Vigilantism -- What the Hell to do With Our Ire?

The news coming out of the state of Maine today about 20 year old Stephen Marshall of Nova Scotia murdering two registered sex offenders whose information he gleaned from the state's online sex offender registry is shocking and compelling. When cornered by police on a bus, Marshall committed suicide. A tragic damned story every which way you cut it.

It raises in my mind the question of vigilantism. Does this case even "qualify" as vigilantism? Or, was it a revenge killing? There are few details about Marshall's motive for murder at this point.

I don't advocate violence in any form. If someone must fight or, hopefully not, have to kill in self-defence, that's certainly morally permissible. But violence wounds everyone involved with it.

That said, sex offenders are scum. It's a documented fact that pedophiles, in particular, are incurable. They are predators for life. Tagging sex offenders like the animals they are and informing the public of their whereabouts and movements is the least our flawed justice system can extend to society. For the damage and horror played out on the victims of sex crimes, I don't believe our courts take such crimes as seriously or with the amount of gravity they ought to. Speaking about rape, comedian Richard Pryor once said in his stand-up act, "I don't know how you could steal someone's humanity like that."

So, are people outraged about sex offenders living in our communities supposed to take up arms and mete out the justice they believe the courts were too flaccid and soft to administer? No. Nor do I think that sex offender registries should be used to "hunt down" sex offenders. However, there is a certain irony to sex offenders being tracked down in the same manner (the Internet) that so many of them find their victims.

If Stephen Marshall was a victim of one of the sex offenders he killed, that would certainly put a different spin on this story. Do victims have the right to go after their tormentors? Even after their abusers have been caught, sentenced, and freed? I wouldn't suppose to put myself in an abuse victims' shoes. If pressed for an answer, I'd have to say that as a juror I wouldn't vote to convict a person who took the law into their own hands and administered their own justice against a former abuser.