Good Old British Justice!

[fozzybear]

A lawyer slices and dices his wife and is to spend 30 months in prison.

Lotto lout Michael Carroll gets 9 months for threatening people with baseball bat.

Mmmm....

 

[Garp]

Manslaughter? What on Earth is this country coming to?

Go look up the definition of Manslaughter.

Murder = Pre-meditated killing, i.e. you deliberately set out with the specific intention to kill someone.

Manslaughter = You didn't intend to kill them, but for whatever reason, passion of the moment or whatever, you did kill them.

As was proved in the case, he didn't sit there and plan everything, he didn't callously set up some kind of way to make it look accidental. 5 days after she confessed she'd been cheating on him and was now leaving him to stay with her lover, he snapped. I think I might if I found out someone I'd been married to and loved deeply had been cheating on me and was leaving me. In a fit of rage as a consequence of her actions he attacked her, something that does happen. Its even legally defined as a "crime of passion".
This case is NOT murder, it is manslaughter.

 

[daz]

Go look up the definition of Manslaughter.

Literally the slaughter of a man.

How it's less than murder, I'll never know. o )

 

[Vertigo]

You'd think the UK was one of the worst countries in the world the way people on this forum go on about it.

How about emigrating to Somalia, where there has been no central government for 15 years.

Such comparisons are hardly fair. Let's try comparing the UK with its peers, i.e. other western European ones, in which case I can't think of anywhere that's as generally screwed as we are. Taxed to death, law and order breaking down, health service falling apart, useless public transport infrastructure and outmoded concepts of democracy.

 

[robmiller]

RAH I'D BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF HIM HE DESERVES TO HANG WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING TO THE COUNTRY WORTHLESS LEFTY LIBERAL PC RUBBISH

 

[robmiller]

How about emigrating to Somalia, where there has been no central government for 15 years.

Yah but no taxes man

 

[Dave M]

Literally the slaughter of a man.

How it's less than murder, I'll never know. o )

If I hit you, you fall over cracking your head on the pavement and die - that is man slaughter, I killed you, there is no doubting my actions directly caused your death.

But I didn't mean to.

I wouldn't call a frenzied knife attack man slaughter though, certainly diminished responsibility, crime of passion and all that - I'm guessing the prosecution went for manslaughter though because they thought the jury might not go for murder, as in this country we do not have grades of murder, all murder is life.

 

[asim]

I take no sides on this. I just want to say if he is a normal human being who went through some sort of depressive state then he must understand what he's done and what he is feeling now is going to eat him up inside.

If I committed such an act I wouldnt be able to live with myself. That might be punishment enough.

 

[Scania]

The scary thing about our "Justice" system is, it would appear, most crimes when weighed up against the exected punishment are, in the minds of many, well worth the risk.

Perhaps if 10 years ment 10 years this situation would change?

If this is the case, why can a mere truck driver like I clearly see this, but, not the Lord Chief justice?

 

[Raymond Lin]

If I hit you, you fall over cracking your head on the pavement and die - that is man slaughter, I killed you, there is no doubting my actions directly caused your death.

But I didn't mean to.

I wouldn't call a frenzied knife attack man slaughter though, certainly diminished responsibility, crime of passion and all that - I'm guessing the prosecution went for manslaughter though because they thought the jury might not go for murder, as in this country we do not have grades of murder, all murder is life.

The prosecution can stil go for Murder, but Manslaughter as a fall back.

there are talks on reform on the Murder system to closer to that of the US syste, with degrees of murder but that is still years away. See here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4574661.stm

Anyway. back on topic, Manslaughter is DIFFERENT to Murder as long as the defence can prove that Diminish responsibility.

 

[Yucca]

Diminished responsibility due to depression in a murder/manslaughter case is very hard to prove and unless proven beyond reasonable doubt they would not reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter.

Therefore if the jury were convinced that it was manslaughter rather than murder, thats good enough for me. As for the jail time, thats up to judges discretion. They dont just make anyone into a judge you know!

Does seem a tad easy going on the sentence but without hearing the case totally like a jury and judge would have done...

 

[Killerkebab]

Perhaps if 10 years ment 10 years this situation would change?

If this is the case, why can a mere truck driver like I clearly see this, but, not the Lord Chief justice?

Maybe because that is not the case.

 

[Raymond Lin]

The problem (not problem technically, more lack of understanding) is that laymans do not understand the workings of the law, and how it is applied most of the time, and people read headlines and take it on the surface. All you are reading is secondhand information, to be able to make a fair comment on the sentence, one should be at least be at court for that case through out and would really help if they know the legal arguments both prosecution and defence present their case.

If you have done that AND still thinks the sentence is light then fair enough, reading off a paragraph from a newspaper isn't the way to make judgement.

 

[Pinkeyes]

What I've found, in just about every single case, is that even where a relatively unbiased organ such as Auntie Beeb is reporting, the reports are, at the very least, curtailed and somewhat superficial. This is because legal decisions are often complex. They rely on this point of law, and that, and the difference between this point and that.


Snipped to keep the size down..


My point, as I guess is clear, is that while a sentence may SEEM unreasonably light (and I'll grant you, it does), without having seen and heard all the evidence, we aren't really in a position to judge and NO newspaper report, however well-being and unbiased, has the space to present anything even close to a complete account. And if they did, almost nobody would read it.

I understand what you are saying.

The report could have been biased. The medical expert could say he will never do such a thing again. The court might have shown the whole case in a different light had we all sat there.

Forgetting all that. Some facts that I believe to be true:
He repeatedly stabbed his wife in the face 5 days after she told him she was leaving him.

He said he was really sorry after the verdict - not that the above was in fact a great big lie.

If he was a low class, poor, unemployed man, living on a rough estate - I believe he would have been locked up and the key thrown away. As it was he was a rich lawyer.

Answer me one question. (This is a little far fetched, but i hope you see my point).
Based on the fact that the best medical advice in the world says this guy would not commit this crime again.
Would you let him hold a big bloody kitchen knife in his hands and tell him a bit of bad news after he is released ?

me neither...

 

[LoadsaMoney]

Lets hear it for England, the laughing stock of the world, other countries must be ******* themselves at how we deal with crime, were a ******* joke.

 

[Meridian]

Or are we supposed to just lynch people on the basis of newspaper reports and an emotive response, and call it justice?

Long and honourable (?) tradition on these boards - people don't usually let the facts get in the way of a good rant.


M

 

[Sequoia]

If he didn't plan to kill his wife, then why did he keep the kitchen knife in a bedside cabinet? Luckily it just happened to be there when he sliced and diced his wife in their bedroom.

It all sounds very convenient to me.

It can be intentional, and still not murder. If he was suffering from diminished responsibility, that drops murder to manslaughter. My point was that murder is a legal definition, as is the distinction between murder and manslaughter, not a common-sense one. And because it's a legal distinction, it's for the courts to decide, not the papers or an emotive reaction to them.

 

[Sequoia]

Long and honourable (?) tradition on these boards - people don't usually let the facts get in the way of a good rant.

It does ruin a good argument on the boards, that's true.

 

[Sequoia]

I wouldn't call a frenzied knife attack man slaughter though, certainly diminished responsibility, crime of passion and all that - I'm guessing the prosecution went for manslaughter though because they thought the jury might not go for murder, as in this country we do not have grades of murder, all murder is life.

The thing is, diminished responsiblity is actually (and rightly) quite hard to prove, as a defendent, but if you do manage it, it is a defence against murder and the offence then becomes manslaughter.

 

[paul@]

2 years is nothing, this lawyer should be locked away for at least 15 years minimum before applying for parole.

A mockery of our legal system as usual.