Manslaughter stills applies when the victim is a woman; as i said, legally, its a category of crime with a specific definition. Really, homicide is the top-level superset; it can be legal or illegal cf 'justifiable'ras.s wrote:And the reason I used the word manslaughter and not murder was because legally they got different sanctions, atleast here (though 'manslaughter' is imprecise, as the person killed was a woman; I suppose homicide is the correct english word here).whyterabbyt wrote:Well, in law, it depends; it might be. Manslaughter is pretty much just the legal term for 'killing', its got no intrinsic definition of criminality.ras.s wrote:So what is it that you are really saying, Syntilla? That manslaughter is somehow a less of a crime if it's done by a mentally unstable person?
I dont know about your own country's legal system, but generally if someone mentally unstable kills another person as a result of their condition, their diminished culpability becomes a significant factor in the question of whether it is legally judged to be murder, manslaughter or something else.
Sorry, that wasnt clear. You talked about it as being less of a crime, that kind of frames it in terms of legality, rather than opinion...Just as the mental state of the killer can lower the penalty. But I wasn't really questioning how courts should judge those (in Joe Meek's case, 1960s british system), I asked about Syntilla's moral opinion about it. Syntilla's trying to give us a moral lesson here and I'm not entirely convinced. (Also consider it's a plugin contest FFS.)
Ah, I get you now. Again, my apologies, Im indeed not.Tsk tsk, you're not being on your most attentive mode. It's still about Joe Meek, the person. He killed his landlady and then himself and that's why I'm lumping them together, as was in the OP.
I'd take issue with the part Ive highlighted, I dont think there's anything which suggests that's the case here. In terms of his craft, though, I think Joe Meek was a visionary, and if he's been revered its been for his technological and musical accomplishments. I am aware some people are unable to separate that from the events of 3rd February 1967, though. I have a greyer viewpoint than that, though.But yes, I agree that it might be more understandable when a unstable person kills themself, though so far I've never really had to deal with people killing themselves. "but, unlike many sane murderers, its easier to understand that someone who's disturbed might have killed as a result of something outside their rational control" -- of course it's easier in such a case to understand that the person kills outside of their rational control, they're labeled 'disturbed' already, but should that be used to revere them later on? I don't think so, killer is a killer, and this particular person killed himself, escaping judgment. And a 'rage kill' shouldn't reduce the conviction.
I dont know why he killed his landlady, and none of us ever will; FabienTDR's asserted that Meek was a murderer, but there's no evidence whatsoever that substantiates that, or any other criminal act. We know that he killed Violet Shenton, and that's all.
If someone accidently kills someone, do we immediately disavow all their accomplishments?
To me, the main division of opinion over Meek primarily seems this: some people believe that it was murder, and thus his entire body of work effectively becomes damned by association. Others believe that it was not, and that his work should not be judged on what happened.
Being less misanthropic than some, personally I'll stick with 'innocent until proven', and recognise his craft. Mileages vary.
Brilliant.
