In the 1996 film A Time to Kill, a father shoots the two men accused of raping his young daughter. He does not deny it. The trial that follows is not about whether he did it, but whether his pain justifies it. The defense briefly mentions the M’Naghten Rule, the idea that a person may not be criminally responsible if, because of mental illness, he did not understand what he was doing or did not know it was wrong.

But the lawyer in the film does something more powerful. He appeals to emotion. He asks the jury to imagine the victim as their own child. The jury acquits. It feels powerful. It feels just. But a modern nation cannot be governed by emotion.

I write this as someone who has spent decades in uniform. What troubles me today is the growing acceptance of extrajudicial killings, suspects eliminated before courts review evidence, stories shaped before investigations end. Some people commend. Some feel safer. And sadly, even many educated citizens, people who understand the law, quietly believe that perhaps this is “the time to kill.” Even more troubling, many involved are my former colleagues, so-called PSP officers, highly educated, selected on merit, once seen as the brightest, now falling for it.

Why does this happen? Part of the answer lies in our weak criminal justice system. Investigations are poor. Witnesses are threatened. Trials drag on for years. Conviction rates remain low. Police officers arrest the same offenders repeatedly. Public anger rises. Governments........

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