Should a person's contribution to the society play a role in sentencing?

[Martinus]

Yes.  And Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney should have been given suspended sentences, on account of the fact that their service to society was much greater than their crime.

I knew who Dan White was. I had to look these two up. 

Conclusion: we need a movie.

[Neil]

Yes.  And Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney should have been given suspended sentences, on account of the fact that their service to society was much greater than their crime.

I knew who Dan White was. I had to look these two up. 

Conclusion: we need a movie.

About the terrible miscarriage of justice upon those two poor lads?  Sure.

[MadImmortalMan]

Meh. I think society ought to punish offenses on their own merit without taking into account any extra factors like what the accused does for a living, has accomplished in his life or what the motives are/were.

Perhaps I should elaborate. I think the point defining the line of criminal activity and punishing those who cross it is society's way of delineating what behavior is acceptable and which is not. Punishment is society's deterrent against unacceptable behavior. If certain crimes are punished differently depending on the motive or the circumstances of the life of the accused, then justice goes out the window in favor of interest.

Now, there's nothing wrong per se with a court deciding based on interest in some things, particularly civil cases where the interest of society is judged against other interests or the onterest of a victim vs that of an attacker. But in a criminal case the interest of society can very well be in opposition to justice. So interest isn't a valid way to sentence a criminal case in my mind. For example, an interest of society is to discourage racism. But if society sentences racially-motivated murder more harshly than other murders in order to promote that interest, it is placing the value of the lives of the victims of non-racially-motivated murder victims at a lower value than those of racially-motivated ones. It's unjust.

Society may have an interest in not incarcerating a very rich person because he pays a lot of money into the public coffers in taxes every year. That value may be far more than the value to society of any single person. So, should the very wealthy man be allowed to commit murder as long as his victim contributes less to society than he does? That's where it all goes in the end.

Staying with murder as the example: The message from the law should be that murder is always unacceptable. There should be no caveats. When you add in factors like a person's contribution or whatever, the message becomes "murder is always unacceptable, but it's less bad if you murder person A, B or C than if you murder person X, Y or Z." Or, "It's less bad if you murder for reasons A, B or C than if you do it for reason X".

I can't see a moral way to justify it.

Notwithstanding your bizarre statement about motives playing no role (any lawyer will tell you that it's empathically not the case in any Western legal system), I think you missed the part where I said this reasoning would apply to only certain types of crimes, especially victimless crimes.

So arguing against it by using murder as an example is a strawman.

I think I'd categorize victimless crimes in the same category as civil suits, where none of what I posted above would really be applicable. It's when there is a victim involved that the state has to revert to a more black and white sentencing, IMO.

[The Brain]

FYI Machiavelli seemed to be of the opinion that one-size-fits-all sentencing was the most attractive option.