>billbartlett at dodo.com.au wrote:
>>
>> In a free country this is determined case by case. A person
>>accused of being a serial killer is usually assessed a more serious
>>risk to society than a person accused of a crime of passion, such
>>as murdering his wife. This is entirely logical, since a person is
>>unlikely to be in a position to kill his wife again, while out on
>>bail.
>
>Um, no, the first thing _he_ does after they let him out is hunt down
>and kill the guy he thinks was sleeping with his wife.
If he didn't do that in the first place, why would he do it now? That's why its called a crime of passion, these aren't cold-blooded psychopaths.
The trial of a local fellow who beat his wife's lover to death on his own doorstep just finished last week. A real nasty piece of work, an ex-cop. He was out on bail right up until the minute he was convicted, didn't abscond, didn't murder the wife while on bail. Convicted of murder and sentenced to 7 years without possibility of parole.
Here's another example from today's Melbourne Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2002/07/16/1026802690201.htm
Magistrate bans young man on bail from driving
Date: July 17 2002
By Olivia Hill-Douglas
The family and friends of two boys killed in a car crash cheered and clapped in court yesterday when a magistrate ordered that the driver not be allowed behind the wheel while on bail.
Daniel Caldarera, 18, of View Bank, is charged with culpable driving after crashing his high-powered luxury car on July 28 last year, killing Joshua Martin, 17, and Jack Gilhooley, 17.
[...]
Magistrate Peter Mealy said that Mr Caldarera was a risk to public safety as a driver, and ordered that he not drive or be in charge of a car while on bail.
[...]
Mind you, it is less likely an accused killer will get parole, as opposed to a shoplifter, since the sentence hanging over his head is much higher. The risk of absconding is therefor greater. Even so, most people facing prison terms don't abscond, they face the music. The thing is, its the same principle that must be applied. Remand in custody prior to conviction can only be justified where it is demonstrated that a serious risk would otherwise exist. If a risk cannot be demonstrated then there is no justification for imprisoning a person who is innocent.
In the traffic case above, a serious risk was judged to exist, but not a risk that required imprisonment, merely preventing the accused from driving was sufficient.
A blanket ban on bailing those presumed innocent, without any cause needing to be made out, is essentially asserting that the state has the right to imprison any citizen without cause.
> Again though,
>we're not talking about the abominable crime of willfully ending another
>human's life, we're talking about, for example, a teenager up on his
>second charge of being that particular black kid in baggy pants who
>bolted out the door of the Pick-Kwik with a case of Budweiser under his
>arm.
Same principle though. Innocent is innocent, what does it matter which crime a person is innocent of? The issue of bail has nothing to do with that, it is solely concerned with any potential risk that can be shown.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20020717/f7bf1019/attachment.htm>