[logfromblammo]

My ethical system considers intent, consequences in specific, consequences in general, economic impact, psychological factors, and next-best alternatives for each actor.

Thoughtlessly ordering someone else to commit a murder is definitively worse than ordering someone else to commit a murder after careful and deliberate consideration, presuming all other factors remain equal.

In my view, killing someone just because it benefits you in some way is worse than killing someone because you truly believe that they deserve it--even if the thought process that led to the latter conclusion is provably flawed.

Not all murders are equally bad. The condition only short circuits at murder if your ethical framework has discrete values rather than defined intervals on a continuous spectrum.

Of course, ordering a murder in a stage production where no one actually gets killed is hardly even bad at all. It's almost like doing a mission in Grand Theft Auto, or doing a shot-for-shot remake of the baptism scene from Godfather II. Or perhaps it's the inversion of Ender's Game, where rather than the ethical burden being lighter because you didn't realize it was for-realsies, it is heavier because you didn't know it was fake.

RU may be an ass for trying, but the facts remain that no one died because of him, nor was anyone at any risk of dying from his actions. The cops put him inside a fake situation, and he acted according to his assumed role as though it were real. If I were judge or prosecutor, I wouldn't want to untie that knot either.

[s73v3r]

In all of those examples, those actions are so far beyond the point of "bad" that one being worse than the other is largely an academic argument, and completely moot.

And he did not know that it was fake. Therefore any idea that he's off the hook because no one got hurt is irrelevant. It could have just as easily been real, and then people would have died because of his actions.

[logfromblammo]

I disagree. Laws in American states provide for different degrees of murder, and can adjust the range of punishments accordingly. Inchoate offenses can be tacked on for actions that increase the severity of the crime or attach guilt to other people.

We simply have different rules in our ethical systems, you and I.

I, for one, am less apt to makes crimes of someone's thoughts or intentions, in the absence of actual harm. I also feel the role of policing should be more in the nature of investigation, capture, and detention awaiting trial, rather than prophylactic protection.

I would very much like all police work to start with identifying that a crime has occurred, work backwards to find out who did it, capture that person, and then turn over the person and all available evidence to the courts. I find the trend towards identifying a potential criminal, then gathering evidence on that person until a crime can be identified, to be anathema to a free society.

Whether RU committed the crimes of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder or not, the police committed crimes themselves in exposing him, and I find it more acceptable ethically for the guilty man to go free than to allow the state's justice system to profit by its own corruption. That's the fruit of the poison tree doctrine. It's how we keep a free society free, and how we protect cops from retaliatory violence from the people who feel they are serving themselves rather than justice.

[s73v3r]

No. The police did not commit crimes in exposing him.

[logfromblammo]

They solicited him to buy a murder for hire. It's a crime when you do it. It's a crime when the cops do it. It's a crime when Richard Nixon does it.

The evidence of other crimes was collected as a result. Even if he was guilty beyond doubt, that's still poisoned fruit.

[s73v3r]

"They solicited him to buy a murder for hire."

They absolutely did not. It was his idea. You need to go learn what entrapment is. Hint: It's not simply when you do something and the cops happen to be involved.

[logfromblammo]

My understanding of the situation is that he contacted someone advertising contract killing services on his own darknet. The person he contacted was a confidential informant (undercover cop, or someone working with the cops).

Now, don't misunderstand. That was wrong of him. And it was also stupid. But there is a very important difference between finding out about an illegal transaction and participating in one.

If it were prostitution, it would be the difference between watching a john pick up a hooker and arresting them both, or posing as either a john or a hooker and arresting the other when they eventually committed to the crime. The former is acceptable. The latter is not.

It wasn't a case of a contract killer ratting his client out to the police. There never was a contract killer.

In my opinion, if the cops were a necessary component in the commission of the crime, it is entrapment. If they were simply able to exercise a degree of control over the situation such that they are able to immediately arrest all parties to a crime before anyone gets hurt, that's a little creepy, but still acceptable.

Crime requires intent, conduct, concurrence, and causation. Entrapment elides over one or more of those elements.