[Andrea_Chenier]

In 2002 the eleven year old Jakob von Metzler was suffocated to death by Magnus Gäfgen. The murderer was known to the child's family, hence he was able to lure the victim into his appartment. Gäfgen's aim was to make a lot of money by blackmailing von Metzler's rich banker family in order to sustain a luxurious lifestyle. Letting the kid live and go back to his family wasn't part of Gäfgen's plan, though. Von Metzler's parents gave him the money, thinking that their son was still alive. A few days afterwards, Gäfgen was arrested by the police. The high ranking policeman Wolfgang Daschner threatened Gäfgen with physical violence. Daschner thought that the boy was still alive and wanted to know his location. The police official was then forced to retire as he supposedly violated the murderer's human rights by the threat (actual violence did not occur) of torture.

Gäfgen of course sits in prison nowadays but he still causes a lot of furor. A few days ago, he won a trial against the state of Hessen. 3000€ were conceded to him as reparations for Daschner's and his colleague's behavior at the time of the interrogation. The money served mainly as a symbolic victory for Gäfgen and a sort of "satisfaction" as he put it himself.

How would you classify this case? Is it a victory of modern jurisprudence under liberal values or a sign of Europe's moral decay?

[Potemkin]

How would you classify this case? Is it a victory of modern jurisprudence under liberal values or a sign of Europe's moral decay?

This would never have happened in the Soviet Union. Just sayin'.

[Eran]

Nor would it ever happen in a free society. In such a society, the murderer would have to serve the rest of his life in a (partial) attempt to compensate the family for his crime.

Any money due to him because of police conduct would be completely negligible relative to what he owed the family.

[Quantum]

He should receive the death penalty but unfortunately Germany abolished after they hung the war criminals. He took someone's life and the state should take his life away from him in retaliation. An eye for an eye makes the whole world go round.

[Eran]

Why is that better than having him work off (at least part of) his debt to the family? Why waste the person's productivity when it can be used to (partially) restore justice?

[stalker]

How would you classify this case? Is it a victory of modern jurisprudence under liberal values or a sign of Europe's moral decay?

To ask this question is to answer it. It is both, of course.

[Far-Right Sage]

Yes, and the Gäfgen case is in no way an isolated incident.

Just one more example of the shameful disgrace the Bundesrepublik has brought to German civilization.

[ccdan]

How would you classify this case? Is it a victory of modern jurisprudence under liberal values or a sign of Europe's moral decay?

It's a (small) victory of rationality and correctness in a world that's still dominated by irrational thinking and a backwards and violent mentality (ironically, often associated with positively perceived concepts like "morality", which is nothing more than an umbrella term for of wide variety of purely subjective opinions about right and wrong)

[ccdan]

He took someone's life and the state should take his life away from him in retaliation. An eye for an eye makes the whole world go round.

Maybe you should take a look at the countries that still have and use the death penalty (much of Africa and the Middle East, China, North Korea and of course, the US) and those that don't (the EU, Canada, Australia, etc). It's pretty clear which of them are more civilized.

[Quantum]

Maybe you should take a look at the countries that still have and use the death penalty (much of Africa and the Middle East, China, North Korea and of course, the US) and those that don't (the EU, Canada, Australia, etc). It's pretty clear which of them are more civilized.

Save for China, those countries are 'uncivlised' for other fundamental reasons and abolishing the death penalty won't make them more uncivilised. Europe had the death penalty a few decades ago and was much less degenerate back then but according to your liberal morality, abolishing the death penalty made Europe more 'civilised'.

After all, treating rapists and murderers like kings as they do in Scandinavia and treating foreign criminals like gods is the apex of 'civilised' behaviour according to you, and in your world, the 'less civilised' Chinese aren't poised to overtake the West and aren't churning out scientists and engineers at an epic rate.

[mikema63]

Hard labor.

[Rainbow Crow]

I agree with the randroids on this one.

The same thing could have happened in the US, though possibly without the damages award.