THOUGHT CRIMES

Having just viewed Minority Report (2002), this thread will be movie related, but it will also deal with real life.

There was an HBO documentary with the same title: Thought Crimes: The Case of the Cannibal Cop (2015) that dealt with this very issue. Has anyone seen this film or is anyone familiar with the case? It's extremely intriguing, but its repercussions on the state of our legal system is disturbing.

What role does intention play in crime? Obviously a very big one, otherwise we would not have been able to legally prevent the large number terrorist attacks that we already have.

And yet, is premeditation a crime itself if actions to carry it out never take place either through intervention, circumstances, or even a change of heart? And where do we draw the line between planning / premeditation and just plain thinking, conceptualizing, writing about, talking about or fantasizing?

Yeah it is a slippery slope and a dividing line in the personal liberty v public safety debate. In general, physical evidence of preparation should be found in order to convict someone. Intent is always difficult to prove in law. Whether written plans, drawings, etc. constitute physical evidence is tricky and I don't really know. I wouldn't want to work with someone found to have a document detailing how he planned to shoot up the place one day, but I'm not sure what the consequences (legal or otherwise) for that kind of thing should be. When it comes to preventing terror attacks we do have specific provisions now that allow for some legal "flexibility" on this

Two things on your examples - It's wrong that that cop was charged/temporally convicted with what he was. He did however use the city's databases to retrieve addresses and other personal information of dozens of women and then shared that information with other people online with the same killing/eating fantasies he has. So that's very dangerous and maybe he should still be in prison for that

And in Minority Report, even though condemning the idea of thought crime is a large theme of the movie and even though the system is imperfect and winds up getting manipulated, the pre-cogs could literally see the future. So it was at least a little different than arresting people based solely on premeditation because in that world they were definitely going to carry out the crime

Yeah the thing with Cannibal cop - the extent of his "actual" crime was an unauthorized use of a police database for personal means. Which usually results in a reprimand, a strike on their record, or a fine if that's all it is.

For instance, if his excuse had been, "I couldn't find the unlisted number of an old college friend, but I really need to contact him before the homecoming reunion to let him know where I stashed the other team's mascot in his attic, so he can bring it with him and, after all these years present it to the other team - we built a whole big ceremony around it - but the reunion was in two days and I had no way to find him so I used the database, sorry."

But what should have been a fairly innocuous violation of propriety turned into a whole different business due to context - whether that context was highly erroneous or not.

Tomorrow I want to talk a whole lot about the TV expose show: To Catch A Predator.

But wasn't he also found to have disseminated that personal info with other people online who discussed his same fetishes thus increasing the possibility of an actual violent crime occurring? That's a more specific, greater offense than just unauthorized use of the database for personal means

Yes, that led into a deeper and much more suspicious mess. (As opposed to if he'd done the same unauthorized dissemination, but the message was, "Hey Tony, I found Sam's home address on the police computer so give him a call at 555-5555 before Tuesday and tell him to make sure to bring that stuffed mascot to the homecoming, or else our whole surprise is off!)

Again, things like context and intention can make a very minor crime, like a using a police computer inappropriately, into a very major one.

I used to enjoy watching the show To Catch A Predator.

There was an odd voyeuristic thrill to it, almost like watching Candid Camera, but with a far more sinister feeling due to the purpose of the show and the alleged intentions of those who appeared on it.

On one hand, there was a sense of satisfaction watching "creeps & perverts" get caught and taken down.
On the other, I could never shake the feeling that, despite the fact that the suspects caught were obviously quite heinous individuals, there was something very wrong with this scenario that skirted the grey lines of our legal system.

One could argue that the only reason actual crimes were not carried out was because the show was there to intervene before the crime could be committed. A counter argument could be that the only reason the perps were at the house and the potential for a crime in that context existed is because the show and its decoys (the group called "Perverted Justice") made it possible.

Many lawyers for the accused perpetrators argued that this show was a form of entrapment.
I don't know about that, but I do know that many of the "visitors" ended up charged and convicted, many with extensive sentences and almost all had their futures irreparably damaged by having to register as sex-offenders for the rest of their lives (despite the fact that many of them never touched a minor).

I guess my disturbance with the whole scenario was that people were convicted based on intention even though they never committed a physical crime and many claimed that they didn't intend to carry it to its logical conclusion and / or that the Internet communications that led up to it were a form of fantasy & role playing.

Thoughts / opinions?

You commented on my review of it.

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