From the comments to yesterday’s post (about assholes who need a good beating) come these wise words from Reader GMC70 (who is a fine man, despite being a lawyer):
“I’ve thought for a while there should be a ‘he had it coming’ defense.”
In one of John Sandford’s Prey novels, there’s a situation where a well-known major-league scumbag has been arrested, tried, found guilty (after unimpeachable evidence) and imprisoned for the murder of an equally well-known (but minor-league) scumbag.
To everyone’s surprise, a few months later the dead guy is seen, very much alive, at an upscale cocktail party. Like all Sanford’s scenarios,the plot is quite complicated, but the question then becomes when to let the prosecuting district attorney (whom everyone hates) know about the murder victim who wasn’t.
One of the better lines is when someone asks what to do about the convicted scumbag, and the priceless response is: “Leave him where he is. You know he’s killed somebody before.”
I can’t help but think that this is not an uncommon situation in criminality — where the bad guy may not be guilty of this specific crime, but that’s not to say he hasn’t committed others.
As a hitman once explained: “These guys I’ve whacked? Most of them are seriously evil. After all, nobody takes out a contract on a nun.”