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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!mcnc!idis!cadre!geb
From: geb@cadre.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.politics
Subject: Re: NYC subway "hero"
Message-ID: <170@cadre.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 16-Jan-85 10:29:27 EST
Article-I.D.: cadre.170
Posted: Wed Jan 16 10:29:27 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 19-Jan-85 00:36:46 EST
References: <776@reed.UUCP> <709@hou2h.UUCP> <912@amdahl.UUCP> <305@desint.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh.
Lines: 25
Xref: watmath net.legal:1323 net.politics:6946
Summary: 

In article <305@desint.UUCP> geoff@desint.UUCP writes:

> The question being raised is whether their crime was great
>enough to make them deserve a session in the intensive care unit (last I heard
>one of them is getting worse).  This is called "appropriate punishment."
>Presumably you don't cut your kids' hands off for bad table manners...
>-- 
>

I think some people are getting confused.  Goetz was not administering
justice---he was defending himself.  This is what he claims, this
is what I think happened.  If you try to rob someone, and are killed,
this is not part of our system of justice, it is a consequence of
your action.  Whether or not you would have received such a punishment
at the hands of the legal system is totally extraneous to the point.
Now if he was out patrolling the subway system and went "to get them"
then, this is vigilante justice.  Yes, apparently he did shoot 2 in
the back, but I still think you have to ask yourself if you would
have been calm enough to stop firing when you thought these guys
were going to slit your throat.  When you get scared, you often
can't stop your action until the threat is removed, so the real
question revolves around who made the first aggressive move, if
it was the punks, then they received the consequences of it.