Yea, but genocide is like way to much paperwork
Genocide is systematic.
This was instantaneous.
Genocide requires intent. Whereas this alien just had a fleeting moment of anger at the time of his wife being murdered.
Can he really be tried for genocide? It’s hard to say, but I’d say not. We all have dark intrusive thoughts, and in this instance it had disastrous consequences.
It’s all moot anyway. If you have no means or intention to enforce a law, does it really exist?
We’re talking thinking something, at a moment of extreme stress and anger, after everybody on the planet he lived on was killed, including his wife.
We aren’t talking someone physically doing something.
You’ve never had any intrusive thought, ever? Can you affirm that you wouldn’t have an angry thought even if everybody on Earth was murdered, including loved ones?
Genocide requires intent.
Is that actually, legally, true?
In other words, does the word identify the cause, or the effect?
Can he really be tried for genocide? It’s hard to say, but I’d say not.
How so? The facts seem self-evident.
It’s all moot anyway. If you have no means or intention to enforce a law, does it really exist?
You can still classify someone though in such a way, in hopes that in some future time you can enforce the law on them, having being previously judged as a criminal.
The heat-of-passion is something to argue to mitigate culpability. Yes, he killed an entire species, and wasn’t exactly justified, but his emotions and passions were inflamed by the aliens murdering his wife making his actions involuntary.
The dude snapped when he’s loved ones were killed, that is considered exculpatory of violent actions in almost all legal systems. The difference is that instead of a knife or a gun he had almost omnipotent powers of destruction.
In an ideal society he would get psychological counseling to deal with the trauma and ensure it doesn’t happen again, but I think it’s obvious he was a bit above Troi’s pay grade.
