The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
How often does Harry's withholding of information actually get people hurt...
Bad Alias:
Is there a difference between "murderer" and "convicted murderer?" If you say no, then we just have a fundamental disagreement as to what words mean. Also, the legal definition is just more specific than the dictionary definition.
My point is that a conviction is irrelevant as to whether or not a thing happened. A finding of "not guilty" doesn't mean "innocent." The law itself recognizes that someone who isn't convicted may very well still be a murderer (or whatever else the particular case is about).
Murder is an act. A murderer is one who has committed that act. Harry (and Victor) committed the act. It doesn't matter if a jury never convicts. A convicted murderer is one who is convicted of the act of murder. An innocent man convicted of murder is no more a murderer than a guilty man acquitted of murder is innocent.
Murder isn't a legal fiction. It is a real act like all other real acts that we have words for. The most precise definition, and the only one I have memorized, is the legal one, so I used that one. I don't understand your "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" stance with murder as a sound and juries as the proposed someone.
A point of juries is to decide whether or not a thing happened. There are other points as well.
The Dresden Files are not written in a third person omniscient point of view. I have demonstrated how their exists sufficient traditional evidence in the case of Harry and Cassius for a prosecutor to make a solid case that Harry murdered Cassius using typical, mundane, mortal evidence. Butters' testimony alone would be sufficient evidence for a conviction. (It also might be sufficient for jury nullification).
morriswalters:
You say the the reader isn't in a privileged position? That's an interesting statement.
As a child I was taught a maxim, a man is innocent until proven guilty. Now as a grown adult I know that is a fantasy. However it is the correct answer to your questions about murder and murderers. When you get to pick and choose, people get hung in trees and burned at the stake.
--- Quote ---The Dresden Files are not written in a third person omniscient point of view. I have demonstrated how their exists sufficient traditional evidence in the case of Harry and Cassius for a prosecutor to make a solid case that Harry murdered Cassius using typical, mundane, mortal evidence. Butters' testimony alone would be sufficient evidence for a conviction. (It also might be sufficient for jury nullification).
--- End quote ---
I would love to hear a theory of the crime not using magic. Assuming that the police weren't too busy dealing with a Dark God wreaking havoc around the University. Why Harry, Butters, Cassius and a 200 pound killing machine broke and entered the Field Museum. How Cassius tortured Harry trying to steal a coin containing a fallen angel. Why Cassius doesn't exist record wise. What that funny book is all about. How Murphy is going to explain those pictures when the book ends up in the evidence locker and not in Marva's hand. And so on and so on.
PS This has nothing to do with the DF.
(click to show/hide)In 1988 I got a lesson in my hometown about the difference between knowing and proving. Look up a gentleman named Mel Ignatow.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---Murphy was still a police officer at that time, how come she never arrested him?
--- End quote ---
For the same reason she agreed to go vampire hunting a book before this: because she's had it beaten into her by this point that, when it comes to the supernatural, sometimes the right thing to do is to break the law.
Mira:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 16, 2019, 01:52:36 AM ---For the same reason she agreed to go vampire hunting a book before this: because she's had it beaten into her by this point that, when it comes to the supernatural, sometimes the right thing to do is to break the law.
--- End quote ---
Or not so much break the law as some things exist outside of vanilla law, and they have to be dealt with. That is why the Seven Laws exist, that is why there are Wardens to enforce those laws, harsh penalties for those who break those laws..
KurtinStGeorge:
--- Quote from: morriswalters on June 16, 2019, 12:10:05 AM ---I would love to hear a theory of the crime not using magic. Assuming that the police weren't too busy dealing with a Dark God wreaking havoc around the University. Why Harry, Butters, Cassius and a 200 pound killing machine broke and entered the Field Museum. How Cassius tortured Harry trying to steal a coin containing a fallen angel. Why Cassius doesn't exist record wise.
--- End quote ---
A prosecutor would ignore the magical elements and concentrate on the physical violence and corresponding evidence. Also, neither Harry nor Butters could reasonably talk about magical side of the story unless Harry's public defender was going for an insanity defense. Cassius not having a traceable record isn't a big deal either. People can and have been prosecuted for killing a John or Jane Doe.
I suppose Harry's attorney could go for a diminished capacity defence (or maybe not), but that would be very iffy even if it was possible. Essentially, the defense would be that Harry had been knocked unconscious and then physically tortured and both the concussion and other physical trauma rendered Harry incapable of having the intent to commit murder. In other words Harry was acting irrationally not intentionally. Obviously, Harry did intend to kill Cassius, I'm talking about what could be proven, not the actual events.
The reason this is a very iffy defense is because the defendant is openly admitting they did the deed and it's not the same thing or as potentially solid as an insanity defense. Plus, in many jurisdictions it's been abolished as a defense so if that is the case in Illinois Harry's lawyer couldn't even try to use it. I know of a case maybe ten to fifteen years ago where an individual was assaulted in their own home; beaten and knocked unconscious by robbers, but came to while his home was still being ransacked. He retrieved a gun and confronted both men and shot one man dead when the robber came right at him. He was not prosecuted for that killing. It was decided that killing was (probably) in self defence. He was tried and convicted for shooting and killing the second man. That man ran the other way and out the front door into the street. The home owner chased him down the sidewalk and shot him multiple times in the back. Saying the homeowner suffered a concussion wasn't good enough to demonstrate he didn't have the intent to commit murder. If I recall the jury had several options for conviction, so the defendant wasn't convicted of first degree murder. I think they settled on first degree manslaughter, which still carries a very stiff penalty.
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