ok, again possibly not going to improve this thread, for want of a better word, but what is the difference between a "mercy killing" and "cold blooded murder"?
from what i have read/heard/sumised, the victim was never going to survive, injuries way beyond the medical facilities that were available (probably a first field dressing or two and a morphine shot if he was lucky). So if the marine hadnt semi quoted shakespeare, and had said something along the lines of "this guy is never going to live, i'm putting him out of his misery" then shot him in the heart, would we still be having this debate? would there still have been a massive public interest?
Not sure what argument you're making here Mick? Elaborate? Maybe me just being 'Slow' (as always)
Mercy killing - When one assists in ending life to relieve intractable suffering. i.e. Euthanasia
Murder - Is a premeditated act of killing one human by another. i.e. Someone that has the intention to kill or seriously harm
Personally I'm not sure we would have been having this conversation if the Marine had used his professional judgement and deduced that the insurgent wasn't going to live, so the humane thing to do was to "put him out of his misery" but unfortunately he didn't.
There is mitigation in this case, even though the marine seemed sound of mind and of good judgement, we can't deduce what was actually going threw his head at the time, even by the recording. The marine spent 15 in service so his physiological state has to be questioned in mitigation, the same way the father of the girl who was raped, in US's mental state was questioned after he planned and murdered the teens responsible years after the incident
Aggravating factors that maybe relevant:
1) the victim was vulnerable because of age or disability
2) the abuse of a position of trust?
3) concealment, destruction or dismemberment of the body.
Mitigating factors:
1) lack of premeditation;
2) the offender suffers from a mental disorder or disability (not falling within section 2(1) of the Homicide Act 1957) which lowered his/her degree of culpability
3) the offender was provoked in a way not amounting to a defense of provocation
4) a belief by the offender that the murder was an act of mercy
My quarrel is not with the marines sentence at all, it's with naming the marine and this actually going public, but believe that there are mitigating factors to this case
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