The Native American is responsible for his act despite the given circumstances. He went out of his way to chase and challenge a human that was at a significant distance from him. The human was not attacking him directly in any way, so it is difficult to make the case that the Native American was fighting for his life and had absolutely no choice but to kill the other man. Respecting the culture and knowledge of the Native American's tribe, the Native American did not take the proper precautions in verifying that the runner was actually a Wendigo. Unless he can provide the proper and morally acceptable protocol that he used to verify if the runner was a Wendigo or not, there is good reason to believe that he acted too quickly before murdering someone, even by his tribe's standards. It is important to respect the Native American tribe's knowledge of the occult, but there is no excuse for making a rash decision that ended a harmless person's life.
Overall, the runner (Wendigo or not) had to be attacking or threatening the Native American for him to go completely out of his way to chase him and kill him with a gun. If there is no evidence that the runner was a threat to the Native American, then he should be charged with manslaughter.
The native american did not believe that he was a human. The native american created a concept of what an evil spirit was and he did not see that human as human. He did not murder a human in his eyes. If someone had made a perception of what evil is, wouldn't they try to get rid of it. The native american believe that he would save his people by killing the evil spirit. Is he wrong for protecting his people?
ReplyDeleteAustin, you make a strong point for the prosecution by arguing that even by his own cultural standards the defendant’s act was wrong. You also exclude self-defense as justification because there was not imminent threat. Tshering has a good point though by saying that in the defendant’s mind he did not kill a human being.
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