Just a light-hearted thought about murder sentencing..
Why is a sentence for attempted murder less than that of murder? Say a man with a knife lunges at a victim’s heart, shouting that he’s trying to kill him, but the knife is pushed away and hits the shoulder. It’s only because the victim defends himself that the attacker guilty of attempted murder rather than murder. The attacker’s intent hasn’t changed.\If we consider a sentence to be a deterrent, then surely we’d want to say that trying to murder someone is as bad as successfully killing them? And as a punishment, why should someone else’s intervention affect the punishment for the attacker’s crime?
(I’m not necessarily arguing for a change to murder sentencing, but I’m curious to know the reasoning behind it.)
