Advanced Criminal Justice, Class 15, Period 1, 02.28.06

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

[OOC: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Class Info Post.]

The TIck was standing at the front of the class as usual when his students walked in. Lockheed was resting on his normal shelf.

"Hello, class! First off, a big thank you to Rory for taking care of class on Thursday and helping me out in regards to my fish on Friday."

"Today, we'll be talking about competence and intent. If you want to do Wrong very badly for whatever reason and you're just miserable at it, does it actually count as doing Wrong? For example, this past Saturday, a fleet of alien goldfish attacked the school in order to get revenge for my late fish's death, even though she died a natural death. Well, technically, they only attacked Rory in hopes of getting to me, but an attack on even one student from an outside force basically amounts to an attack on the school."

"Anyway, these fish floated around in these teeny little bubbles that popped if they touched anything. I defeated the attack force by standing there and letting the fish hit me. It was terrible strategy on their part. I ended up throwing all of them into an aquarium that now sits in the lobby."

"So, my question to you is this: considering that the fishie fleet really wanted to kill both Rory and myself, does the fact that they were woefully unprepared for the most minor of skirmishes mean we should be lenient towards them with their punishment? Again, with a bunch of fish, the best punishment seemed to be putting them on display in the dorm lobby where they can make people smile even though they're noisy little guys. Just in terms of general crime, I mean. And can you think of any other crimes where the execution is so poor where you might let the criminal slide despite the intent? Get creative!

"This week's metaphor is the sport of your choice. And the extra credit is to name one of the new fish in the dorm lobby."

Comments

Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

Discuss, or at least jot something down.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[notstakedyet.livejournal.com]

"I think it depends on the crime," Angel said. "Somebody who's really bad at trying to kill someone shouldn't get the same consideration as someone who's bad at stealing a loaf of bread."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"What if the attempted murderer is so bad that he actually saves lives? I can't think of a situation where this might actually happen off the top of my head, but I've learned to not rule any possible events out."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[notstakedyet.livejournal.com]

Angel thought about it. "How does he react to the life-saving?"

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[oatmanspatient.livejournal.com]

Marty takes some notes on the alien fish and writes down a reminder to find out if they have cloning technology.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"No cloning technology on the goldfish planet. The next planet over has clowning technology, though. It makes fish orange and white."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[oatmanspatient.livejournal.com]

"Do they also have "mime-ming" technology? Or is that a different planet?"

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[janet_fraiser]

Janet has now learned that when Marty takes notes, she should probably be paying attention. So she tries to see what he's writing down.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[psycho-barbie.livejournal.com]

"If there is no risk of people people getting hurt by the blunderer, I suppose you could make the argument that their failure will convince them not to try it again."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"My experience has been that one foolish failure generally leads to more foolish failures down the line, actually," Tick said. "From what I've seen, if you leave most failed criminals be, they'll try another foolish plot."

"Except for Pig-Leg, of course, but that pig was a good influence on him once he chose to accept it."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[fates_jaye]

Jaye actually says "Buh?" at hearing about this.

And then she asks, "Fishie doom?"

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"Attempted fishie doom, at the very least," Tick said. "They're harmless now. They were harmless before, too, actually..."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[actingltcrumpet.livejournal.com]

"If they're incompetent enough to be completely ineffective, then they ought to get some leniency, but if their intent is obvious then they should not be excused entirely," Archie says.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"I agree, Archie," Tick said with a nod. "That's why I didn't bring them to the town Trooper Station. I'm pretty sure they don't have what it takes to survive in real prison."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Cameron is a bit late for class and he's wearing a light blue shirt, dark green pants and red socks. Go him.

"If you're bad at a crime that doesn't change that you're still trying to commit a crime," Cameron replied. "Well, unless they got so embarrassed by it that it served as a punishment on its own, depending on how severe the crime was."

He paused. "Fish?"

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[fates_jaye]

Jaye takes one look at him and passes a note.

Still monochrome?

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[marsheadtilt.livejournal.com]

"If you intend to hurt someone, regardless of if you succeed, you deserve to be punished," Veronica muttered.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[actingltcrumpet.livejournal.com]

Archie didn't know whether or not Veronica could see him, but he was nodding fiercely in agreement.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"Agreed, Veronica. But I'm asking about the severity of the punishment. Obviously, someone who successfully hurts someoone should be punished worse than someone who failed. But does someone who did a really poor job in his attempt deserve more leniency than someone who could have actually succeeded?"

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"If ignorance of the law is no excuse, neither should incompetence in circumventing it." Parker shook her head. "Although I'd like to point out that what happened to those fish back up my Karmic Darwin's Law Theory of how good and evil works in Fandom."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"That theory of yours is really holding true, isn't it? Hmm..." The Tick was pondering. This could lead to interesting things in the future.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[aka-vala.livejournal.com]

Vala's just giggling too much to actually contribute to the discussion. Most of her energy is going towards not cracking up entirely and loudly in the middle of class.

Teeny fish. In bubbles. Out for blood.

And here she thought she'd seen some really dumb criminal plans before....

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[carter-i-am.livejournal.com]

"No," Sam said, "I think it's the intent to do wrong that's important to focus on. After all, attempted murder is a crime--the fact that the murder wasn't completed does lessen the sentence, I think, but it's still a pretty serious crime and is treated accordingly."

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bugofjustice.livejournal.com]

"Well put, Sam!" Tick said.

Re: Talk, Take Notes, Etc.

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Bridge takes notes and decides that, no, just because someone's not an effective criminal, it doesn't mean there should be leniency in regards to their sentence. Confinement cards for all! He doesn't speak up, though, because he gets the feeling a lot of people would consider confinment to a 2-dimensional space as unnecessarily harsh.