This is the Indian's story. It may very well be true, it even sounds more believable, but the article you quote states it as fact.
My comment was with regard to the announced penalty, not whether the defendant was properly convicted. My point is that the very idea of "an eye for an eye" is usually portrayed as unjust and barbaric. I cannot see why. It merely results in the court applying the same damage to the perp as he inflicted on the victim.
Most of us accept this equivalence readily enough in its most extreme application, the death penalty. Why balk at applying the same principle in less extreme situations?
"My point is that the very idea of "an eye for an eye" is usually portrayed as unjust and barbaric. I cannot see why. It merely results in the court applying the same damage to the perp as he inflicted on the victim.
Most of us accept this equivalence readily enough in its most extreme application, the death penalty. Why balk at applying the same principle in less extreme situations?"
Are you serious?
There is no equivalence.
The death penalty is applied only very rarely and only for DELIBERATE acts of killing.
I have seldom heard of a DELIBERATE act of eye gouging. Sometimes, as here, it is a mere accident or a byproduct of a physical fight. Further even here it is eye injury not total loss.
Finally the point of the law and judgement under the law is NOT to descend to the level of the criminal or mete out God like retribution.
The Old Testament concept of 'an eye for an eye' is widely misunderstood because its meaning derives from the Oral Tradition (Talmud) with which it is inextricably tied.
The Talmud explains that it is a Tort concept of financial value. Thus a person who loses an eye is entitled to the monetary equivalent based on lost earnings, pain and suffering, etc. That is a far cry from the Saudi Arabian barbarism and quite a sophisticated concept for those times.