Death Wish : What could they charge Paul Kersey for if caught?

Post deleted

This message has been deleted.

Re: What could they charge Paul Kersey for if caught?

Murder, plain and simple:
- several of his victims were killed off (coup de grace) either in the back while running away or when lying on the floor. Any ballistics report would prove this, and no lawyer would be able to argue away from that except going for the insanity defence (if the jury were to refuse to convict in the face of overwhelming damning evidence, the judge can set the verdict aside).
- he clearly ventured out of his usual walking grounds to bait muggers.

So you got premeditation and killing off his victims once they were no longer a threat.

It all depends on the public mood of the time. The movie was quite realistic about that:
- since there was indeed a crimewave and all of the victims were in fact criminals, people were overwhelmingly in favour of the vigilante.
- since up to that point no copycats had emerged (and no innocents had been killed by mistake), the police and their bosses felt they had leeway to be, "practical".
- since as far as the movie goes, criminals were yet to retaliate (say outright killing their victims instead of just robbing them, going after women and old people only, etc), police didn't have much to sway public opinion in their favour

In such conditions, an arrest and trial (with the above complications) would be potentially too embarrassing for the police and mayor, thus indeed the best solution was to "encourage" Kersey to move and thus the problem would be solved:
- No more vigilante
- No martyr
- No copycats
Top