Just curious, while watching one of my favorite shows an interesting scenario arose, just curious what others feel,,,

scenario: a woman finds out after breaking off an abusive relationship that she is pregnant and keeps the baby, later it is discovered the baby's father is a serial rapist/killer ,, she remarries

throughout her childs life, he is violent and begins at a young age torturing animals,, he leaves his family essentially to run the streets in his late teens periodically reappearing at his mother/stepfathers door for money

the mother and stepfather argue over it until one day the pregnant girlfriend of this child shows up asking for money and looking beat up,,, so the mother goes to the sons to confront him, gun in tow for protection, he blows her off and she recognizes in his glare the look his biological father would give her when she would confront him

she shoots him dead,,, her defense is that she knew he was going to be a danger to others like his father


during the trial, it is discovered that the son had in fact, killed someone in cold blood prior,, something the mother didnt have knowledge of

so,, once he was caught, he MIGHT have got the death penalty anyway
if he hadnt been caught or killed, he MIGHT have gone on to be a serial killer

what should the verdict be? is this flat out murder like the shooting of any other unarmed person? does she get a pass for being able to POTENTIALLY save future victims of her son?

what other recourse did she have to try and protect others?

She gets life. Right and wrong don't play a huge part in our justice system.

Murder is murder.

Killing someone that you *think* might be a danger to others is hardly an applicable defense I would think, regardless of crimes committed by the victim. Lesser charge maybe? 3rd degree murder?

Smooth talking attorney and she probably wouldn't see anything outside a county cell...But to let her have a pass because she predicts something will happen is lunacy.

u cant put someone to jail because ur sixth senses tell u that he can be a serial killer. since mother is the best judge and no mother can kill a child .. it is an extreme step.. i support the killing of the child.. but cant give a judgement really.. wat was the judgement by the way? i think it is not same as killing an unknown person..

You know the weather was so nice this weekend, I only watched 12 hours of Law and Order. I think it would depend on her state of mind.

Some kids should be killed.

Suks...but true.

If some bastard runs his mouth and threatens harm


Beat that schitthole with a baseball bat straight across the mouthj.,.

It is pretty simple.

Beat them till they pee.

If you are one of us, you get life or the chair.

If you're a Ted Kennedy or the like, you get a raise and promotion.

Maybe he inherited his homocidal tendencies from her? Shooting somebody because you don't like the look on their face is the act of a psychopath.

Anyway, you can't go around dealing out vigilante "justice" upon people just because you think that they might commit crimes and I think that it's rubbish that being a murderer or rapist or anything of the sort can be genetic. What about the baby in the story? Would it be a good idea to kill it as well "just to be on the safe side"? I think not and I also think that you can't justify killing anyone or even call this a dilemma when it's a fictional scenario from a TV show. You may as well ask if it would be right to travel back in time and kill Hitler.

they convicted her, but only after additional information that her husband had threatened to leave her with their kids if she allowed his stepson back into their lives,,,,,

made the motive more questinable,,,,

we could ask that, it would be another hypothetical, albeit not as realistic,,,

there is real life debate and disagreement in our culture about what is defined by morality and what is defined by genetics,, and how or if they should be seperated

Yeah and those real life debates were exactly how nazi Germany got started.

..well, I certainly wouldnt want to ignite a genocidal war by posing a hypothetical in a dating forum,,,,

While it is vigilante justice it is also murder. She had no right to be his jury, judge and executioner. Much like that trayvon martin (?) case in Florida.

I agree,, its a slippery slope we go down if we start allowing people to kill unarmed people due to the potential or perception of that victims POTENTIAL danger to others,,,

but what other options may be available in such a case?

I thought maybe getting the child diagnosed at an early age (although Im no fan of the psychological community) for document saks so their can be a case for institutionalizing someone once there is a history of violent behavior in their record

When he was torturing animals they should of recognized something was wrong and sought some sort of help.

It happens all day long, undesirables "removed from society" but this is a tv show.

If anyone told that story to the authority no only would get convicted but deserves to be locked up

on the basis of stupidity alone! GET A SELF DEFENSE STORY

My sister works with children that have behavioural problems and I think that she would be horrified that anyone could even think that killing them was a horn of a dilemma.

It's funny how you only hear Americans coming out with stuff like this and saying that it's alright to go around shooting people like they are just animals.

Basing a defence on speculation of what might happen just doesn't fly in the court system. Now had she the attournys that were as good as O.J.Simpson's, Then she just might have gotten off scott free. Its like plea bargaining in the court system today. With the added evidence of the beaten girlfriend, and if there was additional documented crimes aganist the victim, then it could be argued that there was motive.

Predicting what the actual outcome of this is just like predicting that the victim would kill someone else if he was left alive.

What's even funnier is your statement...It is also false....

That's cuz they're scared of guns.