Posted on 02/06/2004 1:51:49 PM PST by quidnunc
The repulsive details that emerged from last week's trial and sentencing of German computer expert Armin Meiwes, otherwise known as the cannibal of Rotenburg (surely the most incidentally expressive assignation of event with locale since David Koresh's last fiery stand at Waco, Tex.), open a window onto a diseased subculture that almost defies belief.
We've known for a while that the insidious illusion of privacy that the Internet provides can embolden many people to partake in depraved activities they would never otherwise contemplate. But never could I have imagined that such a thing as a "cannibal chatroom" would exist — an electronic meeting post or forum that puts hundreds of people who wish to eat other people in touch with people who actually wish to be eaten.
I'll spare you the grisly details of that fateful day in March 2001, when the 42-year-old Meiwes literally had 43-year-old Bernd Jurgen Brandes over to his house for dinner. I'll focus instead on what I find to be the almost equally horrific decision of the court which, after a two-month trial, cleared Meiwes of murder charges and imposed only an 8ae-year sentence for the lesser crime of manslaughter.
Usually it's the question of premeditation — Did a killer plan or consciously intend to slay their victim? — that distinguishes murder from a more impulsive or psychologically compulsive act of manslaughter.
A panel of psychologists testified Meiwes was not mentally ill and was fit to stand trial, so that ruled out the compulsion argument. And Meiwes had unquestionably planned Brandes death in minute detail, preparing an upstairs room at his farmhouse for the act and setting up video equipment to record the entire event for posterity. So how did he get off with the lesser charge of manslaughter?
Ruling that Meiwes had no "base motives" in killing and then devouring about 20 kilograms of Brandes by the time of his arrest (with more select cuts stashed in his freezer), Judge Volker Muetze justified his lenient verdict because the consent of the eaten had been fully given.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at canoe.ca ...
Increasingly unmoored from clear Judeo-Christian and common law principles about what's right and wrong, our courts have become so caught up in secondary considerations about consent and the need to not judge too harshly the lifestyle choices of even the pathologically ill, that they're losing sight of the most obvious and simplest of principles, such as "Eating people is wrong."
Especially if you serve the wrong wine.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.