Thread: Discharge Without Conviction

Yep and are so far out of touch!!

Originally Posted by Sidney

The only thing that I have learned from studying law, is that the sort of opinions expressed on here about the suitability or not of sentencing is almost always without any merit. It is certainly without proper understanding of either the actual incident or event (relying on the media in one breath when it suits while castigating them for not representing yours adequately about your interests in the next, is both typical and hypocritical) and shows no understanding of public policy considerations or sociological considerations.

It provides no understanding of externalities that affect the wider community or the families of those who deviate, nor the ongoing long stream effects of additional criminal creation, simply by the result of pandering to such expert public emotional response of the type that Utimitsu has valiantly tried to address on here.

It is an expert job, one that can never be done correctly because its always about tradeoffs. Your ignorant opinions don't matter, mine don't either and I know more about this than you do. I have no idea about what is the most appropriate outcome for this case, and the only thing I learn on here is that the ignorant somehow do know and somehow think that they should be contributing to making those decisions.

I must have not gotten the memo that said that ignorance was a prerequisite for the responsible role of becoming a judge.

PS if you are struggling with the meaning of any of the words in the first paragraph, you by the new measure of suitability are now even more qualified for determining the fate of any random matter that emotionally stirs you....

Does the first paragraph summarize a jury in a court of law?

Originally Posted by Steve123

3 clicks left and 2 up

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and then you still miss by shooting two yards left and ten forward of your boots...

Originally Posted by outlander

and then you still miss by shooting two yards left and ten forward of your boots...

Please explain?

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Originally Posted by Steve123

Please explain?

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That's what usually happens when I sight in a new rifle.

Originally Posted by outlander

Does the first paragraph summarize a jury in a court of law?

Yep .. juries don't work because of individual competence of the 12 good men and true - they mostly work because of the group dynamic, the ability of a group to produce an outcome that exceeds an individual response, and the strict control of the court on emotional inputs and relevance of evidence that is presented to the group. The error rate is designed to favour the innocent by about 100/1 with the result that more of the guilty are presumed innocent than is accurate and that is the price we pay to have public connection with the justice system.

It is a constant question of competence but overall it sort of works...

Originally Posted by Sidney

Yep .. juries don't work because of individual competence of the 12 good men and true - they mostly work because of the group dynamic, the ability of a group to produce an outcome that exceeds an individual response, and the strict control of the court on emotional inputs and relevance of evidence that is presented to the group. The error rate is designed to favour the innocent by about 100/1 with the result that more of the guilty are presumed innocent than is accurate and that is the price we pay to have public connection with the justice system.

It is a constant question of competence but overall it sort of works...

i spent 3 days as a juror. it was a case of one crim versus the others that dobbed him in. there were 4-5 charges but the witnesses admitted at most times they were so damn stoned they didnt member correctly . all in all 12 jurors, 3 days, one p.d sentence

Originally Posted by Ultimitsu

you have to write to your local MP to convince him that section 9 (2) (c) of the Sentencing Act 2002 is wrong and should be repealed, the section says this:

(2) In sentencing or otherwise dealing with an offender the court must take into account the following mitigating factors to the extent that they are applicable in the case:
(c) the conduct of the victim.

If you manage to convince him, he will start a member's bill asking the rest of the Parliament to agree with him. If over half of the parliament agrees with him the bill will be passed eventually and amendment to the law will be made.


Keep in mind, merely make your position known, without more, will not serve any purpose. Because in the end of the day this is democracy, you have to get over 50% support in the Parliament for a bill to pass into law, to have real change.

Provocation was in the past an actual defence. about 20 years ago following a case where a man killed a homosexual man for making an advance on him, the public had an outcry and the law was changed. Provocation defence was removed.

But it appears the provocation defence notions did not get eradicated, some survive and colonise the wardrobes of NZ judges. But it is nevertheless a nonsense as provocation goes out the window when someone leaves for home and returns with an offensive weapon. Your attempt to educate this forum is offensive @Ultimitsu and you should go wash your mouth.

Actually I am pretty sure that provocation was in effect until Clayton Weatherstone killed his girlfriend? It was removed in response to that. So far as that is concerned it is again something not understood by our commentary teams on here.

Assume for a moment in time that you caught somebody raping your small daughter and the resultant blow you applied to the back of his head killed him.... why should the court not consider provocation as contributory to the act?

Just because a defence team claims evidence of contributory behaviour, does not mean the court has to find that behaviour justified or not, relevant or not, legitimate or not. To have that information not be considered by the court, just because the public are too emotionally immature and too ignorant to understand that a fair justice system is not interfered with by a stupid public or stupid politicians, is absurd.

@Sidney What do you think of the French system with three judges instead of a Jury? Or the system somewhere in Scandinavia where they have professional juries with Qualifications in law?

Every system has an error rate... pros and cons...

I quite like the inquisitorial systems that have the court as agent of the state seeking to establish what happened rather than the adversarial approach that we have have, but I haven't ever done any comparative research on the 2 systems.

The competence issue is better dealt with in other systems, but the impartiality aspects have more questions about them. The adversarial system also has the appearance of robust challenge of the powerful state which doesn't happen in inquisitorial systems, but the argument is that the state is not prosecuting it is facilitating an appointed prosecutor and defence, in Inquisitorial systems..

Its sort of hard to know...

Originally Posted by Sidney

Yep .. juries don't work because of individual competence of the 12 good men and true - they mostly work because of the group dynamic, the ability of a group to produce an outcome that exceeds an individual response, and the strict control of the court on emotional inputs and relevance of evidence that is presented to the group. The error rate is designed to favour the innocent by about 100/1 with the result that more of the guilty are presumed innocent than is accurate and that is the price we pay to have public connection with the justice system.

It is a constant question of competence but overall it sort of works...

Thanks for the explanation, Sidney. Overall it's also sort of scary.

Originally Posted by gonetropo

i spent 3 days as a juror. it was a case of one crim versus the others that dobbed him in. there were 4-5 charges but the witnesses admitted at most times they were so damn stoned they didnt member correctly . all in all 12 jurors, 3 days, one p.d sentence

In all, it was three days of your time wasted, the court personnel, tax payer funded defense and the cost of the bloke to administer the PD sentence. You have to wonder where all this is headed for.

horseshit is horseshit sdidders regardless of whether its sniffed in tha kaikoura canyon or on top of mount everest
.secondly legal beagles(fuck knows ive dealt with enough over the years)are in fact overpaid debaters in a very artificial atmosphere beholden to ritual and ingratiation.
me .Id try a lot of these pricks in a military style orderly room -cheaper and we dont have to listen to cumspots drone on.
also the prick up befre the OC/CO is often very reluctant to repeat the episode
no doubt in you ethereal grandiose rich atmosphere youll refute all i say .

Originally Posted by kotuku

horseshit is horseshit sdidders regardless of whether its sniffed in tha kaikoura canyon or on top of mount everest
.secondly legal beagles(fuck knows ive dealt with enough over the years)are in fact overpaid debaters in a very artificial atmosphere beholden to ritual and ingratiation.
me .Id try a lot of these pricks in a military style orderly room -cheaper and we dont have to listen to cumspots drone on.
also the prick up befre the OC/CO is often very reluctant to repeat the episode
no doubt in you ethereal grandiose rich atmosphere youll refute all i say .

I agree with you Kotuku and would add that Sidney's horse must be about 25 Hands.