« How to Get Web Traffic | Main | Gun Control »
August 22, 2007
Chindamo's Sentence
Not wholly convinced that people have the right idea about the sentence that Chindamo got for the murder of Phillip Lawrence. Iain Dale:
Mr Chindamo was sentenced to life for Philip Lawrence's murder. He will be released after twelve years. So a headmaster's life is only worth twelve years.
Two things: firstly, a life sentence actually does mean life. He's not being let out after 12 years scott free: he's not even on probation. He's on licence. He can be hauled back in and forced to serve the rest of the sentence.
Secondly, OK, you can argue that the tariff was too short....but you'd have to be arguing that all such tariffs are too short. I'm pretty sure that the average tariff for murder is in fact about 11 years. And as James Graham points out (rightly) under our system of law it isn't "who" gets killed which is the important point. We are not using the Anglo-Saxon system of blood money, where the more important someone is, the higher the price. All those murdered are of equal value, from a headmaster down the society to a down and out drunk and all the way to the pits of politicians.
Sentence is passed on the who did it and under what circumstances. Someone who is 15 (only just above the age of criminal responsibility) is, again, quite rightly, going to get a lower tariff than, say, Jack the Ripper.
August 22, 2007 in Law | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c2d3e53ef00e54ecde58c8833
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Chindamo's Sentence:
Comments
It's also the crux of the deportation point. He can only get paroled if he's not a threat to society - otherwise he can stay in prison indefintely. But if he's not a threat to society, he can't be deported.
So either he's in prison, or not. If not he's safe by definition.
Posted by: Tim | Aug 22, 2007 11:20:27 AM
Tim, if journalism ever palls for you, might I suggest the Parole Board.
Regards
Posted by: Nigel Sedgwick | Aug 22, 2007 11:32:58 AM
Isn't deportation a red herring? I don't think the guy was an illegal alien, so what difference does it make where he lives after release? Or is having to live outside the UK regarded as a punishment in itself. You would know, Tim.
Besides, if he lives in Italy, what chance is there of him being picked up for breaking his licence?
Posted by: mark Brinkley | Aug 22, 2007 11:39:36 AM
Actually, Tim, here at least the most constant factor _is_ who gets killed, not the age or race of the killer. Kill a man, black or white, who is a prosperous and upstanding member of the community: get death or a sentence so long you'll wish they'd killed you. Off a street punk? A Welfare queen? Or just Joe Blow working McDonalds. Hearty shrug. Ten or twenty (which usually means 8.5-17) years.
That's not absolute, of course. But it appears to be a very strong trend, and more or less constant for punishments within a given jurisdiction. (I.e. you're not getting death in Massachusetts and Texas is probably not going to give you a term if you raped and murdered a 12 year old girl.)
Posted by: Tom Kratman | Aug 22, 2007 11:42:49 AM
In a way, the "blood money" system is more logical, too - society is meting out your punishment according to the damage you've inflicted on it, rather than trying to gauge the evilness of your soul.
Posted by: Hilary Wade | Aug 22, 2007 12:55:14 PM
There is no "agreed age of criminal responsibility" - it is for the legal system to decide if the accused is capable of distiguishing right from wrong on a case by case basis. That was a key pre-trial judgement in the infamous bulger case. On that occasion the accused were well under 15 (11ish I think) and still did time in a young offenders institution.
Posted by: Matt Munro | Aug 22, 2007 1:51:40 PM
And who gets killed is important. If a member of a protected minority is murdered then the words racially aggravated/homophobic/hate crime are added as a prefix to the charge which consequently carries a heavier sentence.
Posted by: Matt Munro | Aug 22, 2007 1:56:32 PM
So should the killer of a headmaster serve a longer sentence than the killer of, let us say, a market gardener? Both are useful members of society. What about a refuse collector? You can argue this indefinitely. The point is that this guy is in prison on a life sentence and is due for parol next year, which he may or may not get. Probably not but one can never tell. If he is a danger to society he should stay in prison and life should mean life.
Posted by: Helen | Aug 22, 2007 3:52:35 PM
"It is for the legal system to decide if the accused is capable of distiguishing right from wrong on a case by case basis."
only if the accused is over 10, below which age there is an absolute presumption that they aren't.
"If a member of a protected minority is murdered then the words racially aggravated/homophobic/hate crime are added as a prefix to the charge which consequently carries a heavier sentence."
no, if someone is killed *because of their race/sex/sexuality* then the words are added. if a black chap killed you for being white, that would also count - iirc the asian thugs who murdered kris donald got a longer sentence on precisely those grounds.
Posted by: john b | Aug 23, 2007 12:14:44 AM
Helen:
It's not really a question of right or wrong so much as a question of how judges, juries and prosecutors tend to think.
Posted by: Tom Kratman | Aug 23, 2007 3:13:08 AM
"..if someone is killed *because of their race/sex/sexuality* then the words are added"
Because someone killed for their money, or because they looked the wrong way at the wrong person, is only 2/3rds as dead. Must be a comfort to them....
Posted by: JuliaM | Aug 23, 2007 7:51:45 AM
robbery is also an aggravating factor, iirc.
the idea behind aggravating vs mitigating factors is that if you murder someone because they're white, or because you're robbing them, etc, society views that as worse than murdering someone because he sleeps with your wife or calls you a c---.
the latter is still bad, still murder, and still carries a life sentence, but I don't think it's totally outrageous to treat the former as more serious.
Posted by: john b | Aug 23, 2007 1:27:34 PM
Exactly - however you look at it, the current law values the lives of certain minorities more highly than the "majority". Either it's murder or it isn't, the motive and the victims ethnicity should not affect the sentence. If the sentence for "ordinary" murder is perceived as being too lenient then it should be raised across the board.
Posted by: Matt Munro | Aug 23, 2007 1:29:50 PM
The law explicitly does *not* value the lives of certain minorities higher than the 'majority'. The victim's ethnicity does *not* affect the sentence.
But of course motive does, and of course it should, affect the sentence. To suggest otherwise is just barmy...
Posted by: john b | Aug 23, 2007 4:43:40 PM
Earlier, john b said:"..if someone is killed *because of their race/sex/sexuality* then the words are added. if a black chap killed you for being white, that would also count - iirc the asian thugs who murdered kris donald got a longer sentence on precisely those grounds."
Next, he says:"The law explicitly does *not* value the lives of certain minorities higher than the 'majority'. The victim's ethnicity does *not* affect the sentence."
So, make up your mind, which is it? Racially aggravated offences either carry a longer sentence, or they don't.
If the former, then clearly the victim's ethnicity does affect the sentence.
Posted by: JuliaM | Aug 23, 2007 5:48:46 PM
Now you're just being silly.
Matt was implying that to kill a member of a minority group carries a harsher sentence than to kill a member of the white majority. This is unequivocally untrue. Similarly, if a white person were to murder a black person for reasons other than racial hatred (e.g. robbery/animal rights terrorism/domestic violence), the crime would not be treated as racially aggravated.
Hence why I said that the victim's ethnicity does not per se affect the sentence - because it doesn't. It's just hard (not impossible, but hard) to imagine a case where the crime was intensified by racial hatred and the victim and criminal were not the same race...
Posted by: john b | Aug 23, 2007 10:56:54 PM
aaagh. "were of the same race" should be the last sentence above.
Posted by: john b | Aug 23, 2007 10:57:37 PM
The point Matt was making was that 'murder is murder' - and our current laws state that some crimes are considered worse than others, simply by virtue of what 'caused' them. I'm not talking about the difference between aggravating vs mitigating factors and nor I think is he.
Perhaps you'd like to explain to a youngster beaten senseless by a gang simply because he was there at the time, that the law would give a harsher sentence to his attackers if they'd attacked him because he was obviously gay, or Asian, and that that is considered 'worse'.
The reason for the assault, outwith questions of provocation, should be immaterial. Assault is assault, murder is murder.
Posted by: JuliaM | Aug 24, 2007 7:13:44 AM
"Assault is assault, murder is murder."
1000 years of legal precedent would appear to disagree, hence why sentences are set by judges within a range set by parliament rather than imposed commonly on everyone convicted of an offence.
Posted by: john b | Aug 24, 2007 11:53:44 AM
