He murdered a guy. 12 years, he’ll serve half of that, and the judge said he was happy to send a murderer down with all the power he has, for a length of time he feels is adequate for this terrible crime. Apparently.
12 years? 6 in reality? Life sentence?
Discuss. And for those who need babying, yes, I am starting a discussion life sentences.
I’m not a fan of manditory minimums at all. I think it takes the equity concept out of justice.
Whats sad is in the USA we have people who smoke a(literally one ever) joint, or get a blow job at 16 who will spend as much time in prison as your ‘mate’.
Crazy.
I was once at a maximum securty prison talking with a prison admin. She informed me probably half the people simply had terrible legal counsel.
Crazy.
6yrs is short for murder… sounds like he got convicted of manslaughter, not murder. Two different charges then you have the degrees of each.
Each carries a min and a max. Then the judge and jury takes in to account circumstances etc.
Sure some folks are in prison for a ridiculous amount of time too much or too little. but, there are no set hard rules. It does, as Dio said, have to do alot with how good the lawyers are for both sides.
It would be great if folks could be seperated in prison according to their crime and age. Sticking a young personbusted for a joint in with hard cores is downright stupid and cruel. It should be set up better but, no one cares about stopping crime. That kid will come out more criminal than citizen if that kid comes out at all.
If crime stopped for real… too much money and too many jobs would be lost. Crime is a booming business for the gov’t. It pays well.
Mind giving us some context?
Yeah, I have no idea what the OP is trying to say.
My point is that according to the judge, 6yrs is a tought and long life sentence. It was murder, not manslaughter, regardless of what his solicitor tried to tell the court 
Point me to that judge, I want to commit a hideous crime and I want that guy to be my judge.
I would say your mate got off darn near scott free and got extremely lucky whith the choice of judges.
That judge is a pushover and is any real criminal’s dream judge.
I friend of mine got a life sentence for a rape and murder when I was about 17. That’d be 11 years ago. He’s still in there. No parole. His defense was that he was so strung out on crack that he didn’t know what he was doing. While I think that this may have been true, the judge wasn’t hearing it.
That’s a horrible defense. He should appeal on the grounds that he was strung out on crack while giving his defense.
Sadly, the guy actually was strung out on crack. He went to jail while his girlfriend was pregnant w/ his kid and I don’t think he’s ever seen the child. In a couple years he’ll have spent more of his life in jail than not.
And you still do this stuff?
Prison is a pathetic joke and what they call reform or rehabilitation is the highest insanity.
As a law student in Australia… I think the reasoning used is that by taking cocaine your friend was ‘reckless’ to the possiblity that he would commit murder and rape while hight. That then gives the prosecution the necessary mental element to convict. It’s a difficult area. On one hand you can say that he was wrong in taking cocaine… but does that ‘wrong’ act extend to what he does afterwards?
Personally, I think that the law itself is not the solution to everything. If it was, I wouldnt have to read about all these rapes and murders. Simply extending the sentences for crimes will only mean you put more people in prison. But what about educating people NOT to do stupid things in the first place? Or giving people an opportunity to escape poverty and destitution…
Edit: on the length of sentences and stuff… To us in the public, we whinge when we hear murderers getting X amount of years. But think of it this way, when you’re in prison, assaults, particularly sexual assault is almost unpoliced. The guards treat you like dirt, and the other prisoners can be true psychopaths… and no this isnt Shawshank Redemption spiel… its a problem I’ve had to read about in Australian prisons…
So when we whinge about the sentence… think about it for more than 3 seconds…
Think about being dead, A dead person would possibly prefer such treatments for a number of years over being dead. Unfortunately once you are dead noone can ask you what you prefer so we must speak for the dead… 6 years for murder, Even in the worst prison , you are getting off easy.
Kris, you said yourself the dead can’t speak. Maybe you don’t want to be dead now, but you aren’t dead. You don’t know what death is like. You’re assuming that it’s worse than 6 years of hell, but you have no way of backing that up. Prison might be far, far worse, even for one night.
Personally, I think that the ‘punishment’ should do three things, and none of them involves how the dead person feels: quarantine dangerous individuals; rehabilitate them so they can be prooductive members of society again; and force them to be productive for society to the same extent that they hurt it when they commit their crime. In otherwords, the modern punitive system is shite.
Carleas, I agree with you on what punishment should do and where it is today.
To speak for the dead we can only go by what we believe they would want. Frankly if someone killed me I would want that person to either be killed or be dumped into the darkest depths of a prison infested with the most vilest of vermin for eternity.
Now I am at an extreme end of belief I know that, I want the direst of revenge for stealing my life away. Many people would forgive their killer pat him/her on the head and say have a good life.
So you do something in between. while prison sucks and does not do what it is supposed to do it still serves a purpose. Now folks that commit crimes know that prisons suck. They know they are horrible places to be. Yet,they still commit crimes. A killer kills a person for revenge, for passion , for fun, etc. Now if that person is on drugs or emotionally prodded into it. there are extenuating circumstances. you can give them leeway. As in the person mentioned in this thread.
But still to make a sentence too light encourages others to follow. Some Brainiacs will say hey If I do this and this I can get away with doing this and only get this…there must be lines drawn… 6 yrs for murder is pretty light.
It would be best to rehabilitate, But, Carleas how many people are qualified to work with criminals? How many people are learning how to rehabilitiate criminals? How many people would volunteer to help without pay or heck volunteer to risk their life even for pay? To get a system such as our prison system to rehab, it would take alot of people from the surrounding communities to rehabilitate prisoners . I don’t see hands going up to do this,do you?
Right now we can only make prison a deterent and that ain’t workin so well anymore.
Well, maybe once the criminal justice system adopts the “degrees” approach to murder charges sentancing will be a little more sensible.
Until then my friend is serving a harsh six years in Durham for plain old murder.
Plain old murder? 
Is there a stylish murder? Or a modern murder? Or perhaps to get a harsh sentence for murder you should do it with an artist’s flair?
6yrs is light, your friend ought to be glad he is not in a Mexican prison.
It would be unfair to use one person to set an example for everyone else. I don’t agree with sending people to prison because I don’t agree with having a government or police to rule our lives. One thing I’ve always believed in is to never hold something against someone for doing something they couldn’t control. For example, manslaughter, in my opinion, should not be punishable if proven to be 100% accidental.
People who would rehabilitate criminals of course would be payed by the government. It would be a regular government job, of course positions will be filled up. I think it’s a great idea.