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?
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?