Do These Guys Deserve A Second Chance?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32193992
They say they have reformed, crocodile tears?

[New Judge]

Od course these characters have reformed (i.e. stopped smuggling drugs). They've been in the Chokey for ten years!

As has been said, it is quite well known that many far eastern countries have the death penalty available for such crimes. They were stupid. They should have brought their contraband to the UK. They'd have long since served their sentence (assuming they were caught and convicted, that is), safely ensconced in their council house by now drawing benefits to supplement their income, and sheltered from deportation by Article 8 of the ECHR.

[Gromit]

NJ
// They should have brought their contraband to the UK. They'd have long since served their sentence (assuming they were caught and convicted, that is), safely ensconced in their council house by now drawing benefits to supplement their income, and sheltered from deportation by Article 8 of the ECHR. //

Wonderfully cynical, but their problem is they got caught in Bali.

[ToraToraTora]

"...wonderfully cynical....." - and 100% accurate!

[joeluke]

Live by the sword...........

[New Judge]

Yes I know they were caught in Bali, Gromit. That's why I suggested they were stupid and that they should have committed their crime in a more "enlightened" country (i.e. a soft touch).

[Peter Pedant]

God I wish people wouldnt remove other peoples answers.

There are so many people telling bobajob he is wrong
I truly wonder what he said

Hanging people for non capital offences
Retrocop can confirm if we hanged for terrorist offences, we would have hanged at least 10 rather obviously innocent Irishmen.

Drug smugglers here tend to serve longer sentences than murderers - but I agree they are alive at the end of it.

[Peter Pedant]

// They'd have long since served their sentence//
nope you get long sentences for drug smuggling here as well

( but dont let the truth get in the way of a good sound bite )

[Ric.ror]

Sorry but I am very anti the death penalty
That being said they should be expected to serve a very loooooooooong prison sentence

[Jackdaw33]

You cannot hang someone for a non-capital offence by definition. A capital offence is one which attracts the death penalty, as does drug smuggling in Indonesia et al.

[New Judge]

If you look at page 5 of this document, Peter:

http://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Drug_Offences_Definitive_Guideline_final_web1.pdf

you will see it is no mere sound bite. Even if the offence these characters committed was seen as category 1 in which they took a “leading role” (i.e. top of the sentencing range) the starting point for consideration is 12 years. Of this he will serve no more than six (all prisoners serving determinate sentences are normally released automatically and unconditionally after serving half their sentence). Of course this assumes a not guilty plea. Pleading guilty will reduce this by a third. No doubt a decent brief (funded by Legal Aid, natch) would persuade the judge to ease this down a bit further. So, maximum of six years, and probably a good bit less than that. This crew were originally sentenced in 2006 so I stand by my contention that they would have been out long before now.

Of course it’s pure conjecture on my part that they would be in social housing and enjoying the protection of the ECHR. But I know where I’d put my money.

[lindapalmara]

Nope! Deal with drugs in Indonesia = get your neck stretched

[ludwig]

It all makes sense judge. It's natural evolution. We want to attract the right type of criminals here - ie the cleverer ones that don't like being punished very much. The stupid ones are all being put to death in some far eastern 5h1th0le, and good riddance to them.

[Peter Pedant]

No Jackdaw we have had this before

we hanged people for non capital offences until 1861 and the Offences against the Person act ... You must have missed that lecture ....

[Peter Pedant]

// We want to attract the right type of criminals here - ie the cleverer ones that don't like being punished very much. //

hasnt worked very well so far
50% cons cant read and write
and 75% never work again once out

Aitken the great perjuror was called The Joiner in his open prison
b/c he was the only one ( besides the gubner I suppose ) who could write joined up writing

[Zacs-Master]

I think Jackdaw is talking about now PP. Not 150 years ago.

[Prudie]

It's all very well to say they knew the punishment for their crime but it is a punishment that a large majority of the civilised world now find unacceptable. If you use that when in Rome standard then you'd also agree with a woman being stoned to death for adultery in Syria. I'm not reducing the vileness of their crime, just the punishment.

[Baldric]

Why all this talk of hanging, they are going to shoot them!

[ludwig]

// hasnt worked very well so far
50% cons cant read and write
and 75% never work again once out //

Oh dear I didn't know that. Tell you what, if they're all just useless troublesome f8ckwits after all, lets try locking them up for longer.

[Jackdaw33]

Read my lips. A capital offence is one punishable by death. What are now non-capital offences were capital at the time. Drug smuggling is a capital offence in Indonesia and Malaysia, not in the UK. Murder was a capital offence until 1957 when the Homicide Act distinguished between capital and non-capital murder.

[Jackdaw33]

Capital in this sense is derived from the Latin 'caput', genitive 'capitis', from the phrase 'damnare caput', to condemn the head, as beheading was the Roman method of execution.