is that al megrahi still alive? nearly a year after his release - another lefty

StevieJ

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

Let's be clear, it's just speculation as to the whether there was sufficient evidence or not.

The fact remains and is still true today, that he was found guilty and convicted of a terrorist act.

While all you guys are being compassionate, why not release all convicted murderers, starting with this one

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutcliffe

He only murdered a fraction of those that Al Megrahi did and has already spent longer in captivity

In the US case I mentioned earlier one man is on death row and two with life sentences with barely a shred of evidence , the obvious injustice piles up but you obviously believe they should throw away the key, just like the judge :eek:

http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/judging-burnett/Content?oid=1013236

One exhibit submitted to Burnett last year may prove particularly potent. That is an affidavit by Little Rock attorney Lloyd Warford in which Warford states that Kent Arnold, the jury foreman at the Echols-Baldwin trials, disobeyed Burnett's order not to discuss the case outside of court.

Warford also claims that the foreman told him that he persuaded the jury to consider information that the prosecutors were not allowed to introduce.

Burnett sealed Warford's affidavit and took no action on it. It remained sealed until recently, when I was allowed to view it at the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Warford wrote that he doubted Arnold would be selected as a juror because Arnold had a relative facing prosecution, he clearly “knew way too much about the case,” and “he seemed to have made up his mind the defendants were guilty.” According to Warford, Arnold once told him, “All you had to do to know that Echols was a devil worshiper was to look in his eyes and you knew he was evil.”

“Eventually,” Warford wrote, “Kent said this prosecutor has not done his job and that if the prosecution didn't come up with something powerful the next day, there was probably going to be an acquittal. At one point, I distinctly remember him saying, ‘If anyone is going to convince this jury to convict, it is going to have to be me.' ”

During the trial, a police officer did, in fact, allude to “the statement of Jessie Misskelley.” Defense lawyers immediately moved for a mistrial, but Burnett denied the motion. The judge cautioned the jurors to disregard the police officer's statement.

“Kent told me if the confession had not been mentioned in court, then he might not have been able to convince the swing jurors to convict,” Warford said in his affidavit. “He said several times that he could not believe how many jurors had not been aware of Misskelley's confession until it was mentioned in court.”

Bearing in mind that the confession extracted above, was from a educationally sub normal person (IQ 72) after 12 hours questioning with no lawyer and only a fraction remains on tape with gross inaccuracies being made and corrected by coercion and later withdrawn in its entirety.

IveSeenTheLight

StevieJ wrote: »

the obvious injustice piles up but you obviously believe they should throw away the key, just like the judge :eek:

I simply believe that we should as a society be less lenient with convicted criminal.
I believe the punishment should suit the crime.
If the punishments were harsher, I believe it would aid a deterrent to crime in the first place.

In Saudi Arabia, they cut off the hands of thieves.
Theft is now so low that I've been told that market tradesemen can leave clips of money hanging from their stall without fearing it will be stolen.
Theft does still happen, but the detterent is there meaning the crime is dramatically reduced.

I also don't like the expense for housing criminals, but accept we have to live with it.
If we can reduce crime via having harsher punishments, then hopefully in time there will be less crime, therefore less criminal in detention.

StevieJ

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I simply believe that we should as a society be less lenient with convicted criminal.
I believe the punishment should suit the crime.
If the punishments were harsher, I believe it would aid a deterrent to crime in the first place.

Interesting that you use the phrase convicted criminal rather than guilty person and still you seem to condone the chopping off of hands, what is your view on stoning women for alleged infidelity :eek: I suppose if we brought that in as well it would likely keep families together.

adouglasmhor

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I simply believe that we should as a society be less lenient with convicted criminal.
I believe the punishment should suit the crime.
If the punishments were harsher, I believe it would aid a deterrent to crime in the first place.

In Saudi Arabia, they cut off the hands of thieves.
Theft is now so low that I've been told that market tradesemen can leave clips of money hanging from their stall without fearing it will be stolen.
Theft does still happen, but the detterent is there meaning the crime is dramatically reduced.

I also don't like the expense for housing criminals, but accept we have to live with it.
If we can reduce crime via having harsher punishments, then hopefully in time there will be less crime, therefore less criminal in detention.

Well there's you answer, off you go and live in Saudi, the well known paradise used as an example by the vengeful and frightened.

IveSeenTheLight

StevieJ wrote: »

Interesting that you use the phrase convicted criminal rather than guilty person and still you seem to condone the chopping off of hands, what is your view on stoning women for alleged infidelity :eek: I suppose if we brought that in as well it would likely keep families together.

Is infedelity a criminal offence in this country?

Chopping off of hands is extreme and very harsh, but what is the outcome many years after it was introduced?
the answer is less theft crime.

If you are not a criminal, then you should have nothing to fear.
If we have a harsher punishment system then it goes a long way to deterring the crime in the first place.

I once had to go to court on a speeding fine.
I was doing pretty well for myself and got 3 points and a £250 fine.
It was on a dual carriageway leaving a town and I was caught doing 55 on a 40 stretch.
The thing is, on the same day, I saw people that had been banged up over the weekend on drug crime, knife crime, fighting and causing bodily harm who all received lesser punishments.

My crime did not hurt anybody yet I was dealt more harshly than others who did cause harm to others.

Let's take another less extreme example.
It was once mooted about putting chips in cars so that a central computer knew where you were, how long it took, driving distances etc etc etc.

People oppose this as it is a big brother state, but in reality, if you don't speed and you don't incur fines, if it was used to charge people for the roads and time they used fairly as opposed to raod tax being the same for a salesman and a retired person drivin only a couple of thousand miles a year, what is the problem.

I'm happy to have far more camera's on street corners, capturing the goings on in peoples lives.

If you don't do anything illegal, you should not have a problem with it

IveSeenTheLight

adouglasmhor wrote: »

Well there's you answer, off you go and live in Saudi, the well known paradise used as an example by the vengeful and frightened.

I'm not stating that Saudi is the epitomy of a justice system, simply taking one example of a harsher system and how it has reduced it's crime.

adouglasmhor

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I'm not stating that Saudi is the epitomy of a justice system, simply taking one example of a harsher system and how it has reduced it's crime.

They have had those laws for a long time, can you show stats or a graph showing how crime has reduced over time?

IveSeenTheLight

StevieJ wrote: »

what is your view on stoning women for alleged infidelity

I obviously am not in agreement with this.

I live in a country where they sentenced a Malaysia Model for drinking beer in public last year.
I did not agree with that either.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/malaysian-models-whipping-sentence-sparks-backlash-20090726-dxb0.html

You do however need to respect and uphold the law of whatever country you reside in

IveSeenTheLight

adouglasmhor wrote: »

They have had those laws for a long time, can you show stats or a graph showing how crime has reduced over time?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=saudi+theft+crime+statistics

StevieJ

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

.

If you are not a criminal, then you should have nothing to fear.
If we have a harsher punishment system then it goes a long way to deterring the crime in the first place.

I suppose emphasis is on should :eek:

Recent developments in DNA profiling technology have helped quash many convictions.
One of the most famous involved Sean Hodgson from County Durham, who spent 27 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
Mr Hodgson suffered one of the worst miscarriages of justice in English legal history after DNA tests, not available at the time of his 1982 murder trial, revealed he could not have killed Southampton barmaid Teresa de Simone in 1979.

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/evening-chronicle-news/2010/04/12/dna-could-free-murder-convict-after-12-years-72703-26224759/