Who is the murderer in these cases?

[Rodion Romanovich]

No-one can abrogate personal responsibility for their actions because of their experiences, though those experiences may be an explanation, perhaps a mitigation. Never an excuse.

I agree, if that wasn't clear in the post above then I must have expressed myself unclearly. Maybe that's the reason why the subject is always misunderstood when discussed.

Again, you have a lot of emotion invested here, and I cannot comment on situations I have not seen involving you. In most legal systems, self-defence is an accepted action, and not subject to legal sanction. However, most systems also incorporate the idea of 'reasonable force' to defend oneself, and this is subject to interpretation. Apart from enlightened places like Texas it is not considered reasonable force to defend yourself against someone poking you with their elbow on the bus by shooting them down with a Smith and Wesson.

Responding to verbal abuse by physical violence is rarely condoned by law. Again, the country where you live may have different laws.

Any arbitrariness (and of course, there is a lot in any moral or legal situation) comes in the diversity of circmstances experienced. That is why we have judges and juries - to judge what happened in that case and apply appropriate sanction.

Ok, but if you're too weak to carry out self-defense, you're lost when the system works like that. This is for example the case in group harassment. If a group goes against a person he loses if he defends himself. All he can do is try to find the individual oppressors alone and deal with them one at the time. But then it's too long time after the attack for law to be able to call it self-defense.

Same thing goes if a single person harasses you repeatedly. It's difficult to defend oneself, because you never know when the offenses will come. So if you're not prepared always, you'll fight a losing battle. The opponent will manage to hurt you a little at the time, then withdraw, and you can't do anything back. Being in a constant readiness state gives a huge suffering, it's even the principle behind a form of Chinese torture. The skilled harasser tries to make his harassments just heavy enough to make you feel you need to enter the constant readiness state, but then once you enter the readiness state, he withdraws and hides until you've exhausted yourself, and begins again when he sees that you've gone out of the readiness state.

Also, whenever a "jury" is assigned to judge, it's always the person who can hold his head highest of the two involved in the conflict that wins. Repeated harassment and undermining of self-confidence therefore means the victim is chanceless, and doesn't dare going to a jury or court, because he knows he'll only lose even more. That might not be a problem if he's lost everything, but most people still have something left.

Furthermore, the "not respond violently to verbal abuse" rule has another weakness. It gives the harasser an option to choose the type of weapon he is best at handling. If he's good at verbal abuse he chooses verbal abuse, otherwise he chooses that the fight will be through physical violence. Should an agressor really get to choose ground before battle? An attack is after all always an attack, and I've seen cases where the attacker first chooses verbal attack because he thinks he's best at that, then goes on to physical violence because he finds out the verbal attack didn't work. The victim could have defeated the opponent if he had been able to reply to the verbal attack with violence, having the element of surprise. As it is now, the attacker always gets the element of surprise. Oh, and finally, it's easy to physically hit someone in a way so that you won't see any wounds in a court room, in ways that still cause both as much damage and pain. You can also undermine someone's self-confidence so that after enough protests when you explain that you've been beaten, you'll believe that you haven't been beaten, and excuse yourself in shame.

These factors are repeated in the most common forms of harassment: bullying, beating from fathers, beating from brothers, beating of wives, beating of husbands, beating of people because of religious or ethnical background, sexual child abuse, other sexual abuse etc. I think the main reason why people harass is because it's so impossible to prosecute them for it, and it can even result in the victim becoming prosecuted when he loses free will and self-control after repeated harassment.

[Banquo's Ghost]

These factors are repeated in the most common forms of harassment: bullying, beating from fathers, beating from brothers, beating of wives, beating of husbands, beating of people because of religious or ethnical background, sexual child abuse, other sexual abuse etc. I think the main reason why people harass is because it's so impossible to prosecute them for it, and it can even result in the victim becoming prosecuted when he loses free will and self-control after repeated harassment.

I agree that abuse in its various forms is a complex phenomenon, and not easily dealt with effectively by support agencies so that the victim can feel isolated. I would contend however, that very few ever lose their free will and thus moral responsibility for their actions.

However, my point in replying was not to address those complexities, but to challenge the idea that Adolf Hitler (or anyone) can be absolved from any part of their crimes because of what happened to them.

I'm glad we agree on that as well.

[Haudegen]

I read about it in the treaty of Clauss Roxin

One of the younger lecturers here once referred to him as the "boss of the bosses" It seems Roxin is even more influential than I thought, if his books are even sold abroad.

I think that you mean a desisted attempt.

Of course. I must admit I am not very good with English legal terms.

I was talking more about certain clauses in the legal texts that go like this: for the previous crimes the childs of the father are excluded from punishment. Some propose this as negative elements of the offense, others say that this is actually something extra, sui generis. Including it as part of the offense generates some issues with participation, so it wasn't accepted by the finalist, however this new theory makes it work perfectly.

Now I got it. You mean for example if someone commits a false oath to prevent his father from being convicted. We have these clauses, too. I call them in my notorious clumsy way: personal reason for punishment exclusion (word-by-word from German)

No, I haven't heard of him. Is he a penalist?

He´s more involved in civil law, I think. His wife is Argentinian and he told us he runs an office in Buenos Aires besides his law firm in Germany. The rumor goes that he made a fortune by starting to specialise in international private law many years before the issue got that popular as it is now. The university of Bielefeld gave him the title professor iur. h.c.

[Soulforged]

One of the younger lecturers here once referred to him as the "boss of the bosses" It seems Roxin is even more influential than I thought, if his books are even sold abroad.

He's seen about in the same way here. And Germany is seen as "the world championship of penal law" . No joke.

Of course. I must admit I am not very good with English legal terms.

Well actually, neither am I . It was just a prima facie traduction of the spanish expression "intento desistido".

Now I got it. You mean for example if someone commits a false oath to prevent his father from being convicted. We have these clauses, too. I call them in my notorious clumsy way: personal reason for punishment exclusion (word-by-word from German)

Yes! We call it the same way here.

He´s more involved in civil law, I think. His wife is Argentinian and he told us he runs an office in Buenos Aires besides his law firm in Germany. The rumor goes that he made a fortune by starting to specialise in international private law many years before the issue got that popular as it is now. The university of Bielefeld gave him the title professor iur. h.c.

No, I don't recognize him, then again, I'm new at the field (2nd year in the study), so I'll ask for him.

[Haudegen]

He's seen about in the same way here. And Germany is seen as "the world championship of penal law" . No joke.

But anyway you´ll probably have the edge on us in the soccer world cup

No, I don't recognize him, then again, I'm new at the field (2nd year in the study), so I'll ask for him.

He´s not a celebrity like Roxin or Welzel. It´s no big trouble to have not heard of him.