Sad joke

[MD]

Sorry Hitcher but there is no affordable and workable alternatives available to society at present apart from isolate the offender. It's a similar situation to cancer. Doctors would love to have a pill that would magically clear up a cancer. Sadly all they can do at present is cut out the cancer and hope that the rest of the body survives. One day we may have a cure. With violent crime the body is our society. There are only two options available to us when someone kills someone else
1. do nothing because we can't change their violent tendencies and allow the offender to move freely among us'. I doubt that approach will deter people.
Or
2. remove the offender from society to protect others and hopefully act as punishment & deterrent
Agreed, as a deterrent prison is not very sucessful. But faced with those two choices I sleep better knowing that those murderers that we know of, are behind bars.
The bleeding hearts are so quick to defend the offender but never seem to be there to defend the dead victims of crime? Why is that?
Bleeding hearts also overlook the fact that those baying for blood, would not be baying for blood, if said 14 y.o. had not killed an innocent man. The 'Kid' made a conscious decision to do what he did. Unless he was 'breathtakingly' unintelligent he had to know it would likely kill. Most kids know by about 6 yrs what hurts others and is therefore wrong.
There is a despicable group within our society allowing these crimes to be perpetrated and I blame them more than the offenders and the their upbringing etc - Judges and Parole Boards. How many people have died because they failed to protect us. Anyone remember the RSA murders, the Otago schoolgirl raped and killed by a paroled rapist, the elderly Kapiti lady raped and killed by a rapist out on parole. I'm sure we could all name more.
Would be great if we could add something to the water supply and people would be nice. Until then the rights of the innocent must come first and we deserve protection by whatever means are available to us.
How could the judge say his act was breathtakingly stupid, not manslaughter. Drop 8kg from 5m on to the judge and ask if that was just a breathtaking prank. I consider the judge the breathtakingly stupid one.

[marty]

i'd like to hear magic fairy's sentence suggestion.

mine - 20 years for manslaughter, parole no earlier than 10.

life for murder. life means life.

he was charged as an adult - should be sentenced as one. spend the first 3 years in juvie detention, then on to adult prison. the longer that dangerous social misfits such as these are out of circulation, the better. it's not my problem that the prisons are filling up - hey here's an idea - stop committing crime!

what pisses me off is the greenies saying that because the prisons are filling up then we are obviously incarcerating too many people. have they actually looked at why these people are being jailed? there is a reason for it, and instead of releasing early, bailing when they shouldn't, not imprisoning cause the prison is too full, they need to look at the root cause for it. in the meantime, lots of people are going to be bad, and they should go to prison. why should females feel at risk from rapists, families be scared of their males, accountants be able to walk home without being murdered by a random act with a baseball bat, parents worry about the p dealers in town, good people should be able to invest their life savings without being scammed etc etc. jail is the result of the cancer (as was said above). deal with the cancer of course, but in the meantime, some people are going to be affected by it - just do all that can be done to prevent it to being the innocent ones

[Crasherfromwayback]

Would be great if we could add something to the water supply and people would be nice.

We could, but we'd get more than four years for supplying ecstasy.

[judecatmad]

I hear a lot of heat but I'm not reading any light. So what do all of you outraged folk think would have been a "fairer" sentence? You may wish to consider:

- First offender
- 15-years old
- Manslaughter.

I'd like to hear some reasoned responses, rather than just a bunch of vigilantes baying for blood.

I think regardless of first offence (when you're looking at this sort of offence, that it's your first really shouldn't be a good thing....), a minimum 10 year sentence with no parole should apply. Age shouldn't really come into it. That's my view on this sort of manslaughter.

If truth be told, no length of sentence is going to make the dead guy's loved ones feel any better, but 4 years truly is an insult and it's really no deterrent to any other kid who is stupid enough to still be thinking that what this kid did is 'cool' and a bit of a hoot.

This was not some freak accident where a set of circumstances which could not have been predicted came together and resulted in someone's tragic death - that sort of manslaughter is something completely different. No, this kid took what could only be described as a primitive but lethal weapon and dropped it into the path of fast moving vehicles. It's not murder but my God, it's close.

I'm old school (Policeman's daughter) and truly believe that 'life means life' - if you give a life sentence for a murder, then how can 4 years for the unintentional killing of someone (which is what manslaughter is) be justified? First offence or not.

Would anybody who has chirped out in this kid's defence feel the same if he were a 15 year old drink driver, several times over the limit who caused an accident which killed someone?

OK, I have no more c's worth left to give! I'm off to bed!! Been a hard day!

Have a good night folks

[stunz]

heres my 2c...er... 5c wor...um, crap! 10c worth...

That little shite bag new exactly what he was doing.

He would have timed dropping that lump of rock to coincide exactly with meeting the front windscreen of that guys car. IMHO, thats premeditation. My guess is he would have stood there after releasing it and watched it go through the screen, patting himself on the back for his great aiming skills. For the defence to convince the jury that he didnt know what he was doing is mind boggling. But then hey! thats what our tax dollar is for eh?

He'll stew in an institution for another year before he's released. (4yr = 2yr, 1 already served, possibly get home detention). By then he would have screwed as much as he could out of our failure of a system (and got some tips on how to carry on doing it) and he will get more aid and support when he's released to help him 'integrate' back into society.

Meanwhile, the family of the poor bugger he deliberately killed will get nothing in the way of support from the very same system. Yea. Thats justice...Aotearoa style...support the offender, screw the victim. go figure.

[Bussaman]

An eye for an eye I say.
Bring back the death penalty.

[Patrick]

Watch this space... what is the bet he will not learn from it and not contribute to society?????? He will be out next year.... I bet it won't take too long for him to be in trouble again.

Lead poisoning works well.

[Ixion]

It's not possible to pass judgement on one so young without knowing him a lot more than anyone can from press reports.

If he really is a stupid kid who did a REAL dumb thing, but is basically all there (and I did some REAL dumb things when I was his age, 'cept I was lucky and noone got hurt); then an indefinate period (but I'd expect at least 3 or 4 years) in a "boot camp" army style place. Strict discipline and all that, but teach him something useful, give him some foundations (do what his parents should have done)

If he's do far gone for salvage ; a quick bullet to the head. Not revenge or bloodlust, just clinical logic. If he can't be salvaged to become a productive member of society, eliminate him.

[Patrick]

Too right Ixion. Learn some hard work and respect and values for a change in the Army or something like it, but we all know that isn't going to happen in his nice kiddie retreat.

[rwh]

This is a scary thread.

I see 4 reasons for whatever sentence is handed down, for whatever crime:

1. Isolation - make sure they can't do it again

2. Deterrent - try to make people not want to do it

3. Reparation - undo the damage

4. Revenge - make other people feel better

I'm happy to hear more.

Isolation:

If you're going to isolate someone, which is reasonable, you'd better have some confidence that either they're not going to do it again when they get out - otherwise the reason hasn't changed, and you might as well lock them up for ever. Oh, and you'd better be sure that they were likely to do it again in the first place.

It works as long as the sentence lasts, but my understanding is that people generally get worse, due to mixing with other criminals and probably brooding on how unfair society has been to them, building up grudges. A bit like the way people in this thread and elsewhere are backing each other up, and pushing for harsher and harsher sentences - the more people grumble about it, the tougher they want to be. I can picture exactly the same thing happening in jail, but mixed in with education on how to cause trouble.

In this case, it was a stupid prank, yes he should have seen the consequences - but he's seen them now and is unlikely to do it again. I think it's unlikely he intended to kill or even injure - there's lots of gap between cars. Probably thought they'd have to swerve a bit. And not everyone is going to figure that the car's 100km/h counts; that's not the direction the block was moving. So if he's not going to do it again, isolation isn't required, and is likely to cause more harm than good.

Deterrent:

The idea is to make other people scared of the sentence so they won't want to do it themselves (or the same person, if they haven't been isolated). For starters, it only makes sense if people are likely to want to do it themselves anyway - and if they are, then often they think it's worth it, or they won't get caught (not necessarily logically), or they're so emotional about it they're not thinking about possible sentences anyway. To me, the only things that make sense to have a deterrent for are things like shoplifting or fraud, where you can reasonably calculate an acceptable risk. And I'm sure there are many possible deterrent sentences other than jail.

Nobody else has done it as far as I know, and now that we've all seen what can happen, it's unlikely anyone else will. There's no actual gain from doing it, so not much incentive. So the deterrent, in my view, is mostly covered by such things as the general horror of seeing it in the media, and by the guy's own remorse. Get him to talk to the victim's family or work in A&E if more is required, but I think jail is pretty pointless.

Reparation:

Sure, if you've stolen something you should have to give it back - or replace something if you've damaged it. If that's possible. Jail won't ever achieve that

Other than the damage to the car, and funeral expenses etc, there's nothing that can be paid back. The guy died, and that is certainly tragic - but no form of punishment can bring him back. So there's no reparation possible - at least not for the death.

Revenge:

This seems to be what most people want. They (and I) want to see that something has been done. Most comments are phrased like it's one of the other three that's wanted, but people will keep calling for harsher punishments even when those arguments don't stack up. And in the end, isn't revenge something that 'civilised' society tries to work away from? This is the hardest bit to write. When someone does something to offend me, whether something like this, or parking in a disabled space or whatever, sometimes I'll want to hit them - but then I'll calm down and realise there's no point (and that I'm pretty hopeless at hitting people).

So in general, I think isolation is irrelevant, deterrent doesn't need to be much, maybe he should have to contribute to the cost of the funeral and the car and stuff. And perhaps a bit of revenge to keep the masses happy - how about the stocks? Anyone who wants can go pelt him with tomatoes.

I've spent a reasonable amount of time on this, but there's bound to be stuff I'll rethink (or at least wish I'd worded differently) later ... it's not fixed.


Richard

[Jonathan_D]

I can't agree with you sorry!

Yeah I did plenty of silly things when I was younger, in fact, I'm still doing them now....you shoulda seen me at Wanganui '05'!

BUT......never would I have done such a stupid and dangerous thing.

Anyone would know, from a very early age that 100kph + 8 Kilo concrete slab from 40ft = death or serious injury.

Four years is not enough for the seriousness of the crime.

Agreed.
If the kid was maybe 5 or 6 you might say that he couldn't put two and two together to equal homocide, but at 15???

At 15 I was driving my grandads truck... thus, I agree that anyone would know that car+concrete block=lunacy.

However, everyone knows that putting him away for any length of time isn't going to do anyone any good. The guy's still dead and the kid's only going to come out worse...
What do you do? Let the family decide? Capital punishment? Who knows? not I.

[Lou Girardin]

I hear a lot of heat but I'm not reading any light. So what do all of you outraged folk think would have been a "fairer" sentence? You may wish to consider:

- First offender
- 15-years old
- Manslaughter.

I'd like to hear some reasoned responses, rather than just a bunch of vigilantes baying for blood.

OK, he killed someone with an act that any normal person would realise is liable to do exactly that. He boasted about it at school. The 'remorse' shown in court would undoubtedly be at the coaching of his counsel. Neither he nor his family have contacted the Curry's.
If a jury of his peers (God forbid) haven't the sense to return a murder verdict, then at least the Judge should have demonstrated society's condemnation of his action with a meaningful sentence.
The murderer could well be out of jail in 3 months on home detention.

[Lou Girardin]

Look on the bright side people.

It's more than you'd get if you drove a car into him and killed him.

If I was going to kill someone (not that I would mind you) I would definitely run into them with a really strong car...

There's a subtle difference between that and throwing a boulder onto a moving vehicle. I'm sure I don't need to point the difference out.

[Cookie]

[...]I also think chemical casturation is pretty fair. If he's not smart enough to realise his actions would more than likely kill, he's certainly not smart enough to bring a child of his own up properly.

Could not agree more. His ability to contaminate the gene pool should be removed at once.

[...]I don't think locking people up and throwing away the key, or treating violence with violence ever solves any problems or reduces the crime rate.[...]

Err - actually it does. You can't chuck concrete off a motorway overbridge whilst locked up in a cell.

Nor can you rob, rape, or murder other law abiding people. It's also difficult to breed in there which just doubles the merit of the whole thing.

[Lias]

Bring back capital punishment.

Nothing wrong with that little fucker that some good stout rope and a short sharp drop wouldnt fix.