Legal treatment of killing varies with defendant status and lawyering quality

Evidence

Killing is viewed differently in different circumstances. Was it premeditated, committed in self-defense as a last resort, socially coerced, or the result of deranged thinking? Moreover, in practice the way murder is treated legally depends, in part, on the status of the defendant and the quality of the lawyering. Individuals of high social status defended by clever lawyers can, in many cases, literally get away with murder. By invoking mitigating circumstances, wrongdoers can get off with brief jail time for manslaughter or with a slightly longer stretch for second-degree murder. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1889

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1889
• XREF: connects to: Legal rules decide one-shotter cases because counsel quality is evenly matched — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1118