Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/02/young-pakistani-woman-tries-to.html
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IANAIL, but I sure hope the murder charge is changed to a lesser sentence.
I’m not even going to get into the human rights situation of forced marriage, but the only person it appears she intended to kill was the husband.
So, with no knowledge of Pakistani law, would that possibly be reduced to attempted murder for trying to kill him, and manslaughter for creating the conditions that allowed the poisonings to happen?
Also, is that a double-standard of hoods to allow male suspects benefit of the doubt (and some anonymity) compared to female suspects, or am I reading too much into the image? I understand the use of spit hoods in western countries, but not sure if the purpose is the same in the east.
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I can’t speak to Pakistan law, but generally murder is declared when there is an intent to kill.
Just because the wrong target is killed doesn’t mean the intent wasn’t present.
So a person who performed a drive by shooting of a house who may not have killed the intended target, but instead killed someone else would be charged with murder, not manslaughter.
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Yet another chapter in the long multi-volume work called “The Patriarchy Hurts Everyone.”
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I’m not a Pakistani lawyer either, but I am an American one. In US criminal and tort law there’s a concept called “transferred intent.”
Imagine that I shoot a gun at Person A, intending to kill them, but I miss and hit Bystander B instead, killing B. Since I didn’t kill A, and I didn’t intend to kill B, this could be viewed as two separate incidents and I could maybe be charged with attempted murder of A and negligent homicide of B. Under US law, though, my intent to kill A is “transferred” to the killing of B, and I can be charged with intentional homicide of B (a charge which requires both the intent and the act).
This is, in general, a very good rule. Obviously there are monstrous extenuating circumstances in the case of the Pakistani girl, and I sincerely hope she is able to get some measure of real justice. As a matter of policy, though, the “oops I killed the wrong person” defense is not something we want floating around as a get-out-of-jail-free card.
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I don’t disagree, obvs, but I do often have to wonder if a female-dominated society society would fare any better.
We seem pretty messed up as a species, in general.
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Humankind Hurts Everyone
-A message from the International Antinatalism Society
#antinatalism #thelastmessiah
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Most likely not. Simply put, power corrupts. The patriarchal nature of society makes it less likely women will be as bad as men when they get into power for a variety of reasons (more scrutiny, more likely to have been victims and therefore more likely to have sympathy for others, etc.). Switch it to a matriarchy, and you would likely have many of the same issues, but with the gender roles reversed.
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In many jurisdictions if you commit other crimes while committing a crime the penalties are set near the maximum. Like if you rob a convenience store and accidentally run over someone with your get away car. Rather than it being treated as an accidental death or involuntary manslaughter you will find it being treated as vehicular homicide, voluntary manslaughter or even second degree murder.
Trying to kill another human being, when your own life is not threatened, is serious. Even if psychologically she was in dire circumstances and oppressed under an unfair system. That malicious intent hitting the wrong target doesn’t make what she did any less wrong in the eyes of most laws and most societies.
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Absolutely.
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I think it’s time the BoingBoing tag line changed. For the last year (circa Trump), BoingBoing has ceased to be “A Directory of Mostly Wonderful Things.”
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I’m curious if you have an opinion about terror laws, how it’s seems to matter a lot whether the murder was committed with Islam in mind, VS Christianity.
There’s absolutely nothing good with this situation. What a complete shitshow.
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The courts will undoubtedly go harshly on her.
But if she’d run away, all her male relatives who hadn’t died would have attempted to honor-kill her, at her parents’ behest. And the courts would have done nothing when the couple was found hacked to death or strangled, with the male relatives bragging about it on social media.
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Bad target recon.
I’m not remotely an expert on this stuff; I work in contracts and licensing and such. But there’s nothing about religion in the US Code sections on terrorism, for obvious reasons. In practice, there is a horrifying amount of selective enforcement going on, but again, that’s totally outside my area of knowledge.
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My saddest “like” ever.
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Got’a be a better way.
While I agree that her situation in tantamount to kidnaping, she murdered 17 people and counting. Even if you could argue self defense in some of those cases (you can’t) you can’t excuse the others. She goes to prison. Full stop.
As if they aren’t also subject to the same partiarchal structures that their daughters are… as if they live in some realm free from a society that’s structured to subordinate women to men and that engaging in the system in a way that is pretty much the only way they can exert any power in society in an acceptable way is entirely THEIR FAULT.
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