Not bankruptcy, but "skuldsanering", which resembles "debt relief order" in English.
It is a system for heavily indebted people to free themselves of their debt after living on a minimum for five years. It also includes damages due to crimes. [1] It is pretty rare however (5357 in 2013)[2].
There are two requirements: The person has to be indebted enough to not be able to pay off the debt in the foreseeable future, and the procedure has to be reasonable with regards to the personal and economical circumstances of the person.[3] This includes the age of the debt, why they came up and if the person has worked to pay them off.
From my reading of the fastställda tingsrättsdomen I note that they mention this excpetion being granted on a case by case basis, and considering Sunde is not a reformed alcoholic with a debth from a accident caused by his addiction it seems unlikely the case you refer to proves more than the existence of the exception.
Without knowing Swedish law, I'm rather certain he cannot.
Personal bankruptcy is usually out of the question for debts arising from unlawful behaviour. You cannot evade damages or a penalty imposed by a court just by filing bankruptcy.
Imagine a legal system where you could. Preposterous.
In my country you can. There is also a 20 year limit to prison sentences, no matter the crime. The objective of the judicial system is not to punish but to recover dysfunctional society members. As such, it makes no sense to punish anyone with a life sentence, no matter the type (prison or fiduciary).
I don't think I'd be really comfortable with convicted serial murderers walking around. Hell, any murderer. Manslaughter can be a mistake or an accident, but if you intentionally aggressively killed someone I'd rather not be walking past you on a street or participating with you in an open market...
I don't believe in the death penalty, but I also believe an essential function of prison is to remove the irredeemable from society so they aren't a threat anymore. I'm not sure you can classify anyone insane just for wanting to kill people, but I'm also not a psychologist. I also would not want to be the psychologist who released a serial murder considering him safe to return to society only for him to on another murder spree...
It's hard to argue with a country that has such low criminality rate. The options are strange from an American perspective, but they work. Naturally there are many many other factors influencing crime rates, but the numbers point towards our position being the correct one, not the other way around.
Then again, I don't think we ever had a serial killer. Maybe one, in the sixties, still unsolved. It's just probabilities at work. At ten million citizens, the odds are low.
What if the person committed that crime while under the influence of a prior mental illness that he or she has since sought help in correcting, and now recognizes their previous intent/action as criminal? What if the murder was due to a drug addiction that lead to mental illness, which has since been corrected?
It's my opinion that a society cannot simultaneously hope to 'cure mental illness', while also simultaneously locking up people who do the same things as the mentally ill without them ever having any hope of rehabilitation (life imprisonment). I have never felt as if the judiciary system should be an extension of personal vengeance; to take two people out of the active society as a murder/life imprisonment does seems more unhealthy for the society in the long run than if the person in prison had a realistic chance at a productive life through means of rehabilitation.
The placement of blame is just all wrong. I wouldn't feel bad as a psychologist releasing a would-be-future-murderer, because as a psychologist I would understand that it was my job to assess the chances rather than make the person. Of course they know there is a chance of 'relapse', because even a sane person has the outlying chance to snap and become psychotic under the right conditions. I am sure that the psychologist would be saddened at the relapse of his patient and at whatever damage was caused by the patient, but I would surely hope that the psychologist would not feel personally responsible for the actions of their patients.
> Manslaughter can be a mistake or an accident, but if you intentionally aggressively killed someone I'd rather not be walking past you on a street or participating with you in an open market
It is my understanding that if you assault someone intending to injure them and accidentally kill them, that is murder in the second degree, unless they provoked you so much that the position of the law is "they were asking for it" (USA) (http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/second-degree-m... , http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/voluntary-mansl...). I can see your objection to serial killers, but the hypothetical 2nd-degree-murderer doesn't seem to be much risk unless you like to get into bar fights.
The same resource also points out that if anyone dies (and there's some sort of iffy connection to you) while you're committing a felony of any kind, you're guilty of murder. Robbing 7-11 with your buddy who you didn't realize was armed will get you convicted of murder if he happens to shoot and kill anyone.
Typically the observation is made that if you are a serial murderer you are not really to be considered sane and into closed treatment you go, not coming out until you are sane again which I guess is not ever if the crime is really gruesome.
Also, in regards to "any murderer", I belive that there really isn't much beyond the perspective of those asked that separate (some) terrorists from soldiers from murderers...
If swedish bankruptcy law is anything similar to the German then he possibly can not. (Liabilities resulting from criminal action are not covered by bankruptcy laws.)
One can not file for personal bankruptcy or "skuldsanering" for this situation. Both of those are for non-criminal situation, and has also additional requirements attached to them.
The damages from a criminal case expire once Statute of limitations hits in, which is in this case 5 years (based on copyright infringement maximum jail time). I do not know when the timer starts to tick, but I would assume it starts once he is serving his sentence.
He probably can. 5 years with living wage and he would be debt free. If he has filled for bankruptcy before (which I don't know) he might be denied the chance again.
It is a system for heavily indebted people to free themselves of their debt after living on a minimum for five years. It also includes damages due to crimes. [1] It is pretty rare however (5357 in 2013)[2].
There are two requirements: The person has to be indebted enough to not be able to pay off the debt in the foreseeable future, and the procedure has to be reasonable with regards to the personal and economical circumstances of the person.[3] This includes the age of the debt, why they came up and if the person has worked to pay them off.
[1] https://lagen.nu/dom/rh/1996:33 [2] http://www.kronofogden.se/20136.html [3] https://lagen.nu/2006:548 [4] http://www.kronofogden.se/Vemkanfaskuldsanering.html