IJ study archive

Murder-2 for a lightning bolt — "efficiency and safety-consciousness are not exactly…"

quote

efficiency and safety-consciousness are not exactly hallmarks of addiction-motivated crimes, which tend to be impulsive and fuzzily thought out at best.

Context

The legal jeopardy behind Gately's DuPlessis catastrophe stated as statute: any death during a felony, even by lightning, means Murder-2 and unbargainable time — a provision "ghastly" to addicts precisely because addiction-crimes are impulsive and fuzzily thought out, never the careful work the law assumes. The disease's incompetence at crime is exactly what the statute punishes hardest.

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