This week's poll was suggested by jacob66. Suppose someone committed a serious crime (like murder) but was struck by amnesia and does not remember committing the crime. Should such a person be punished for said crime? For the sake of this quandary, assume that it is true memory loss and low likelihood of the person regaining their memory.

You can submit poll ideas here
http://www.mangaupdates.com/showtopic.php?tid=3903

Previous Poll Results:
Question: Do you enjoy it when scanlators delay chapters to wait for a mass/batch release day?
Choices:
Indifferent - votes: 1577 (44.3%)
Yes - votes: 743 (20.9%)
No - votes: 1239 (34.8%)
There were 3559 total votes.
The poll ended: April 10th 2021

Lots of indifferent people, but more people dislike batch releases than do.

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Yes ,I must add that someone has been drugged/mentally disabled/cohered / instigated to do something should be viewed as an accomplice and make the FULL crime fall on EACH of the instigators /planners. Forgetting doesn't erase a crime. Even if you accidentally murder someone you must face the consequences of your acts (maybe a bit less or a maximum of 20 years if it's completely proven).There are also some extremely heinous crimes that I think cannot be forgiven even if it's only to honour the victims.

I do believe that the prison should focus on rehabilitating/reeducating what can be rehabilitated and taking away the freedom of those that cannot be rehabilitated .For example, a terrorist with blood crimes that doesn't repent /has Alzheimer/loses memory after the crime can rot in prison for all I care.I'm not too in favour of death penalty, I believe it's an easy escape for some,but they should be squeezed what utility they can provide to society .

Some serial rapist/murderers that can eventually understand what they did is wrong and even feel guilt about it, but some admit that without supervision they'll repeat their crimes (There are drugs that can completely break you down psychically or provoque extreme behaviour ).


Some crimes like, corruption or embezzlement I think should stay in prison until they have literally fully payed for their crimes. An addict (to sex/fire/alcohol...) could be unconscious of some of his behaviours, but even if he rehabilitates and doesn't remember ,I think they should pay for it full.

Last edited by Joese at 3:16 am, Apr 16 2021

I'm very opinionated on this topic, but I forgot what I was gonna say....

Well depends on definition of punishment, because they might be pronounced crazy i suppose. But think of it in terms of less as punishment and more as isolation of dangerous individuals from society, whether it is in prison cell or hospital cell...

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Obviously they need to face the consequences. You kill someone then have amnesia that person isn't just going to come back to life. So you have to go to jail.

Then it's like.. waking up the next morning with cops at the door forcing their way in to arrest you without knowing anything about what brought you to that situation. That would be insane. "I only remember reading manga all day."

Still, if given a proof (video/audio/picture) that one really did commit the crime, then yes, they should be punished. It's a different case when that person has a mental illness like multiple personality disorder.

If the person is not mentally stable to begin with, maybe not mmm...
But if they're just asshole and then having an amnesia later, definitely have to be punished mmm...

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Yes, but they should have psych monitoring and, if the crime is severe enough, be involuntarily committed to a psych facility.

My answer would be no but it depends on how that person got the amnesia. If your "amnesia" is that you were drunk, then no because your state of black out was due to your own choices. You can make a choice to not drink alcohol to the point where you lose your sense of morals. Say someone drugged you with some chemical that literally left a blank of memory, no. If someone forces or without your consent gives you drugs that have that kinda of affect, what you do under those drugs isn't your fault because you didn't consent to taking a drug that could have that affect. Say someone received head trauma, that would be the difficult part because of the following. Is the criminal who now has amnesia still the same person before the head injury or are they are completely different person. If the former, then like the drunk, you still hold them to what they have done. If the latter, give them a psyc evaluation, how far back to their memories go or are they more likely to repeat a similar offense?

I wouldn't agree to a general yes because if you remove the "crime" attachment, then you have to ask yourself how accountable is someone for their actions even if they don't remember them. Being drunk doesn't excuse any actions you to someone or have someone do to you because you can choose how much alcohol is too much. Being drugged is fair game because any actions you did, weren't the result of any of your choices.

Well, yeah.

Accountability has little to do with the memory of a person committing a crime.

There are grey scenarios where the people committing the crime wasn't in a stable mental state, but those are not the ones presented in the question.

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Criminal alcoholics and drug addicts would go free if you chose anything else than Yes. Or imagine a robber who gets shot in the head but wakes up without memories after a brain surgery. And what are memories anyway. There are 2 sides to every story.

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My answer is definitely Yes but the punishment can vary depending on the degree of memory loss imo.

If someone has a dissociative identity and one of those identities committed the crime alone then I think it makes sense to just put them in a locked asylum. If someone has highly selective amnesia then they can just get the standard punishment. If they have completely lost all memories of their former life then you can just put them through a forced rehabilitation program to make sure their current personality won't turn out like the one that committed the crime.

The person's body is what did the crime, so the body shall be punished be detainment in a prison or a fine. Since the person forgot about the crime, after the punishement is over with, they can forget about the punishment and then it never happened, right? Just like the original crime never happened because the suspect claims to have forgotten details about the crime.

The other thing is that there are mental cases out there, drug user cases out there, and severe alcoholic cases out there that can perform crimes they do not remember while they are afflicted with their problem. Even in current society, variations of this "I'm not guilty because of other factors" excuse are being used such as "I was just acting out".

If this "I forgot" excuse is used, then the government should be allowed to use it too. After torturing whole familes to death, the government then deletes all database records and incident files and says "I forgot, I have no memories of this". This would be government amnesia because the "I forgot I did the crime so I am innocent" excuse ignores victim rights. Whose rights are more important in a crime: The Criminal or The Victim? Perhaps the poll could have been a two parter poll like this. If someone believes the criminal is acquitted of punishment because he cannot remember the crime, then that person is in the camp where the Criminal's rights have priority over the Victim's rights.

If he/she has proven guilty, it doesn't matter if they have amnesia or not. They should be punished fairly, unless if this person doesn't remember because he/she really didn't do it.

If he/she has proven guilty, it doesn't matter if they have amnesia or not. They should be punished fairly, unless if this person doesn't remember because he/she really didn't do it.