The 22 Categories of Depravity

Some psychiatrists have now derived a "depravity index" to assess how bad is bad when one person kills another. [thanks to Jack for the pointer; registration required] Here it is, in increasing order of depravity:

THE LEAGUE OF EVIL

1 Those who have killed in self defence and who do not show psychopathic tendency.
2 Jealous lovers who, though egocentric or immature, are not psychopathic.
3 Willing companions of killers; aberrant personality — probably impulse ridden with some antisocial traits.
4 Killed in self defence, but had been extremely provocative toward the victim.
5 Traumatized, desperate persons who have killed abusing relatives, and also others (for example, to support a drug habit) but who lack significant psychopathic traits and are genuinely remorseful.
6 Impetuous, hot-headed murderers, yet without marked psychopathic features.
7 Highly narcissistic but not distinctly psychopathic persons, with a psychotic core, who kill loved ones (jealousy an underlying motive).
8 Nonpsychopathic persons with smoldering rage who kill when rage is ignited.
9 Jealous lovers with psychopathic features.
10 Killers of people “in the way” or of witnesses (egocentric but not distinctly psychopathic).
11 Psychopathic killers of people in the way.
12 Power-hungry psychopaths who killed when they were “cornered.” (Jim Jones and Children of God cult massacre, Guyana.)
13 Inadequate, rageful personalities.
14 Ruthlessly self-centred psychopathic schemers.
15 Psychopathic “cold blooded” spree or multiple murderers.
16 Psychopaths committing multiple vicious acts.
17 Sexually perverse serial murderers (among the males, rape usually a primary motive, with killing done to hide evidence; systematic torture not a primary factor).
18 Torture-murderers with murder the primary motive.
19 Psychopaths driven to terrorism, subjugation, intimidation and rape short of murder.
20 Torture-murderers, with torture as the primary motive, but in psychotic personalities.
21 Psychopaths preoccupied with torture in the extreme, but not known to have committed murder.
22 Psychopathic torture-murderers, with torture their primary motive.

Oh good. So now psycho/sociopaths will have even more reason to try to fake remorse.

Jack's reaction: " I suspect juries will leap on this to avoid wrestling with it themselves. But this escape will be employed only for the less evident, non Jeff Dahmer cases. The law DOES need some attempts at consistency. Hopefully this will be in a constructive direction. I'm not sure."

Update: BenS sent the above list to a judge, who replied,

A couple of people sent this to me--both highly skeptical. I'm not so sure. I have definitely seen gradations of evil in criminal cases and an effort to define and identify some of the factors that make up evil strikes me as useful. How it gets used may be another matter.