Good and Evil in Degrees by Robin Schumacher
How "bad" are the things that you do — really? Dr. Michael Welner wants to be able to tell you.
Welner, a leading forensic psychiatrist who has testified in some of America's most infamous violent crime cases, is looking for yours and other's input on creating a human depravity standard with the end goal being to codify the concept of evil for the justice system. What Welner and his associates at the Forensic Panel in New York are attempting to do is formally draw up lines of demarcation between poor-bad-worse-heinous behaviors so those prosecuting crimes and juries that hand down decisions can have guidelines with which to work for properly assigning judgments.
Welner says, "In criminal courts today, the decision to charge a case as heinous, atrocious, cruel, depraved or vile rests with the prosecuting authority but, [only] because the law does not include a standard to what constitutes an evil crime. That decision is either visceral, or one that may be driven by political considerations, bias, or sensationalism. A Depravity Standard that is rooted in specific hallmarks of intent, actions, attitude and victimology keeps prosecutors accountable to fully investigate a crime for these unique qualities so that evidence informs decision making."
Read more: http://blogos.org/compellingtruth/good-evil.php