What's the sentence gonna be?

[gambatte]

I don't know about 'right to life'. This calls for a 16 year retrospective abortion!!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/7233969.stm

 

[HLaB]

The details are a bit vague but reading other stories on the page it seems like they were commiting a robbery, the cyclist was then found dead in the street with serious head wounds? What's the world coming too!

 

[Terminator]

t's not the world it's this country.

 

[Keith Oates]

Unfortunately, not only this country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Arch]

I really don't get how hitting someone with a plank isn't murder, not manslughter. I know there are all sorts of fine distinctions about intent, but if I hit someone round the head with a plank, I'd have a fairly good idea that it might kill them.

Manslaugher, to me, ought to be reserved for cases where someone is negligent, or acts stupidly (I dunno, messing about with a forklight truck, or spiking a drink and causing someone to fall under a bus drunk) and causes a death, not as a 'get out for' someone who deliberately set out to harm someone, and happened to kill them in the process.

 

[Terminator]

Unfortunately, not only this country!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WE don't seem to have much of a Police force here.All tied up in red tape normally.

 

[swee'pea99]

I'd have a fairly good idea that it might kill them.

The key word being 'might'. The distinction in law is pretty clear and, it seems to me, valid. We need to distinguish between people who kill people deliberately (hence 'premeditation') and those who do so inadvertently - however dumb they've been and/or 'should have seen the likelihood'. To muder someone means to set out to kill them and to succeed. Not simply to act in a way that results in their death. That surely is a distinction that's embodied in law for a good reason.

 

[gambatte]

So you can only be done for manslaughter if although you know it might kill 'em its likely it won't?

Mate of mine died a couple of weeks ago, looks like it might be tied to being knocked out by intruders at his work, 6 months ago....

 

[Tynan]

does kill them is manslaughter, for murder it has to be proved that they meant to kill them

not complicated, manslaughter carries a hefty top sentence

 

[Cab]

Hit someone in the head with a plank then the law needs to assume you're trying to kill that person.

 

[Tynan]

why?

knock them out is just as likely, more so

and 'assume' simply isn't good enough for a murder conviction
is this all the info we have anyway

 

[swee'pea99]

On the contrary, the prosecution needs to prove it. And that's how it should be.

 

[Arch]

Hit someone in the head with a plank then the law needs to assume you're trying to kill that person.

That's sort of what I think. I do undertand there's a distinction, I just don't always agree with it.

It's in cases like this I think an eye for an eye is a good idea. Whack the miscreant round the head with a plank and leave them lying in the road, and let them take the same chances they took committing the act.

 

[HLaB]

why?

knock them out is just as likely, more so

IMO if you hit some one once or twice with a plank maybe they are just trying to knock somebody out but hitting repeatedly is murder.
Unfortunately the courts may not agree.

 

[Terminator]

Every half-wit would know it wouldn't do the person much good.