Derby fire deaths: Parents arrested on suspicion of murder

[doodah]

Maybe I've missed something here but watching sky news and they are making a big deal about philpotts excuse about the petrol on his clothes being from his strimmer the police are talking about how his strimmer is 2 stroke but the petrol was ordinary petrol


I'm baffled at this as 2 stroke is just unleaded with 2 stroke oil added so his excuse would be legitimate

Still a shocking loss of life regardless of who was responsible and if philpott is the man behind it then the sentence handed down is nowhere near enough

Was traces not found on all of them? Though the expert who provided this evidence sounded like she was so thorough, you could find traces of petrol on all of us. However did he not use the excuse of not showing for 12 weeks as to why petrol was found on him? That as a defence argument seems a little fishy.

 

[estebanrey]

Of course it did but it wasn't good evidence.

But it was at the time.

This is what you keep failing to grasp, it seems you think that say 30 years ago judges somehow knew that compared to 2013 their burdens of proof would be inadequate.

At any given time, people thought that they knew it all and had the best methods at the time. It's not like judges in the 1850s somehow knew DNA evidence would be invented later down the line and cast doubt over the methods they had then.

We know if evidence is good now. We know a lot more scientifically now than 50 years ago yet we never said we are sure about something unless we were 100% sure.

And how do you know that in another 50 years time we won't have new methods that are better than what we have now and may overturn the convictions made today with today's evidence?

We are 100% sure that gravity exists, we are not 100% sure about the Higgs Boson.

Nothing is 100% in science, even gravity's existence.

You cannot point to the past and say, look how little they knew.

Yet that is exactly what you are doing now. You are saying that all the people who were convicted in the past who then went on to be found innocent was because we didn't know much back then, unlike today.

Going by that logic, nothing is ever 100%.

Correct.

There is always a ridiculous explanation that can cover anything.

And guess what? Sometimes, those ridiculous far fetched explanations can turn out to be true.

Why would they fake it. It would cost everyone involved their jobs, years in prison and ruin their families for 0 gain.

Why would they fake the evidence on Hillsbrough?

Also this, from Wikipedia's page on miscarriages of justice in the UK....

During the early 1990s there was a series of high-profile cases revealed to have been miscarriages of justice. Many resulted from police fabricating evidence, in order to convict the person they thought was guilty, or simply to convict someone in order to get a high conviction rate.

And in those circumstances the death penalty wouldn't be on the table. You can't be 100% sure because someone saw something.

But the jury, who ultimately decide guilt and therefore whether someone would be eligible for the DP weren't there. So if the jury can never be 100% and is relying on witness testimony how can they meet this '100%' mark you need them to convict?

I can never understand why we think we are superior when we don't support the death penalty. Did Saddam Hussain deserve to live? There are plenty of people who have given up their right to life through their actions. There are plenty of people who commit suicide because they can't live with their actions.

Because seeking revenge rather than justice isn't as morally sound. All the DP is revenge and an attempt at quelling public outrage.

Thats another discussion entirely. I don't think that doing something that has a fantastic chance of killing someone should be treated differently to purposely doing it.

It's still confusing though as to how your implementation would work. You state you wouldn't execute all murderers but you would do it for crimes that are currently considered manslaughter.

So you wouldn't execute a man who purposely went out and knifed 6 kids because you aren't 100% sure he did it (but still sure enough to convict him) but you would kill a man who accidentally killed his own kids, albeit through his own stupidity and sick greed, because you heard a police tape recording on the news.

Before you accuse me of making a strawman, how about you give me an example whether there is enough evidence to convict for murder, but you wouldn't use DP.

Is this based on my insistance that we are 100% sure of guilt...

No it's based on the tiresome and consistent calls from thew return of the DP whenever a big story hits the headlines. I'd bet there are other people who have killed their children via a plan that went wrong but didn't make as much news and no one calls fort it then.

Please stop be pedantic, you can see that in an earlier post I said "beyond reasonable doubt" so please stop selectively ignoring things.

I'm not being pedantic, it's a very important distinction. You see, a jury already can't convict unless they are almost certain they have the right man. So I don't see how you can up that include the death penalty unless you lower the burden of a custodial sentence to just 'he probably did it'. Then you would have a clear gap between a jury being certain and thinking he probably did it and your idea could at least work in theory then.

Where have I said that. Its science for christ's sake. Its not up to some judge to decide if the death penalty is up for discussion for a crime. A panel of experts in forensics and any other relevant fields would discuss it. If any one of them says, "no, this piece of evidence is not 100% and the case hinged on it, the death penalty is not up for discussion any more".

Ahh OK, you really want to change the system don't you. You want to take sentencing power away from judges and give it to some panel of scientists?

Do you also think scientists are infallible and immune from making rash judgements based on personal opinion/emotions?

Please show me a case where they were 100% sure scientifically speaking that someone committed a crime and it was found later to be incorrect. Not 99% sure, 100% sure.

As I said, no one has ever, or will ever be 100% so I can't show you an example of crime where they were 100% the person did it.

But here are some example where, at the time like in this case, everyone was 'sure' they did it...

Stefan Kiszko
Stefan was convicted in 1976 for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. He spent 16 years in prison before he was released in 1992, after a long campaign by his mother. He died of a heart attack the following year at the age of 41. He confessed to the killing after three days of intense questioning.

Admitting it, must be 100% he did it then right?

Sally Clark
Clark was convicted in 1996 of the murder of her two small sons Christopher and Harry, and spent three years in jail, finally being released in 2003 on appeal. The convictions were based solely on the analysis of the deaths by the Home Office Pathologist Alan Williams, who failed to disclose relevant information about the deaths, that was backed up by the paediatric professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose opinion was pivotal in several other child death convictions, many of which have been overturned or are in the process of being disputed.

So these scientists you want to play God have wrongly convicted people in the past. Yet you think this is a 100% safe way of being sure?

Sion Jenkins
Acquitted after a second retrial of the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins in February 2006. Jenkins was convicted in 1998 but the conviction was quashed in 2004 following a CCRC referral. The basis of the quashed conviction at the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) were the concessions by the Crown's pathologist that evidence given at the first tribunal were inaccurate.

Yet another example of modern science being wrong (or mis-used).

 

[fez]

But it was at the time.

This is what you keep failing to grasp, it seems you think that say 30 years ago judges somehow knew that compared to 2013 their burdens of proof would be inadequate.

No, they thought they were right but anyone with a shred of intelligence or honesty would admit that what they deemed enough proof 50 years ago was not particularly sound. If you could go back and talk to the people handing out the sentences and said to them "you are very sure that this person committed the crime but are you 100% positive?" they would say no.

Its the same today only we have a lot better means of proving when someone is 100% guilty. Even back then, if 100 people from all walks of life saw someone murdered very clearly and saw who it was and all of them confirmed the same guy who was arrested just after he did it, they would have been 100% sure.

We have progressed you know. There are critical points in the development of every field and we have reached that in criminal prosecution. We know when evidence is good, circumstantial, open to interpretation and when there is a chance it can be wrong.

At any given time, people thought that they knew it all and had the best methods at the time. It's not like judges in the 1850s somehow knew DNA evidence would be invented later down the line and cast doubt over the methods they had then.

No they didn't, they made the best of what they had and worked within the system of the time. They were not thick. They didn't think "yeah we know he is guilty because we found a knife that could have made the same wound that killed the victim therefore he is definitely guilty" they did the best they could with the limited tools they had which will have resulted in plenty of wrongful convictions. Honestly the death penalty to me makes more sense now than it did in the past.

And how do you know that in another 50 years time we won't have new methods that are better than what we have now and may overturn the convictions made today with today's evidence?

I am positive there will be. Whats the relevance. You don't think you can be 100% sure about anything. I do. If we only give the DP to people we are 100% sure about based on our current knowledge we won't have a problem. If you don't agree that there are crimes where someones guilt is 100% then you will never agree. If I thought the same I would disagree with the DP.

Nothing is 100% in science, even gravity's existence.

Yes it is.

Yet that is exactly what you are doing now. You are saying that all the people who were convicted in the past who then went on to be found innocent was because we didn't know much back then, unlike today.

The system didn't work in the same manner in the past. I am not suggesting a return to that system at all so I don't see what the relevance of that is.

And guess what? Sometimes, those ridiculous far fetched explanations can turn out to be true.

No, there is no room for error in 100%. If there is any way that the person might not have committed the crime they don't get the DP.

Why would they fake the evidence on Hillsbrough?

To cover themselves. Did the police have anything to do with the fire? Are they covering something up?

Also this, from Wikipedia's page on miscarriages of justice in the UK....

During the early 1990s there was a series of high-profile cases revealed to have been miscarriages of justice. Many resulted from police fabricating evidence, in order to convict the person they thought was guilty, or simply to convict someone in order to get a high conviction rate.

How would you plant evidence that proved 100% someone is guilty. You seem to think that when I say 100% I just mean pretty sure. Please give an example of something the police could do to make someone appear 100% guilty.

But the jury, who ultimately decide guilt and therefore whether someone would be eligible for the DP weren't there. So if the jury can never be 100% and is relying on witness testimony how can they meet this '100%' mark you need them to convict?

Its pretty simple. The jury decide on guilt like they do now. Beyond reasonable doubt. When it comes to sentencing, the judge is given guidelines as to what punishments are available to hand down, like they are now. Whether or not that includes the death penalty would be decided by a panel of experts who would decide if there was any tiny shred of a chance that the evidence is wrong.

Because seeking revenge rather than justice isn't as morally sound. All the DP is revenge and an attempt at quelling public outrage.

That is a rubbish sound bite that people love to bandy about. Why is punishing someone for taking a life always revenge. Anything else can be punishment but not taking someones life who has ruined the lives of countless others.

It's still confusing though as to how your implementation would work. You state you wouldn't execute all murderers but you would do it for crimes that are currently considered manslaughter.

No, I just don't agree that as long as something is not pre-meditated that it cannot be as bad as an act that is pre-meditated.

So you wouldn't execute a man who purposely went out and knifed 6 kids because you aren't 100% sure he did it (but still sure enough to convict him) but you would kill a man who accidentally killed his own kids, albeit through his own stupidity and sick greed, because you heard a police tape recording on the news.

Christ, its like hitting my head against a brick wall. I personally think that he deserves to die but it would be up to the justice system to decide. My personal feelings on the matter wouldn't come into it. I am suggesting that this is a case where they probably are 100% sure of his guilt.

Before you accuse me of making a strawman, how about you give me an example whether there is enough evidence to convict for murder, but you wouldn't use DP.

Probably most murder cases. There was the case of the guy who shot his family in their farmhouse years ago and claimed it was the daughter. Most cases come under this. They are almost positive they have the right guy but there are plenty of explanations as to why it might not have been him. They are very unlikely but possible. No DP.

No it's based on the tiresome and consistent calls from thew return of the DP whenever a big story hits the headlines. I'd bet there are other people who have killed their children via a plan that went wrong but didn't make as much news and no one calls fort it then.

Thats how things work. Were we all discussing North Korea at length the other day. People discuss what is currently in the news.

I'm not being pedantic, it's a very important distinction. You see, a jury already can't convict unless they are almost certain they have the right man. So I don't see how you can up that include the death penalty unless you lower the burden of a custodial sentence to just 'he probably did it'. Then you would have a clear gap between a jury being certain and thinking he probably did it and your idea could at least work in theory then.

Almost certain. Exactly. You don't need a big gap like you suggest, you either have 100% proof or you don't.

Ahh OK, you really want to change the system don't you. You want to take sentencing power away from judges and give it to some panel of scientists?

That is what murder investigations are, they are science. I don't know about you but I would trust top scientists slightly more than a judge.

Do you also think scientists are infallible and immune from making rash judgements based on personal opinion/emotions?

No, but in the case of a panel that decided the death penalty was on the table, I would have a second opinion. Do you seriously want me to write a paper on exactly how every detail of this system would work.

As I said, no one has ever, or will ever be 100% so I can't show you an example of crime where they were 100% the person did it.

But here are some example where, at the time like in this case, everyone was 'sure' they did it...

Stefan Kiszko
Stefan was convicted in 1976 for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Lesley Molseed in 1975. He spent 16 years in prison before he was released in 1992, after a long campaign by his mother. He died of a heart attack the following year at the age of 41. He confessed to the killing after three days of intense questioning.

Admitting it, must be 100% he did it then right?

Seriously. Thats borderline insulting. Almost every day you hear a story of someone saying they were "coerced" into a confession or testimony so why on earth would someones admission of guilt be considered 100% proof. Even now a confession does not stop a case of murder being investigated. There are medical conditions that make people confess to crimes they didn't commit, covering for a loved one etc. Thats not 100%.

Sally Clark
Clark was convicted in 1996 of the murder of her two small sons Christopher and Harry, and spent three years in jail, finally being released in 2003 on appeal. The convictions were based solely on the analysis of the deaths by the Home Office Pathologist Alan Williams, who failed to disclose relevant information about the deaths, that was backed up by the paediatric professor Sir Roy Meadow, whose opinion was pivotal in several other child death convictions, many of which have been overturned or are in the process of being disputed.

So these scientists you want to play God have wrongly convicted people in the past. Yet you think this is a 100% safe way of being sure?

So one guy says she did it. How is that 100% proof.

Sion Jenkins
Acquitted after a second retrial of the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins in February 2006. Jenkins was convicted in 1998 but the conviction was quashed in 2004 following a CCRC referral. The basis of the quashed conviction at the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) were the concessions by the Crown's pathologist that evidence given at the first tribunal were inaccurate.

Yet another example of modern science being wrong (or mis-used).

None of these examples even come close to proof. Christ, I don't think any of them would even be enough to get a conviction. Defence lawyers would have a field day with all of those cases.

With the right system in place I believe that we could re-introduce the DP with complete success. You seem to think that I would have 100's of people put down. There would be very few. I have no idea whether Mr Philpot would be one of them but I would support a properly implemented system.

p.s. Can we give this a rest now. The posts are getting ever longer and my fingers won't take much more. We disagree on fundamental issues that neither of us is going to change our view of.

 

[estebanrey]

No, they thought they were right but anyone with a shred of intelligence or honesty would admit that what they deemed enough proof 50 years ago was not particularly sound

Jesus H Christ.

Can you seriously not see the flaw in what you are saying? You are applying retrospective logic. You are using knowledge we have now and applying them to how people thought 50 years ago.

50 years ago they did think their evidence was sound because they din't have the advances we do now. Hence, under your rules, people would have been convicted and killed to later be found out innocent.

The same thing will happen in another 50 years, and another 50 years after that. At any given time people will always think they have a system that almost guarantees they have the right man.

And just like you think today we can be 100% in some cases, some of those will turn out to be wrong when new technology evidence comes out in the future.

. If you could go back and talk to the people handing out the sentences and said to them "you are very sure that this person committed the crime but are you 100% positive?" they would say no.

But the justice system hasn't changed since though. It's not like 50 years ago it said you can convict people based on a hunch or 75% proof. It was 'beyond reasonable doubt' then as well, so using your logic that they didn't have very good tools then no one should have been convicted at all back then.

Its the same today only we have a lot better means of proving when someone is 100% guilty.

There is nothing today that proves 100% guilt.

Even back then, if 100 people from all walks of life saw someone murdered very clearly and saw who it was and all of them confirmed the same guy who was arrested just after he did it, they would have been 100% sure.

No they (the jury) wouldn't. It could be a conspiracy arranged by 100 people to have someone they hated killed.

We have progressed you know. There are critical points in the development of every field and we have reached that in criminal prosecution. We know when evidence is good, circumstantial, open to interpretation and when there is a chance it can be wrong.

As you keep missing, we thought that 50 years ago too, and 100 years ago and will think it in 100 years time and look back on today and be shocked how bad our crime detection was.

I am positive there will be. Whats the relevance.

So you are positive will find new ways to detecting and solving crimes, including things that could overturn current convictions yet you still think we should kill a few people that could later turn out to be innocent?

You don't think you can be 100% sure about anything. I do. If we only give the DP to people we are 100% sure about based on our current knowledge we won't have a problem. If you don't agree that there are crimes where someones guilt is 100% then you will never agree. If I thought the same I would disagree with the DP.

I disagree with your use of 100%.

Yes it is.

No it isn't. And your insistence that science is 100% sure of anything only shows your lack of knowledge about how science works.

Science only ever offer the 'best explanation we have', it never claims absolute truth over anything. Here is a great quote by Erich Fromm...

"The history of thought is the history of an ever-increasing approximation to the truth. Scientific knowledge is not absolute but optimal; it contains the optimum of truth attainable in a given historical period."

You seemingly disagree and now think we've reached a point where can talk in absolutes. I disagree, and so would all of the scientific world I'd imagine.

No, there is no room for error in 100%. If there is any way that the person might not have committed the crime they don't get the DP.

So given nothing can be 100%, no one would get the DP then?

To cover themselves. Did the police have anything to do with the fire? Are they covering something up?

How would you plant evidence that proved 100% someone is guilty. You seem to think that when I say 100% I just mean pretty sure. Please give an example of something the police could do to make someone appear 100% guilty.

Way to avoid the point, you claimed that part of you being "100% sure" that Philpott did it was the police recordings. All I've done is show the police have fabricated evidence in the past, their motivation for doing it or not is irrelevant, it shows police evidence is not this magical 100% proof you think it is.

I'm not saying the police have fabricated anything in this case, I'm saying that whilst there is the smallest possibility they could then you cannot kill people based on it.

That is a rubbish sound bite that people love to bandy about. Why is punishing someone for taking a life always revenge. Anything else can be punishment but not taking someones life who has ruined the lives of countless others.

It is revenge because it's a special punishment, contrary to how the rest of the justice systems works, reserved for a small subset of crimes that cause outrage.

It's no different to suggesting burglars should be beaten up or rapists having their genitals cut off. It's a knee-jerk and emotional response driven by human's natural desire for 'retribution'

Probably most murder cases. There was the case of the guy who shot his family in their farmhouse years ago and claimed it was the daughter. Most cases come under this. They are almost positive they have the right guy but there are plenty of explanations as to why it might not have been him. They are very unlikely but possible. No DP.

And I can offer you some unlikely but not impossible scenarios for Philpott being innocent too.

Thats how things work. Were we all discussing North Korea at length the other day. People discuss what is currently in the news.

You've missed the point. You cannot hang someone based on how the public feel, it must be based on their crime only.

Almost certain. Exactly. You don't need a big gap like you suggest, you either have 100% proof or you don't.

As I've established, you don't and probably never will.

That is what murder investigations are, they are science. I don't know about you but I would trust top scientists slightly more than a judge.

Whether they are more trustworthy than judges is irrelevant to whether they can be wrong or not.

They can be, and I wouldn't the deaths of innocent people based on bad science.

No, but in the case of a panel that decided the death penalty was on the table, I would have a second opinion. Do you seriously want me to write a paper on exactly how every detail of this system would work.

Well you can but it's already full of holes already.

None of these examples even come close to proof. Christ, I don't think any of them would even be enough to get a conviction. Defence lawyers would have a field day with all of those cases.

Well this is clearly silly. If defence teams would walk over them then why didn't they at the trial, why did the person get convicted in the first place?

I've shown you just two examples there where scientists have helped to wrongly convict people, these same scientists and experts who have been proved to be fallible would then be put on some panel to decide the fate of a human life?

Really?

 

[Jason2]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...lers-boast-sex-visiting-childrens-graves.html

Absolutely disgusting! This despicable human being should be put to death. I sincerely hope there are many on the inside gunning for him, 'cause right now justice has not been served.

I have had enough of a society that treats these pigs as victims. The only victims in this are the poor children. Do they get a second chance? No. So why should the perpetrators. It's a good job the 'apologetics' are few and far between.

EDIT: This is doing rounds:

 

[Pestilence]

Has Jason2 taken a knock on the head over the past couple of weeks?

 

[elmarko]

Has Jason2 taken a knock on the head over the past couple of weeks?

It seems that way.

It's a shame somebody who feels so strong about the subject is unwilling to spend some time researching it.