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 Originally Posted by OngBonga
It is a moral defence though, it's called "mitigating circumstances". If it's the first offence, if you can convince a judge that it was an out-of-character lack of judgement, that you have regrets, and assuming you didn't actually crash, then he will show leniency. So yes, it's a legal defence.
Leniency is not the same as saying what you did is moral. I'm also not convinced that in the particular scenario you outlined, a judge has ever accepted such a defense. But let's say they did: your defense is one of mitigation, it's not a denial of moral responsibility.
Originally Posted by OngBonga
As for a moral defence... ask yourself, would you find it easier to forgive someone who wronged you as a result of a momentry lack of judgement, compared to someone who coldly set out to wrong you?
"Sorry I fucked up" is a moral defence if it's sincere.
It depends on the level of harm that was done. If they had a 'momentary lack of judgement' as you call it, got pissed and ran over my kid, and said 'sorry i fucked up and killed your kid', no I wouldn't forgive them. If they accidentally bumped into me in a supermarket in a momentary lack of judgment, and no harm came of it, I would.
Conversely, if someone coldly set out to defame me at the same time as I was coldly setting out to defame them, as commonly happens in politics, I'd be inclined to accept that as an acknowledged if distasteful part of the game I'd entered into.
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