Three Years For Murdering A Gay Teen With Asperger's

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I understand what you're saying, visagrunt and I've just read the other two threads; it's still not an easy case to understand. Very hard to separate facts from emotion/perception here, I don't think I can form an "objective" opinion yet. I'd like to read the transcripts, but I doubt it's possible for now.

I think that if you set someone on fire after they've been doused in oil, than it should be considered a premeditated attack. It's amazingly obvious that doing such a thing would cause serious bodily harm to someone. If you're too drunk to realize that, then it's your own damn fault for getting so drunk. But would I consider it murder? Well, if you intentionally stab someone with a knife, and they die, it doesn't matter whether you intended to kill them, it's murder. Intentionally light someone on fire and they die, it's also murder.

Having seen some amazingly dumb things done with fire (I may have been the one doing them on occasion...), I can easily see this happening without there having been an intent to murder or cause harm. I'm thinking of things like the trick of using a butane lighter to fill a cupped hand with flammable gas in order to ignite it and "throw" a fireball, flaming drinks, or other "tricks" with fire that involve a fast burning flame and rapid movement to avoid being burned. It may be immediately obvious to some of us that oil is not only going to burn but going to stick, but to someone who's not particularly educated and has perhaps seen someone perform one of the aforementioned fire tricks, it may not have been obvious at all. Add in the alcohol, and it sounds an awful lot like reasonable doubt, which the prosecutor doubtlessly knew, and filed accordingly.

^
While it seems somewhat improbable to me, it's obviously possible, so you're right, this means reasonable doubt.

After the verdict, isn't it the judge who chooses the sentence? I'm told in the UK there is the option of a "discretionary" life sentence for manslaughter. The man is an obvious danger to society, even if only through his own (alleged?) stupidity and ignorance. Maybe he should have been sentenced to compulsory schooling and rehab... It's frustrating to rely on media and not have all the facts, I understand the reasons for the verdict, I'd like to know more about how the sentence was determined.

Sounds like a particularly heinous crime. I know nothing about the laws or sentencing guidelines of Britain, or indeed how the British distribute justice. It's not may place to say if the punishment fit the crime, or indeed, to determine culpability. I do hope, though, that the public is as saddened about this incident as I am, and that this tragedy offers a chance for reflection for all stakeholders involved.

Except it cannot be proven that he intentionally set someone on fire. If that could be proven that he intentionally set the lighter to the victim, drunk or not, that would be a different story.

We don't have the degree system. We have Murder and Manslaughter, and other aggravated offenses. A partial defense of murder can lead to manslaughter.

What we do have is sentencing based on the nature of the murder e.g. premeditation. However the CPS does not decide the nature of the alleged murder, only that it is murder or not. The rest is post trial sentencing.

I believe US, Canada and Peru have the degree system.

"Should be considered a premediated attack," is what is known in legal parlance as a deeming provision. So by your logic, a person who causes a person doused in oil to be set on fire is deemed to have preplanned the attack--whether or not he had any intention of setting a fire in the first place, or of causing any harm. What you are suggesting is a "reverse onus" where the Crown is no longer required to prove the guilt of an accused beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather that the onus is transferred to the accused to disprove on the balance of probabilities, that he had the intent imputed to him. That is a repugnant notion.

It is shockingly obvious? Tell me which tanning oils are susceptible to ignition? All of them? Some of them? Which ones? If you cover yourself in olive oil and stand near a candle, will you combust? If you cover yourself in ethyl alcohol and ignite it, will it burn long enough to injure you? If you douse a lit match into liquid gasoline, will the gasoline ignite? I suggest to you that there are very few things that are shockingly obvious.

Now I do agree that intentionally lighting someone on fire, and being reckless as to whether or not death ensues is murder (allowing for discrepancies between jurisdiction on the treatment of recklessness as to consequences). But if you cannot make out intent, you cannot make out murder.

If you're going to participate in a discussion of the law, then you need to think like a lawyer.

I've gotten the impression over the years that many Aspies find legalistic thinking repugnant; they think it's cold or heartless or even cruel. It sort of belies the stereotype of us as hyper-rational, unemotional creatures. That being said, I also feel that those of us who can do it tend to do it very well.

a [much] higher authority will prevail, eventually.

Dear AuntBlabby,
I very much agree, but I do think that the world would have been better off if the boy who died were still here, and the other gone.

Sylkat

This. I always find English and Irish sentences FAR too light by American standards.
Shockingly low conviction rates, as well.

I once read a news article in which an Irish woman who had embezzled 200,000 euros was sentenced to repay 100,000.

For me that is because legalistic thinking is not neccessarily ethical thinking. There are so many laws around the world against victimless crimes (smoking pot, being gay). Or that story about the girl in the Maldives who will get whipped for having sex outside of marriage. I'm fairly confident the judge knows what he is talking about, there is probably some legal reason for this, but that doesn't make it right.
Do we need to follow laws that we find unethical?

i believe that the tables will be turned in a future existence for both of them.

How do you separate the two?

I suggest that ethics cannot exist independent of a system of laws since, generally speaking, the first principle of ethics is adherence to the law.

When is it ethical to disregard the law? A law that violates a higher law may be ignored--but that relies upon the system recognizing and enforcing that higher law. A law not validly enacted--outside the competence of the legislature--may be disregarded. But a law validly enacted, and not inconsistent with any superior law must be obeyed, and a system of ethics that disregards that need is not, I suggest to you, ethical.



The short answer is, "yes." You are not endowed with the power to change law with which you disagree.

The longer answer is that you are free to break such a law, to face prosecution for violating it, and raise your objection to the law in the proper forum: a court of law. The risk, though, is that if the court does not rule in your favour, you will have exposed yourself to the penalty.

What put me off pursuing law as a career was the thought of being paid to clear a guilty person or condemn an innocent person. Without wishing to sound arrogant, I'm quite good at picking logical holes in statements and I have an audible tick when someone says something they don't mean or that isn't true. I suspect this is largely true of Aspies- we're known as "truth seekers" and we often get upset if someone makes a mistake about our special interest- but that other ethical concerns or a general lack of legal knowledge (shared by most people who aren't lawyers) put us off legalistic thinking with things like murder. Legalistic thinking generally seems to be quite common, such as the clamour on here for a user to be punished if they said a blacklisted word in a suspect context.