redline.
Joco likes marijuana, and watches TV. TV is funny. Joco is 22 and does not work. Joco’s stupid mom stopped giving him money, but his friend Larry has a plan: Joco will drive Larry over to Collector Dave’s house. Larry will bag up all the stuff while Joco is lookout, then Larry will call Joco so they can carry the large amount of antique guns, baseball cards, stamps, and gold coins believed to be in Collector Dave’s house. They’ll run into the car, drive away, and Joco will get 30% of the proceeds, which should be several thousand dollars.
So, Joco drives over Larry. It’s very stressful to be lookout, so Joco smokes a few relaxing joints and dreams of wealth. Sadly, this dream is shattered by many large, angry, yelling officers telling him to get out of the car. Joco does.
It turns out that Joco hasn’t done well as lookout. Collector Dave got home walked through his garage into his house, walked through the hallway and saw Larry bagging his stuff. Larry told him to “stay the fuck there or get hurt, old man.” Dave, a friendly ad salesman and former front-line Vietnam veteran grabbed a gun from the closet and shot Larry four times. Larry is dead.
1. Assume Joco is guilty of residential burglary, and will be punished for that.
2. Should Joco be punished for Larry’s death? To what extent?
Scenario Two: Self-defense?
Fat Tony, 32, likes attractive athletic women like Marie, 36, who runs by his apartment every day. She wears her Ipod and literally won’t give him the time of day. She also has a cell phone holster and some other pieces of electronic equipment, but no time for him. Once, she brushed by him when he tried to talk to her.
Fat Tony couldn’t keep up with her for fifty yards to maintain a conversation anyway.
So, Fat Tony figures out a different romantic move: Knifepoint rape.
Tony knows her route and figures to drag her into an alley. He waits near the alley, steps in front of her, waves his knife, and says, “You’re coming with me, bitch.”
This is not a well-thought out plan; Marie could easily run either down the alley or the other way. Two hundred yards down is a restaurant. Fat Tony might be able to chuck the knife at her, but his chance of really hurting her in a retreat is negligible, and his chance of catching her is nil.
However, Marie’s holster actually contains a two-shot Derringer. She takes one step back and shoots him. As she explains to the cops, she wanted to stop him from advancing, and his girth vs. the relatively underpowered Derringer might mean an ineffective shot.
Her shot was effective. It takes off Tony’s left testicle. Marie said she was afraid of being raped or knifed if she didn’t retreat, that she knew she had a safe route of escape, but that she wasn’t taking anything off anyone and she was perfectly pleased with the result. And now was time to complete her run.
Question: Should Marie be punished for shooting Tony? Why or why not?
What say you?