McKinnon Deportation

Post Reply New Topic

I 'am trying to find every little thing to pick on. I need help here I'am having a problem.

autism dosent make him any less responsible for his actions. its as simple as that.

I'll admit that he does need to be held responsible for his actions, but NOT in America. Why? If he goes to trial in Britain, he will be treated like every other criminal - given a fair trial, and if convicted, a sentence proportionate to the gravity of his crime. If he gets extradited and tried in America, however, he will most likely be treated as another terrorist hell-bent on destroying America. That means a biased military tribunal, in which he will almost certainly be found guilty and sentenced to the rest of his life in prison, or worse.

I strongly urge any Americans here to protest his extradition. All of you know that potential terror suspects in this country are stripped of their rights. While I do believe he should not escape punishment entirely, he needs to be treated like every other criminal, with a fair trial by jury of peers. Its not like he tried to blow up a plane, people. I've heard of murderers getting lesser sentences that what the CIA plans to do to this kid for a simple case of computer hacking.

That's a matter for the courts to determine actually. Autism does have the potential to cause diminished capacity and whether or not it did in any particular instance is a matter for the courts to determine apon application (made by submitting a defence of "dminished capacity" in the course of criminal proceedings).

thats not a matter for a court to decide. he can tell the differance between right and wrong just like every other human being. even if autism was a disabillity, which its not, he would still be responsible for his own actions. otherwise disabled people would be above the law.

It is a matter for the courts to decide.

As for knowing right from wrong, right and wrong and subjective and what is right is not always lawful, while what is wrong is not always unlawful. Whether or not it was wrong to do what this person did is actually entirely subjective. You can take a legal positivism approach to conclude that disobeying the law is wrong, but that merely begs the question as to whether or not legal positivism is morally right or wrong.

Your notion that Autism cannot impact on one's culpability for their acts (be it moral or legal culpability) is seriously flawed. Your comments indicate that you do not understand the clinical realities of Autism, nor important concepts that are at the core of natural justice.

I don't think autism has anything to do with this. It's about jurisdiction and sovereignty, as someone else has already explained. You have to ask yourself, if an American citizen, at home in America, would be extradited to the UK if the roles were reversed?

Natural Justice? Not this side of the jungle.

Equal justice under law is our standard. Where all people do differ, we have one standard.

Try the Defendant, not the Court.

Which comes back to the earlier position that the USA is not fit to try the case as the USA blatantly disregards human rights and international law. In the same way as people seek asylum here from the machinations of their corrupt governments, so Mckinnon should be able to argue that his human rights will be disregarded if he is tried in the states. This should be the case whether he was autistic or not. It should certainly apply from a disability point of view.

The Human Rights issue was tried, before a British Court, several times, and he lost.

America has taken in many seeking asylum from their corrupt governments. Very few Americans have sought asylum elsewhere, and most of those faced murder charges here.

After several trips to British Courts, appeals to the British Government, all denied, he has been found subject to trial in America.

and again, America is in no position to claim it can provide a fair trial or fair treatment for an international "terror suspect", as is clearly evidenced by their treatment of other terror suspects from overseas.

Some we detained for questioning, some were released to be met again in battle, they were club members, and some we have a problem trying because the evidence was not gained by methods our courts would accept. Most were tried by Hellfire Missles fired from drones, which is something all governments do from time to time.

Gary is to be tried in public with evidence the courts will accept.

the point of courts are to implement justice. justice IS a moral issue. yes, it depends on the circumstances, but if he is guilty of a crime he should recieve the same punishment anyone esle would. the "clinical" realities of autism? autism is no more "clinical" than coloured skin or homosexuality.

why should he be punished? for what purpose? whats the intended outcome of punishment? as far as I am aware, the legal system does nothing to stop crime, and the punishment system does nothing to stop crime, therefore both are pointless.

Perhaps if the Pentagon where not involved in highly dubious and immoral activities it wouldnt have happened at all? After all, Secret/Intelligence Services are there to generate lies

The US justice system is a derivative of the old English justice system. The US justice system is founded on common law, and common law is founded on natural justice. To claim that natural justice is irrelevant to a justice system is to claim that justice is irrelevant to that system.


Now you are contradicting yourself. Natural justice is a requisite of justice of any kind. No natural justice is the same as no justice, including of the equal variety.


I am not the one accusing the US justice system of being devoid of justice, that's your accusation, not mine.

Indeed, the UK should never extradite any person to a justice system that is incompatible with the tennets of UK justice, human rights as conceptualized in UK law, or where the other system is (relative to the UK's justice system) excessively punitive.

Courts make mistakes; just ask all the people previously on death row in the US, subsequently freed as a result of the application of DNA forensics. You could ask the one's that were already fried (who only knows how many they number) but do not expect an answer unless you are a medium.

That the US took entirely innocent people into custody, treated them in an unacceptable and inhumane way, without sufficient grounds to justify the arrest, detention and continued holding of particular people is a matter of record. I do not believe that every innocent person so detained by the US would necessarily have been working in a UK store where they were filmed on video tape, such that they could rely on such video footage to prove that they could not have been where the US accussed them of being, doing the crimes the US claimed to be holding them in respect of.

It is a matter of public record that the US have offered rewards in various locations for information leading to arrests on charges of terrorism, and accusations made pursuant to such reward offers, was in many instances, the sole cause of the arrest and detention of people. In other words, in many cases there was no more evidence than an unsubstantiated accusation made by someone who enjoyed a financial gain by making such an accusation.


No it is not. This is in many peoples' view a goal and achievement of an ideal justice system, but it is not the point of courts per say. The point of courts is to administer the law.


I did not claim that justice and morality were unrelated. The fact is that the law is not dictated or determined by morality. It is (in common law justice systems) dictated and determined by an admixture of precedent and legislation.

If he is guilty of a crime within the jurisdiction he was in at the time the crime was committed, then he should receive the punishment that anyone else in that jurisdiction would receive. The implications otherwise is that if you publish information that it is illegal to publish in China, even though you do so from the US, you should be extradited to China and get the same punishment as anyone there would. The implication of your reasoning is that the US should be extraditing people who have had sex outside of marriage to countries where this is illegal and punishable by being stoned to death so that everyone everywhere gets the same punishment when they act in a way that is illegal somewhere in the world.

If someone in the US commits a crime in the US they are tried there, not somewhere else just because the punishment happens to be harsher elsewhere. If someone in the US does something that is not a crime in the US, they are not extradited somewhere their act is a crime for the purpose of punishing them. Either Gary committed a crime in the UK and has a right to be tried in the UK, by the UK and to be unaccountable (criminally) to any foreign power in respect of that act, or he did not commit a crime in the UK and has the right to remain in the UK without being held to criminal account by some foreign power. Anything else is a travesty in respect of justice and a gross errosion of the rights of every citizen of the UK, and a significant risk to the rights of citizens of the US.


Now you are talking complete nonsense.

No it is not. This is in many peoples' view a goal and achievement of an ideal justice system, but it is not the point of courts per say. The point of courts is to administer the law. and the law is based on what if not justice?


I did not claim that justice and morality were unrelated. The fact is that the law is not dictated or determined by morality. It is (in common law justice systems) dictated and determined by an admixture of precedent and legislation.
i agree he should be tried in the UK but that has nothing to do with him being autistic.

If he is guilty of a crime within the jurisdiction he was in at the time the crime was committed, then he should receive the punishment that anyone else in that jurisdiction would receive. The implications otherwise is that if you publish information that it is illegal to publish in China, even though you do so from the US, you should be extradited to China and get the same punishment as anyone there would. The implication of your reasoning is that the US should be extraditing people who have had sex outside of marriage to countries where this is illegal and punishable by being stoned to death so that everyone everywhere gets the same punishment when they act in a way that is illegal somewhere in the world.

If someone in the US commits a crime in the US they are tried there, not somewhere else just because the punishment happens to be harsher elsewhere. If someone in the US does something that is not a crime in the US, they are not extradited somewhere their act is a crime for the purpose of punishing them. Either Gary committed a crime in the UK and has a right to be tried in the UK, by the UK and to be unaccountable (criminally) to any foreign power in respect of that act, or he did not commit a crime in the UK and has the right to remain in the UK without being held to criminal account by some foreign power. Anything else is a travesty in respect of justice and a gross errosion of the rights of every citizen of the UK, and a significant risk to the rights of citizens of the US.


Now you are talking complete nonsense.[/quote] so would you consider autism a medical issue then? would you consider it a problem with people? would you consider it to be a thing that should be "corrected" or "erradicated"?