Should we send people to prison for racist footy chanting?

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The people on that train merely explained what they witnessed; they did not pass judgment. There is a difference. What's more, I think history shows that those who judge haven't always done so wisely or justly.

And I will proudly continue to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. Prejudice, or passing judgment before we know all of the facts, is wrong even when done by liberals. I'm not sure why you think prejudice is okay when people like you do it. Perhaps you could tell me.

Arguing that you're prepared to give the convicted men the 'benefit of the doubt' because you personally haven't reviewed their conduct is a bit ... er ... egocentric. To put it mildly. Or perhaps 'solipsistic' would be a better term.

Either way, it is certainly an example of "argumentum ad ignorantiam."

I'll say again. These men had the benefit of the doubt from all relevant authorities. The evidence that they had broken the law was tested in court. The standard of proof required was 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. They were found guilty. The end (of their assumed innocence).

They're not martyrs to the cause of freedom of speech, nor are they victims of some PC conspiracy to clamp down on dissent.

They are a bunch of pissed-up footy thugs who threatened people on a train, and got caught.

You ought to choose your causes with greater discrimination imho.

Arguing that you're prepared to give the convicted men the 'benefit of the doubt' because you personally haven't reviewed their conduct is a bit ... er ... egocentric. To put it mildly. Or perhaps 'solipsistic' would be a better term.

Since I have not said they were not guilty, but rather than I would withhold judgment until I knew the facts, I'm not sure how avoiding prejudice is either egocentric OR solipsistic. Perhaps you could explain.

Either way, it is certainly an example of "argumentum ad ignorantiam."

That is correct. I am ignorant of the facts of this case, and will withhold judgment accordingly. Again, I don't believe in lynch mob mentality.

I'll say again. These men had the benefit of the doubt from all relevant authorities. The evidence that they had broken the law was tested in court. The standard of proof required was 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. They were found guilty. The end (of their assumed innocence).

Nobody said they were judged by the authorities. I'm just not sure why you think the authorities are right. Have authorities never done wrong? Are the history books all lying when they say otherwise? Were Nazi authorities right for killing Jews? Were Stalinist authorities right for killing off kulaks?

They're not martyrs to the cause of freedom of speech, nor are they victims of some PC conspiracy to clamp down on dissent.

How do you know this? Since you cannot explain, I will have to assume you are motivated by prejudice, which I have problems with. Sorry, I simply refuse to pass judgment until I have ALL the facts. If you think refraining from prejudicial behavior makes me a "solipsist", so be it. I make no apologies.

So every person in the world, ever accused of being a criminal, has always given by you the benefit of doubt, as long as you not reading the trial documents?

Or is that more of an sudden behavior of yours, because right now in this second it is comforting for you?

Yes, I will withhold personal judgment on EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY until I am satisfied I have enough information to pass a proper, fair judgment. For what it's worth, I would do the same for you, or anybody else. If, for instance, somebody were to say to me that Schneekugel is an awful fellow, and I shouldn't associate with him, unless they can give me a good reason why, I will continue to associate with you. It seems to me to be only fair. Everybody deserves to be treated fairly.

My pleasure.

Option A: You are assuming that you are better-equipped to pronounce on details of the convicted men's conduct than either the Judge or the Jurors who heard the full details of the case.

That is egocentricity.

Option B: You are assuming that your individual self and your state(s) of mind are the sole possible or proper starting point for philosophical construction relating to the outside world.

That is methodological solipsism

Take your pick.

No, don't thank me, it's a public service.



Then you will also be aware that the 'argument from ignorance' is a recognised logical fallacy.

This further undermines your justifications for holding the opinion you do.

In addition, you are not only 'arguing from ignorance', you are arguing in the teeth of the legal system's verdict on the men's behaviour.

Some might classify this as an 'appeal to authority'. I call it 'due regard for the facts'.

Your position is not only logically-fallacious, it is at variance with the legally-established facts of the case.



<KLAXXON>

Godwin's Law in operation!

Minus several million credibility points for you,, Sunny Jim.

Also, the burden of proof is not upon me to justify the reasons for upholding the law; the burden of proof is upon YOU to provide reasons for not upholding it.



I have explained several times. I am therefore beginning to suspect that you are either obtuse or disingenuous.

They committed public order offences. This means that it is not (just) the content of their words that were judged, but their (physical) behaviour toward third parties, who were sufficiently alarmed to complain to the police. The men were judged on witness statements, backed up by CCTV footage (you will note that CCTV footage is silent, and thus cannot be said to lend support to your idea that the convicted men were judged (solely) on things they said, but rather (tending to rely more heavily on the (theoretically-contestable but ultimately, as it proved) irrefutable eyewitness and corroborative recorded evidence indicating) the aggressive physical behaviour they demonstrated toward their fellow passengers).

I am not exhibiting 'lynchmob/prejudicial behaviour'. If anything, I am exhibiting thoroughly-rational POST-judicial behaviour!

These men were tried according to the law of the land, by a Jury of their peers, and were found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

I have no reason to disagree with the experts who must have presented the evidence, nor the opinions formed by the Jury members, nor the decision ultimately reached by the Judge trying the case. I have even looked at the sentencing guidelines for the relevant offences, and the convicted men seem not to have been treated with undue harshness or partiality.

I, therefore, have the weight of due process on my side of the argument (among other things).

You have ... well, er, not much to be frank: A lucky dip whose ingredients are: Egocentricity and/or solipsism (the jury's out); a species of logical fallacy; a breach of Godwin's Law and an apparent disregard for the legal system.

Any and all of these dead-end strategies are put into play every time you put your fingers to your keyboard in your apparent desire to get a bunch of racist thugs off the hook, when it's far far too late for arguments about their innocence, even if your uninformed opinion (based on some quixotic belief in free speech without consequences) weren't worth spit on a hot griddle, which would in fact be over-stating the strength of your case.

I look forward to rebutting further blustering nonsense from you in due course.

Meantime, what exactly is It that makes you want to believe so strongly that these men are somehow wronged innocents, in the face of all the established facts? It couldn't be ... possibly ... just maybe ... that you are of the (so-far undeclared) opinion that it's a white man's right to 'call a spade a spade', could it? Please tell me I'm wrong. I'd love to be, but the evidence is pointing firmly in that direction at the moment.

[EDITED to provide qualification to some points (additions in italics)]

Last edited by CharityFunDay on 04 Nov 2013, 2:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.

But if someone says, that they are poor victims of political correctness, that needs no proof to believe it? ^^

And to generally believe in the judgment of an official trial, without reading the complete trial-documents myself, is automatically prejudicing people? I hope you can live with that I prejudice Ariel Castro being a s**thead, without going into his house and speaking with his victims personally. If someone wants to defend him postmortem of my prejudices, and declare him to be an victim of political correctness, because of me calling him a s**thead, without ever proofing that myself, by talking with his victims, he is free to do so.

I will repeat for the last time: I did NOT say these hooligans were innocent, but rather that I don't have the facts needed to pass judgment, nor do you. I stand by that position since authority is frequently wrong.

Since we are obviously talking past one another now rather than to each other, unless you can come up with something new, this is the last time I will respond to you on this. There is no use wasting either your time or mine.

I wish you a good day.

<with wholly unwarranted (and increasingly threadbare) patience>

In my last post I explained, in some detail, why yours was neither an honest nor a credible position to adopt.

You seem (to take a perhaps unjustifiably charitable stance toward your powers of rhetorical persuasion) to be *ahem* unwilling (for some *ahem* unspecifiable reason) to address this argument, either in generalities or particulars.

Oh and btw, I did not say that you believed that these men were innocent, so you can add 'construction of straw men' to your ever-expanding list of egregious errors, personal follies, formal illogicalities and evident misjudgements of and/or disregard for (legally-established) facts.

Let's go through your latest statement of your position step by painstaking bloody step -- in as much bloodyminded detail as possible at every last conceivable step of the way -- , so that we can all (participants and imagined readers alike) be as sure as we reasonably can of the firmness (or otherwise) of the groundwork of understanding (in both the legalistic/judicial and logico-philosophical senses and contexts of the word 'understanding') upon which you are basing the latest submitted (and apparently minimal) form of your argument.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then I'll begin.

You may claim (and this appears to be your final hold-out position on this matter) that authority is frequently wrong.

The definite frequency with which it happens is a matter of opinion and speculation. but I freely concede in the face of your argument that it is utterly and 100 per cent indisputable that the legal-Judicial system gets it wrong on occasion.

+1,000 debating points to you!

However ...

<'Pause' button pressed>

(ADVISORY NOTICE: Longwinded pedantic and overly-detailed description of UK standards of legal 'due process' follows.

Readers who suffer from nervous excitement, low boredom thresholds, narcolepsy and/or aversion to pompously self-indulgent expositions made by legally-unqualified amateurs who admit to only ain imperfect and therefore maybe incomplete understanding of his chosen subject should scroll down to the bolded statement that reads ADVISORY NOTICE ENDS, located approximately 33 feet downward (measured in the relevant interactive industrial/consumer standards of screen-scrolling distances) of this notice.

Readers who may be interested to gain some final and considered overall perspective on the quality or otherwise of the arguments (both pro and contra given suppositions made by both interested parties in the current debate) which are advanced herein, but which readers -- quite understandably -- lack either the necessary ability to concentrate on the intricate arguments and/or the required personal level of patience to deal with the (only-partially justifiably and partially (to some unascertained level of implicit acceptability) clarified, by the apparently inherent and inescapable contextual demands of) what might be regarded as the, at the very least, pseudo-legal standards of definitions and contextual justification/s and/or necessarily qualified and/or nuanced interpretations) of this post's contents taken independently or as a substantive whole, regardless of the above advisory notice, are advised to scroll down (and down ... and down ... and down) until they reach the final paragraph of the summarised summary of the summary of the outcome of the proposed conclusion to this incredibly convoluted and (at times) incomprehensibly-intricately (but possibly thereby (and/or possibly and/or arguably due to somewhat justifiable by virtue of the potentially highly-personalised, constant and (at times arguably and/or) potentially infinitely-regressive perceptual reconsiderations and qualifications that were or have been subjectively rendered and thereby considered necessary (or at least understandably imposable) by virtue of the present author's use of artificial insufflation of stimulant substances) resulting, in the lights of the foregoing considerations potentially and inadvertently fallaciously or outright and demonstrably nonsensically) argued response to TheLibrarian's proposed arguments (considered in their own terms as both (a) cumulatively-sequential and/or individually-addressable and assessable claims of fact and and what appear to be related (and supposedly) reasonably-justifiable propositions and suppositions inferred naturally therefrom; and (b) self-summarised statements of his position (but with inescapable residual, and/or unavoidably implicit, references to arguments and propositions advanced in the previously-designated category of his proposed arguments and assessable claims of fact etc., as hitherto summarised herein as the directly-predefined quantities included in the category or claims and propositions outlined at point (a) in this set of parenthetical clauses and subclauses) as advanced and propounded in the above-quoted post).

Thank you for your attention).

<'Resume play' selected>

... However, you have advanced no credible evidence -- in fact, no evidence of any kind whatsoever -- that might even begin to suggest that a miscarriage of justice even conceivably occurred at any stage during this case, i.e., due process as it proceeds right from --

* The very moment of arrest of a potential suspect on justifiable suspicion of having committed an alleged offence (or a known offence, such as is (for example) sometimes specified in a Coroner's verdict indicating a (known or unknown) party's involvement in a death, which is then a proven offence with a possible suspect in mind, where such (a) person/s is/are (or is/are not) already identified with some degree of probative value in the Coroner's ruling), through to --
* The subsequent police decision to mount an investigation, which involves careful gathering, handling and consideration of ALL the locatable and/or detectable possibly-court admissible evidence gathered by relevant qualified officers using certified and legally-appropriate technological means and devices where appropriate during a typically lengthy, often complex and invariably painstaking examination of the (possibly merely-alleged) offence/s (and any such investigation has to be conducted properly and in a procedurally-accountable manner at all stages of inquiry, from the first moment that the case/s is/are held to be open) with the ultimate aim of this process being to reach a balanced legalistic opinion with focussed regard as to --
* The unique (and independently-adjudged as legally-admissible) items of individual evidence located and/.or detected during the aforementioned investigation (this evidence tending to be (but not always limited to) an unpredictable circumstantial mixture of both material that tends to be either exculpatory of the suspect/s and material that tends to be condemnatory of the suspect, and still other evidence which (although potentially admissible as evidence) remains of potential but unclear and unpredictable use to the possible eventual Court case's yet-to-be appointed prosecution or defence counsel, although cases which make it as far as Court hearings will obviously tend to have a self-selecting and clearly-predominant bias toward the category of material that tends toward the apparently condemnatory) forward on to --
* The investigating police force's final involvement in the case (except as potential witnesses in court, should that ultimately prove necessary in the interests of fairly administered justice): That is to say, the situation will result in EITHER: --
* (A) The police's carefully-considered final decision to lay a charge against each wo/man suspect identified by them, consisting of consideration of evidence concerning (what is/are still usually only alleged to be) breach/es of very very carefully and precisely legally-defined rules of fair, responsible and reasonable personal and socially-acceptable conduct, as are required by statute, custom and precedent to have been laid down in the form of formal Primary and/or Secondary Legislation that has been carefully drafted and redrafted by the country's foremost legal experts, who were working throughout their draftwork with one (metaphorical) eye on the complex and tangled and at times unclear interconnected web of documents ancient and modern, established custom and recognised precedent that together make up this country's remarkable unwritten constitution --

-- The wider socio-legal procedural context relevant to, and the formulation of the specific and general rules and regulations governing, the above-described procedures is as follows (and in which you have also failed to demonstrate any flaw, but which I'm going to spell out so you can have a fair crack at finding one, should you so desire) --.

* The relevant Legislation having been identified and examined (i.e., in case you're getting lost, I mean the laws that the police have considered with regard to establishing the precise legal nature of the (still merely-alleged) offence which it remains to be proven positively that the particular (presumed innocent) suspect/s under scrutiny had committed) had by due process of the formulation of British law, previously and unavoidably been (subsequent to its final draft form as a proposed Bill for Parliament's consideration) --
* Scrutinised and debated (and sometimes amended) at considerable length and in occasionally overpedantic legal detail before being finally voted upon (and subsequently either rejected or passed as setting new or reinforcing existing desirable and socio/moral and culturally-acceptable standards of rules about individual or corporate behaviour -- or overturning such legal rules of social/personal conduct finally and irrevocably where it is deemed that socially-appropriate standards have fundamentally changed since the rejected legislation in question was enacted)
* The above aim being proposed and recommended as legislation, the process of creation of which is enacted slowly and accountably by adherence to strictly-prescribed procedures followed carefully (and open and accountably at all stages) by both
* ((i) the independently and democratically-elected (and bindingly self-declared to be interest-free with regard to the possibly advantageous applications of any legislation they consider) Members of Parliament of the lower legislative chamber of Parliament --
* AND as a normal check on and constitutional balance to Parliament's power to amend the law (I.e., normal under Parliamentary legislative processes, the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 (in particular) notwithstanding)n this proposed legislation is then --
* Freshly scrutinised and debated (starting from draft proposed form in which it was ultimately passed as acceptable law by the lower chamber of Parliament) all over again by
* (ii) the fairly and accountably-appointed members of the upper legislative chamber of Parliament, who propose, draft and vote on further technical refinements and or adjustments and or deletions, possibly even finally choosing the rejection of the proposed legislation in its totality, but usually resulting in the long-anticipated final form of the (much-amended and acceptably compromised) accepted legislation -- which, having now (usually) been through the careful and publicly-accountable checks and balances of being passed by a majority of both Houses of Parliament, is finally passed into the body of Legislature as an Act of Parliament by being given formal Royal Assent by the reigning Monarch at the time, to whom the Government of the day, although democratically elected and constitutionally independent, is ultimately theoretically answerable as the final and insuperable physical and moral embodiment of our system of Governance, and as the theoretically ungainsayable upholder and final arbiter of this stage of the Constitutional checks and balances through which any proposed new law must pass --

-- and remember, this is all to be considered as naturally inherent and expected conduct, from first principles to ultimate practice, and is implicitly or explicitly understood as part and parcel of due legal process, and we haven't even got as far as the Court system itself yet!

<draw deep breath, refills coffee cup>

Where was I?

Oh yes: OR: After all due relevant and reasonable legal and procedural regards and considerations have been made with regard to all the foregoing applicable statutes and legally-expected standard processes, and taking into account all potentially relevant and admissible evidence gathered during the investigation into the alleged offence, the police may ultimately choose to:

*-- release the suspect/s without any charge or blot on their presumed innocence if (on an objective and professional consideration by an assessor not hitherto involved in the case) that individual case's unique evidential base, consisting of a mixture of anticipated-as-mutually-corroborative evidence (including but not limited to sworn eyewitness testimony, and professionally obtained, provably correctly handled and legally-admissible forensic evidence typically consisting of (but not limited to) scientific data and or artifacts relevant to the commission of the suspect's (still-merely) alleged offence (Coroner's verdicts notwithstanding)) which could not reasonably be expected to provide for a successful prosecution in a court). The judicial shadow no longer hangs over the discharged subject from this point until (presumably) the end of his or her life (potential related or unrelated future proceedings notwithstanding). However:
* Through the aforementioned pressing of formal charges of given legally-unjustifiable (or outright prohibited) behaviour in regard to potential Court cases in which the police's accumulated evidence is deemed strong enough that it is considered (by an independent assessor) likely to result in a successful prosecution, the suspect/s (who are usually, but not always, considered be still at their full exercise of their own liberty) are subjects are put through to the next stage in the legal system, which is --

-- And as you may have noticed, things gets more straightforward the further along in this process you go --

* The CPS's independent weighing of the police's evidence (checks and balances again!) and subsequent decision to prosecute (or drop charges), onward through --
* The process of the prosecution's evidence being judged credible (or not) by a Magistrates Court composed of independent laymen and women,
* The Magistrate's/s' consequent decision on the accused's individual bail applications, bearing in mind the accused's inalienable right to freedom, unless the likelihood of their absconding or potentially reoffending is considered overwhelming (and this has to be argued persuasively by the CPS representative in each relevant case)
* The accused's concomitant subsequent committal to a hearing at the relevant jurisdiction's Crown Court which entails
* The entire process of selecting a Jury whose members are proven to be disinterested and personally uninvolved, however tangentially in the case for which their eligibility is being considered and who then swear an oath or give a binding undertaking
* Clerically (to say nothing of legally and/or morally), administering a fair and unbiased trial in which each suspect's innocence is taken as a fundamental assumption and in which
* Evidence is advanced on behalf of the accused as well as against them, and
* This evidence (and its relevance or irrelevance) is discussed in detail by qualified expert witnesses where appropriate (who are of course subject to cross-examination by both prosecution and defence counsel)
* And so on and so forth, until ultimately --
* The process -- proceeding carefully all the time at every stage and in every conceivable detail -- and which furthermore
* Has the potential to be challenged and/or declared void and abandoned at any moment, on any number of legal and or procedural grounds, right up to the actual definitive moment of
* The delivery of the members of the Jury's carefully considered verdict/s (which were themselves arrived at via a complex and unpredictable but inherently evidence and testimony-guided process of deliberation and negotiation, conducted in an isolated environment so as to be as as uninfluenced by any extra-evidential concerns as is reasonably possible) and --
* The subsequent and logically-dependant consideration of this verdict by a qualified Judge and the recourse to official guides on sentencing options and ranges followed ultimately or simultaneously by
* The final result of the judicial process, EITHER:
* The delivery of the sentence/s to the accused, now the convicted by due process and depending on the sentence, their concomitant committal to prison OR:
* The accused's instant and wholly-warranted (and 100 per cent justifiable expectation of) effective release as wo/men whose innocence has been tested by due process and found to be pure and unbesmirched with regard to the offence(s) for which they have just stood trial and been judged by their peers.

Christ, sometimes I even bore myself (although to be fair, I am currently chemmed off my nut, and the above seemed quite a reasonable and concise exposition of the relevant background to a Court case, to my stimmed-up mind)

So there it is, from start to finish, with all the checks and balances thrown in: That's the process (or my personal description of some of the relevant aspects of it pertaining to the case we're discussing,, anyway) through which each and all the convicted men, to whom you wish to retrospectively and perversely extend the now legally-unjustifiable 'benefit of the doubt', (AKA assumption of innocence), all of whom have been individually processed, assessed, weighed and judged -- alongside the relevant processes of ascertaining suitability, potential probative value and ultimately the admissibility of any and all evidence in the professional opinions of both the defence and prosecution counsel (and the opinions of relevant specified and suitably qualified experts, where relevant and or legally necessary) -- and all of whom were finally found to be guilty and therefore sentenced accordingly.

ADVISORY NOTICE ENDS

Now for the $64k question:

Have you got a specific reasonable and identifiable and/or justifiable (or even. to make this really easy, a hypothetical) procedural bone to pick with any of that general process described above, as far as it pertains to the particular case in hand, from legislative first principles to the ultimate practical outcome?

Thought not.

-1,000,000,000,000^23 debating points to you.

TL;DR: You, TheLibrarian are full of s**t.

(Also, I note that you are now tripping over the gaping holes in your 'arguments' by contradicting yourself: Having claimed you do not believe the men are innocent, you are now (in your most recent and minimal position statemenr, reproduced above) implying that perhaps they were not in fact guilty as pronounced).

(Further demerit of debating points to be announced, CBA at present after thinking through and typing out all the above)

If a miscarriage of justice has occurred in this case (and remember, this has not even been shown by you to be a reasonable possibility, much less a tenable hypothesis, let alone a fully-fledged theory), then we can surely (or least reasonably) expect eagle-eyed lawyers, working pro bono or no-win-no-fee for the convicted men, to lodge a joint or lone Appeal, or several individual Appeals, against the verdicts reached and/or the sentences handed down.

This would be an entirely reasonable course of possible restorative justice, redress and reconsideration available to any convicted person who believed (or professed to believe, for his or her own (arguably natural but in fact further malfeasant) hopes and intentions of 'getting away with their crime(s) to some degree approaching an ideal of judicially-determined totality) that they had strongly-arguable or persuasive evidential and/or indentifiable misprocedural causes (accidental or otherwise) and/or justifications to seek leave to Appeal to the appellate court for a reconsideration with a prospective hope of at least partial reconsideration and at most a complete judicial nullification of a verdict and/or consequent sentence, or aspects thereof, in this case a period of allegedly wrongful incarceration.

Since the proposed recourse to Appeal is both the appropriate procedural reaction, and the reasonably-anticipatable instinctively emotional and/or reasoned intellectual reaction of those who believe (or profess to believe) on whatever possible ground that the case conducted against them on behalf of the state (up to and including their prosecution and/or sentencing) was in any way demonstrably (or arguable in a legally-acceptable and potentially-persuasive manner) wanting or insufficient, in parts or in total, then this would be the natural and indeed (logically, emotionally, rationally and procedurally) expected next step for any and/or all of these convicted men to rightfully and rationally pursue in obtaining the access to the appropriate professional and neutral reconsideration of the justice that (you claim or suggest) has somehow been denied them at some stage during the complex and arguably over-scrutinised procedures outlined above.

And it is important to remember that any potential Appeal made on behalf of any/all of these men will at each step of the formal process be formulated by, guided by and informed by professional and impartial legal representatives -- provided freely and without prejudice by the state, in the interests of ensuring equal access to the relevant requirements of each (individually-assessed) case --, who come pre-equipped with the appropriate available level of relevant professional qualifications and/or procedural experience and/or specialisation in particular types of cases.

These professionals, apart from their tightly-bound and strictly monitored, unpheld and enforced professional code of ethics and practice, have a vested professional and reputational interest in obtaining a verdict favourable to their client/s, as well as not-inconsiderable pecuniary (actual and potentially-enhanceable) advantages from handing the case as best they can.

(You might like to get an intelligent friend to read the following paragraph to you slowly, in case you need clarification or explanation at any point)

So ... Although the absence of such a posited Appeal or Appeals would not be conclusive evidence that the original Judgement was correct -- if any such corroboration were needed,: and it's worth remembering that prima facie evidence that might even possibly be believed to implicitly contradict or undermine the soundness of the Judgement in this case does not appear to exist in the first place -- with me so far? -- the failure to lodge such a posited (but anticipatable) Appeal or Appeals would tend to provide strongly corroborative evidence (regardless of the ultimate prospect of success of failure of such Appeals) that both the verdicts reached in each case (after due legal process throughout the men's treatment from point of arrest, concluding in a fair trial with Jury) and the sentences decided upon (after considered weighing of the evidence advanced by both prosecution and defence counsel, and with reference to Government-issued sentencing guidelines for the relevant offences) and handed down to each convicted man (by a distinguished, experienced and qualified Judge) were respectively both (a) Appropriate and (b) Proportionate.

This failure to lodge an Appeal in a supposed case of miscarried justice would be due to the inferred meeting of either or both of two wholly predictable factors which post insurmountable obstacles in the pathway to any potential appellate court hearing: First, the implicit (to an outside observer) and explicit (to a prison official engaged with the convicted) statement of formal acceptance on the part/s of the convicted man/men that the verdicts and sentences found and imposed upon them were just in view of their guilt -- which self-confession and acceptance of guilt is a prerequisite for obtaining the parole that every prisoner desires, not to mention a condition required in the interests of the rehabilitative aspects of sentencing; and secondly, the consistent refusal of any reputable potential legal representative to countenance taking on such a clearly meritless case and representing it in good faith before an appellate court,, having taken into due consideration all the known procedural practices and standards to which every conceivable aspects of the case was subjected at every reasonable stage in the original process, and every one of which was found (under due re-assessment, after representations from the convicted individual) to be procedurally sound and in no interpretation deficient for any reason, and the verdict and sentencing in the case itself was found, at each appropriate level of reassessment, to be fair, imparitial, and in the interests of both the general public and of the principles of fair and openly-accountable justice.

Even you have to admit, that's a lot of checks and balances in place at every stage to ensure that the wheels of Justice turn smoothly, either on first attempt or (as a long-stop) on a possible and arguably entirely-anticipatable when appropriate admission for leave to be heard at a Court of Appeal..

So I am willing to place a simple clarificatory wager with you, with whatever reasonable and appropriate forfeit and/or action is deemed a mutually-acceptable pre-agreed penalty for failure (i.e, failure in strict temrs of predicting the outcome of the currently-undetermined (and to a reasonably-(un)informed outsider, unpredictable) subject in hand that you may care to specify, and under any such reasonable conditions further to (or/and in place of) my suggested conditions -- which are self-evidently heavily in your favour at the outset -- that there will in fact be no such Appeal or Appeals forthcoming, and that furthermore:

1) It is irrelevant to the outcome of this wager whether such a posited Appeal or Appeals could be deemed or indeed should prove ultimately successful or otherwise, with it merely being a proposed condition that:

2) The crucial and decisive time-limiting factor (for the limited purposes of our proposed wager) is the expiration of the maximum custodial (i.e, not including any suspended sentence or other applicable non-custodial penalty remaining to be served after release from custody) handed down to one of the convicted offenders in question. In the unlikely but technically-possible event of
3) The lodging (outside this custodial maximum time-limit) of any such Appeal by any of the convicted men, within the maximum prescribed time limited-duration of the non-custodial elements of the relevant convicted person's sentence, on the grounds of some perceived or alleged procedural injustice/s and/or impropriety/ies or otherwise herein unspecified form of intentional (and/or unintentional) malpractice/s at any stage in his or their treatment at any stage during the legal and judicial processes that was or were merely persuasively and reasonably alleged in such an application for leave to Appeal, i.e., supported with reasonable, appropriate and demonstrably-relevant reference to specific points of law or aspects of legal practice (including but not limited to contested admissibility of evidence) that were allegedly:
(2a) Not met to a professional standard by whatever participant/s in the legal-judicial processes for whatever reason/s and/or were therefore (or indeed were independently) relevant to this potential argument's perspective and requirements) persuasively arguable as being:
(2b) Directly relevant to the contestability of specific or generalised alleged deviations from the standard procedures expected and adhered to in the expected course of legal-judicial administration, and/or the inherent demands and social and professional expectations placed by and indeed on all involved practitioners thereof, including (where appropriate) professional standards and norms of expected behaviour and attention to specifically-required duties and adherence to established procedures where dereliction, inattention or deliberate or accidental malpractice,, up to and including the commission and vetting of the Jury and its possible effects upon that Jury's formulation, negotiation, deliberation and/or finalisation of its collective verdict, up to and including the Judge's potential discretion in guiding the Jury towards an apparently legally-inescapable verdict (which professional guidance the Jury retains the inherent and inalienable right to ignore or overturn completely, if it collectively sees fit in view of the evidence it has considered) and the Judge's subsequent sentencing, referred to in the leave to Appeal application/s)[/i] and alleged or stated to have occurred by the appellant/s;
3) And for this unspecified mispractice to have even arguably (I.e., plausibly potentially, not even demonstrably, let alone provably) have influenced or otherwise compromised the right to the convicted person's natural expectations of the observation of due process and respect for the rights of the (assumed to be) innocent suspect (up to and including the verdict/s and/or sentencing in any one (or combination) of the cases in question).

When/if all the above-listed (and unarguably unfavourable to my argument) conditions and subconditions (or any subsequently agreed upon conditions which are equally in favour of your stated position in this case) are demonstrably met, I shall be considered the loser of the proposed wager outlined above.

Can't say fairer than that, guvnor.

(And I don't speak with forked tongue, as any careful reading of the above will demonstrate (any obvious and naturally-apparently nonsensical or otherwise contextually-illogical errors in drafting (Which may or may not be due, wholly or in part, to the herein freely-admitted chemical self-stimulation administered by the drafter prior to and during the drafting of the above increasingly-ridiculously convoluted arguments and conditions)) being subject to unilateral redrafting by either party, regardless of whether or not they materially alter the terms agreed to)

Deal?

Or no deal?



Thank Christ for that. That means that this section of my reply will be as succinct as its predecessor was verbose.

My only regret at your apparently premature (but fortunately-timed, from your respect) abandonment of your unfeasibly feeble 'arguments' is that it now looks unlikely whether we will ever establish whether you're a bit of a naughty old closet racist.

Don't let the door catch you in the arse on your way out.

Cheerio now.

(TLDR summary of TLDR foregoing: You're full of s**t and have highly-suspect motives for your professed opinions and insinuations concerning the outcomes of the cases in question imho, TheLibrarian so put up, and accept the (favourable to your position) terms of the bet I propose (above) or shut up. Or (as an arguably mutually-acceptable compromise) continue to pretend you aren't reading this thread any more, by not posting any more of your nonsense,)

[EDITED several times to provide yet more layers of quasi-legalistic impenetrability, partly for the sake of supposed clarity but mainly just because I felt like it

Last edited by CharityFunDay on 05 Nov 2013, 1:50 am, edited 7 times in total.

Maybe that's a joke. And you forgot the smiley faces.

Otherwise, I am sorry you have a problem with 'pretty much the entire population' of Manchester, Birmingham and Durham - whom you clearly don't know.

On another matter - there's a lot of talk of football hooliganism on this thread (although I haven't read all of it, I must admit). I wonder how many people here actually go to watch football, or know anything about football, apart from stereotypes that are pretty much dead, or resurrected for fun in the Daily Mail and the red tops.

Fact - football in the UK is more family friendly than ever before
Fact - football grounds are generally safe places to be
Fact - football is far more middle class than before (due to ridiculous pricing, etc)
Fact - a small number of idiots will always take the headlines.
Opinion - if football was banned in the UK, we'd have a revolution in the morning.

Football shouldn't be blamed for social problems and intolerance - these existed long before the game was invented. You could argue that football has provided an arena for certain men (not all) with low emotional capabilities to get their issues out, rather than come home and kick the cat, or the wife. Or knock someone's head in at the local bar. Also, it's one of the few areas of community left open for males in the UK. And they can take their sons (and often daughters) and actually have a bond with them. Not everyone is able to discuss intellectual pursuits or feelings.

Football does more good than harm. Shame it's just such a business now and so money-oriented.

A bunch of Charlton fans broke the law, and have been made an example of. I'm not sure how it's Charlton, or football's fault for that.

just having fun and joking around.i have nothing against those towns.have friends birmingham.
they are known as blue collar industrial cities and i thought they might have a heathy population of football hooligans

In fact, football hooliganism is far, far more of a problem in many European countries (and, notoriously, in Russia!) than it is in the UK. I would probably go so far as to say that Britain is one of the better countries for hooliganism these days.

Oh, and incidentally, here is the take on the topic from the Blog of the Re-Enlightenment:

Advertising racist songs, should be an key part of an news station? Sure...proctor and gambler needs to pay thousands of pounds to be allowed to advertise. But hey, if you are a racist, you should have a right to be advertised for free, I mean these messages should be supported by all means. Best rent a huge zeppelin by tax money, post racistic song textes on it, and let if fly above London.

But before you get me wrong, it is absolutely understandable for me, that racist people might be disappointed to get no free advertising for their s**t, and instead must pay it themselves. And when it comes to rape cases, we definitly need the details what exactly have happened. Knowing that someone raped someone is not sufficient. We need exactly to know, how long, how often, anal or not, and how much lacerations happened. Since delivering the exact details of an crime, anyway how sh***y and disturbing they are, have to be keyparts of news station.

Erm, a serious sexual assault is a completely different ballgame to someone hurling abuse.

The word 'racist' has been devalued so much in recent years that often people will switch off when the term is used. And this is bad for everyone.

Giving a flavour of what the man actually said will help us to understand just how serious the offence might have been.

As for sexual assault situations: anonymity for all, please.

The word racist means what it always meant. An person, judging other peoples personality and "worth" on non-related things like race, religion, sex, sexual desire, ... That what it means and always meanted. And for some people, glorifying the murdering of a person out of racistic reasons = glorifying to spit on and threaten democratic society and everyone that is part of it, is quiet comparable. Thats the kind of s**t, that leaded in the end to your cities and citizens dying, to my cities and citizens dying and tons of others as well. At least around here, most people that see themselves as part of an democratic society, are very sensible about such elements trying to threaten and intimidate the democratic society. The rules of democracy and tolerance are clearly written: You are totally free to have another oppinion, but you are not allowed in any way to threaten people, having other oppinions then you. The moment you allow that, the moment you allow democracy to be eliminated, because under threat, there can be no free oppinion. You are free to found a political party and get the majority of voters behind you, so that you can legally change the laws the way you want it. But if you glorify the illegal killing of people, then you f**k on the oppinion of the majority of people and you f**k on democracy. And the majority of people thinks, that such person can f**k themselve in prison, thats why the majority of people caused their parties to create the laws, that caused these guys to be sentenced.

There have been witnesses, there have been digital media of what they were singing, and both of these were involved in the process. There is the credit of lack of evidence, that a trial has to respect, IF there is a lack of evidence. But there have been a whole train-waggon full of witnesses, there have been digital medias recording it, so I wouldnt know why I had to argue about an lack of evidence, when even the companions of those idiots, state that they are absolutely ashamed of their behavior. I dont think of typical members of football clubs as a bunch of sissies, referring all day long about political correctness, but pretty straight men, that wouldnt start to feel themselves ashamed the moment someone of them does a little gay-joke in public.

I agree wholeheartedly.

The instinctive socially-acceptable cry of 'racism' has almost become a cliché, due to the varyingly inappropriate circumstantial demands placed on the term in individual socio-contextual contexts, none of which are necessarily and'/or perceived as inherently racist and/or culturally predominant (where that predomination is regarded as culturally predeterminative)

The sad fact of the matter is that any merely perceived reference to a perceptible socio-ethnic and/or culturally-discernible factor relevant in a social context (either conceptually or demonstrably relevant to the adoptive culture's standards and/expectations) is regardable as potentially and/or demonstrably racist either by design or by (deliberate or inadvertant) neglect of perceivable/possible positive action.

The upshot of which is that standards of conduct that are perceived as unacceptable, by the applicable social norms and implicit expectations of the host culture, are given free expression --- up to and including (but not limited to) the turning of a 'blind eye' by relevant law enforcement officers, in the supposedly-morally-equivalent subcultural. expression in question

Myself it pisses me off that such a small and overcrowded island. archipelago should be regarded as such a desirable prospective adoptive country by so many people who are frankly undesirable (AUSLANDER) scum by any standards.. I therefore hope that (whatever the future governance of Britain) immigration is clamped down upon to relevant social. and cultural standards, not least with regard to the overpopulation of the British Isles.



Well, off you go, google as many details as you need in order to arrive at (what you might regard as) an informed option. I'm content to trust in the legal procedures and outcomes considered by social standards of admissable evidence. My own working hypothesis is that a naughty bunch of pissed-up lads decided to sing a song in praise of one of the convicted murderers of Stephan Lawrence, and that while doing so they physically threatened fellow-passengers in explicitly sexual and racial terms.



I quite agree -- it is inherently inequitable that the victims in a sexual abuse case have an automatic and inalienable right to anonymity whereas the suspect does not. despite the fact that he (usually a he) is named, identified, located in terms both of registered address/location and/or place of and nature of employment and perhaps even in terms of professional details. Moreover, the relationship between abuser and abused is often merely implicit whereas a just judicial system would (arguably) make such re;lationships exlicit and formally documented depending on the requirements of each case where judged to be appropriate in the public interest.

Generally I am opposed to politically-correct modes of thought and expressions of relative social equivalence. I may have racist tendencies, but I do my best to suppress them because I recognise that all human beings are inherently of equal social and/or cultural value.. Although this opinion is adjustable to a greater or lesser degree depending on the mutually-accepted socially-negotiable (considering the implicit social expectations and expectations in question), but ultimately mutually-acceptable standards of conduct
that act as prerequisites for civilised communication. Even though I am a white supremacist.
.
Despite the fact that I would quite happily (if it would not personally inconvenience me) see a large percentage of all available eurotrash disposed of through various means not excluding mass extermination via whatever means proves most technologically-efficient and socially expedient

CLARIFICATION: I am not actually a Nazi, honest. gov!! !! --Seig Heil --- ahem --- SEIIG HEIL .. well, I might be if you want me to be Mein fuhrer.

But I define myself as a liberal. Anyway, where were we?