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| Yes | 48% | 10 votes | Total: 21 votes | |
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Add to FavoritesIs there such a thing as "justifiable murder?
An immediate response to this question is a resounding, "No!" However if one contemplates all the circumstances where a murder has been committed, it appears that there are situations where murder is justified. First one must understand exactly what the difference is between self defense and murder.
Merriam-Webster defines self defense as "a plea of justification for the use of force or for homicide." This would apply in a situation where a person was attempting to kill another and the victim killed the assailant while defending him or herself. In this instance the victim did not have means of escaping the deadly threat to their life. On the other hand, murder is defined as "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought." This would mean that the act of killing someone was planned in advance and the person committing the act is in no immediate danger. So what could possibly be a circumstance where a murder would be justified?
In the movie "A Time to Kill" it would be hard to find someone that did not feel that the murder of the two monstrous young rednecks was not justified. A few might argue that the father of the little girl that they attempted to kill should have let the legal system deal with them. But as was brought out in the movie, during that era, they would likely have been released in a very short period of time if they served any time at all.
But hasn't the law changed to prevent criminals that commit acts of atrocity from being released back into our society? Instead of becoming stricter, laws have become more lenient because our society demands more rights for the criminal which negates the right to life that the victim had while still alive. The family of the victim, with a portion of their tax dollars, must then support the murderer of their loved one while he or she is incarcerated. For this reason the death penalty would appear to be justifiable murder. It is not murder because it is lawful and does not have the malice intent that is the characteristic needed to call it murder. So what is justifiable murder?
Imagine a young mother whose husband is extremely abusive not only physically but mentally to her and her children. The husband shoots and kills the family dog in front of the children to teach them that they should keep their mouths shut about what goes on at home. Didn't she call the police? On fifty occasions the police visited the home, but were unable to hold the husband for any length of time because of his rights. The wife continues to wear scarves everyday around her neck when she goes to work to cover the bruises from his hands. You may say that she had the chance to escape because she could leave the house, as could the children. She did take the children and leave on four occasions, but he always found her in their small community after he was released from jail. The first three times she escaped, he returned her and the children to their home in the country at gunpoint and then would "hunt" her throughout the house. When he would find her he would strangle her until she was unconscious and then rape her. The home became riddled with bullet holes but the police could not ascertain when the shootings had occurred. The last time she tried to escape, he made her stand on the kitchen table and used her for target practice, fortunately he was too drunk to actually aim well enough to hit her. When he ran out of ammunition he strangled her again until she fell unconscious, raped her and then he went to bed where he passed out. When she regained consciousness, she picked up the gun, loaded it with more bullets and crept into the bedroom and shot him through the head while he slept, killing him instantly.
This was indeed murder, she planned it by loading the gun, she had the opportunity to escape and he was not threat while he slept. It had all the elements needed to convict her of murder, but was it justified? The jury thought so when the young mother came to trial. She was released with 20 years probation because 12 of her peers felt that she was justified when she committed the murder and in my opinion, this was justifiable murder.
Learn more about this author, Colleen Mart.
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No
To call an act "murder", then to call it justifiable is a contradiction that is difficult to understand. When society discriminates between acts that result in the death of others, it does so for a reason. Murder is the act of killing another individual without legitimate motive, and for unethical, immoral, evil, or selfish motives. Murder is killing that is not for the good of society or the individual.
Soldiers are legally compelled to kill the enemy when the declared enemy is a threat to themselves or their unit. They cannot then be charged with murder for doing their jobs. Police officers are legally protected if they must kill someone for the safety of others or themselves, or they could just run away and let a dangerous situation go without intervening.
Yet police officers commit murders every year, even if they get away with it. More American soldiers than American police officers are up on charges for murder in Iraq, where their lives are much more at risk. Individuals in both fields of duty know the difference between killing as justified and required for their jobs, and murder. Some of them simply think that they can get away with murder, using the cover of their jobs.
In that respect, alone, it is entirely senseless to use the term "murder", and then to join it with the term "justified". No. Murder is the very definition of killing for immoral, unethical, and unlawful reasons. When there is no proven need for self defense (such as shooting a person in the back several times; shooting a handcuffed, prone person in the back; or sneaking to the back of a house and shooting a party goer in the side and back from outside of the house, police officers have to answer for charges of murder.
When civilians are rounded up and summarily executed, tortured to death, or drowned, soldiers have to answer for charges of murder. When a civilian shoots someone and kills them, claiming self defense, there has to be sufficient proof that the killing was truly done in self defense. Many citizens have committed murder, claiming self defense, where proof was not available or the system was corrupted and covered for them.
Some commit murder for the most evil of reasons and are found not guilty by reason of insanity: they did not know that they were committing murder when they did the crime. A woman committed one of the most evil acts of murder in history by drowning her five children, yet was never punished because she convinced many that she deserved sympathy. A clearly insane man was executed for one act of murder because he was not a sympathetic individual. Others commit murder, using political ideology or deviant religious perspectives as an excuse, expecting a reward to come to them in the afterlife, or as an historical figure.
"Homicide" is the neutral, non judgmental term for one person killing another when the facts are not available. When it is determined that the person killed in self defense, for the good of society, was insane at the time, or was too impaired or young to realize what they were doing, then the word "homicide" is modified by the terms "justifiable" or "by reason of impairment or insanity", or is assigned varying levels of wrongdoing: accidental, manslaughter I,II, and so on.
But murder is murder.The killer's motive drives the meaning of that word. The law and society place a special meaning on that word for a reason: it is the unjustified, unethical, immoral, and selfish act of those who intend to do no good for society or for others around them, and they must be brought to justice before they are motivated by the same illegitimate compulsions to kill other innocent people.
Learn more about this author, Elizabeth M. Young.
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