Taking the law into your own hands should not be encouraged. This is what the law enforcement are trained for; they know how to deal with it properly. In another reality, the father confronted the rapist and the rapist drew a gun and shot him. In another reality, the father called the police, the rapist was arrested, and he spent the rest of his life behind bars.
I don't agree with the death penalty for numerous reasons; Tempus brought up just one of them (doubt over actual guilt). There are plenty of reasons why people do things; not all of them can be linked down to a conscious decision by them. People can be influenced to do horrible things that they would not normally do. Without an investigation, this cannot be shown.
We should never assume someone is guilty; we have processes which (most of the time) work and can deduce whether a party is guilty or not of a certain crime. The fact that they do not work 100% of the time is even more reason to steer clear of the death penalty. I would rather set a guilty man free, than have an innocent one put to death. There are no circumstances where we should assume guilt; human factors will always come into play at some point, and humans cannot be trusted to remain unbiased or give accurate testimony.
Now in this case in particular, it seems that the father acted in what one could construe as defence of his child. That is, in order to stop the crime being committed, he had to intervene. It certainly seems like he was upset that the guy was dying; which in a court of law should indicate that the father never intended to kill the attacker, only to wound him enough to make him stop. The father was investigated for homicide, which was a good move. So, whilst I disagree with the notion of taking the law into your own hands, in some cases it is unavoidable. I would feel very differently if the father had reported the crime and said "I beat him until he stopped breathing". Murder is murder, even if the victim is a criminal.
I don't agree with the death penalty for numerous reasons; Tempus brought up just one of them (doubt over actual guilt). There are plenty of reasons why people do things; not all of them can be linked down to a conscious decision by them. People can be influenced to do horrible things that they would not normally do. Without an investigation, this cannot be shown.
We should never assume someone is guilty; we have processes which (most of the time) work and can deduce whether a party is guilty or not of a certain crime. The fact that they do not work 100% of the time is even more reason to steer clear of the death penalty. I would rather set a guilty man free, than have an innocent one put to death. There are no circumstances where we should assume guilt; human factors will always come into play at some point, and humans cannot be trusted to remain unbiased or give accurate testimony.
Now in this case in particular, it seems that the father acted in what one could construe as defence of his child. That is, in order to stop the crime being committed, he had to intervene. It certainly seems like he was upset that the guy was dying; which in a court of law should indicate that the father never intended to kill the attacker, only to wound him enough to make him stop. The father was investigated for homicide, which was a good move. So, whilst I disagree with the notion of taking the law into your own hands, in some cases it is unavoidable. I would feel very differently if the father had reported the crime and said "I beat him until he stopped breathing". Murder is murder, even if the victim is a criminal.
