The blueprint of murder has more criminality in it than the actual execution. Some murders are very impetuously carried out, often without much prior planning. In several cases murders are necessitated by considerations of self-defence, even in civil society. But murders that are a product of deliberation and stratagem cannot be seen at dichotomous levels of actual and attempted in retributive law. These should certainly be treated on a synonymous basis. Any attempt to take life is punishable unless there are rare extenuating circumstances, and a contemplated crime is not one shade different from an actual one. The fact that the doer is different from the accomplice does not exonerate the accomplice. Impartial and thorough justice therefore puts down that any culprit who has attempted to disturb the smooth conduct of society by laying stakes on the life of another be punished by the code of law that seeks to punish the very crime of murder.
The difference between the murderer and his accomplice or between a murderer and one who has failed in the act of murder is of little value. Where the criminal attitude looms large it is the potential for criminality that seeks punishment. If a culprit is released on grounds of not being the actual doer in spite of proven complicity, there is a huge threat to society which hangs like the sword of Damocles. It defeats the very purpose of law. As long as murderous genes are present among those walking in society, social stability is very precarious. Such agents of destruction should be distanced from the orbits of civilized society. Coming to the nature of punishment, the punishment meted out to all these categories of psychopathic criminals should be uniform, that is, the highest punishment the legal system accords. Capital punishment is not too much for the hardened accomplice or unsuccessful murderer because it should be a severe deterrent against similar crimes in future. The goal and logic of penalty is not just to do away with a malignant life but the more to bring about faith in legal jurisprudence. It is the bounden duty of every government to ensure the safety of its citizens and assure them of proper redress. Letting half-baked crime go scot-free would demoralise the public to such an extent as to make them lose faith in legal, and ultimately, government machinery.
However, several modern governments have not yet modified their statutes so as to treat actual and attempted crime with parity. The Indian Penal Code, for instance, has Section 302 to deal with actual murder and Section 307 to deal with attempted murder (IPC 1860). There are also clauses granting extenuation in the case of substance abuse and intake of stupefying substances. The failure of law in most cases to read crime unequivocally has led to a lot of prevarication and narrow escapes for hardened criminals. The United States in comparison has a more comprehensive list of homicides in Chapter 51 of Title 18 of the US Code. There are more subtle provisions for murder in the name of life-rescuing activities such as killing of HIV inflicted persons. Certain kinds of murder have seemingly very innocuous pretexts, but whatever the cause firm legislation is necessary. Homicide is, by definition, is very rarely deserving of clemency.
This brings us to quite a different angle of debate, namely, compassionate murder. This kind of a criterion is mostly confined to the moral and religious plane and is seldom seen discussed in legal parlance. It is also an attribute of certain cultures that murder may seem morally necessary to redeem a certain wicked situation, especially in cases of friendship and trust. Punishability then seems highly relative to the native law. For instance, a man may have killed another out of gut instinct seeing a dear friend or relative unjustly threatened by an ill-meaning person who appears violent in demeanour. This may be treated as tantamount to murder in self-defence, and may be granted reprieve under extenuating circumstances.
Interestingly, the judicial frameworks of Commonwealth countries and also of the United States have visualised the offence of murder in terms of degrees of monstrosity (discussed in detail by criminal-law.freeadvice.com). In the US a capital murder or first degree murder involves both premeditated murder and felony murder which is a fallout of premeditated crime. The gravity of crime in either case is high; even a fallout is as serious as intended crime, being construed in oppressive circumstances. In the Commonwealth countries it goes by the name of culpable homicide, which is no less an offence compared to contrived murder. Both UK (Homicide Law 1957) and USA (as reported by Cornell University studies) have different provisions for manslaughter which is treated as a lesser offence than malicious murder. As long as an act of recklessness towards another’s life remains proved, it should not be spared the penalty due for murder. While it is carried out by an individual who is not demented but depraved, it requires ruthless legal retribution. Only under proper extenuating circumstances discovered by the proper adjudicators should homicide be condoned or even the sentence commuted. Hence it follows that the heinousness of murder is more in its plot and design than in the fact that life has been deprived. By this very token attempted murder is a crime gross enough to be exempted from the ultimate punishment.
Text summary: Murder has no difference in outlook in terms of “at its best” or “at its worst.” It is an act highly reprehensible while it is mooted as when carried out. The completion of murder does not make one more of a criminal than at the inception or contemplation. Every criminal, be it a doer of crime or his aide and accomplice, is a psychopath who must be weeded out of civilized society by the same, uniform procedure. Punishment is an efficacious deterrent and let lawmakers never be mild on germs of homicidal contagion.
WORKS CITED
Indian Penal Code, 1860. Section 302, Provisions for Murder; Section 307 dealing with Attempted Murder.
United Kingdom Homicide Law 1957 by Act of Parliament. Statutes for England and Wales, modified in 1966 for Northern Ireland.
www.criminal-law.freeadvice.com. Web.
www.law.cornell.edu. Web.
