> > Which ones? I didn't realise I was suggesting
>> anything new. Or anything that wasn't already
>> established practice.
>
>For example, having an independent forensics
>commission vet all forensics evidence. Or having
>judges somehow take over charging decisions. Lots of
>things.
The former is not really a new concept, just an extension of the existing principle that expert evidence should amount to more than partisan uninformed opinion.
I have never suggested that judges take over charging decisions, your imagination is running away with you.
> > So they eliminate judicial discretion, but afford
>> unlimited discretion to the prosecution to determine
>> sentence. What part do judges play in these trials,
>> they seem superfluous?
>
>Sentencing isn't all there is to a trial. It isn't
>even all there is to a plea. Application of the FSG is
>very intricate, Judges hate it because it strips them
>of discretion,
I'm with the judges. Sentencing requires the exercise of discretion, there are too many factors involved to enable it to be reduced to a mathematical formula. Human judgement is required.
> > And when you refer to prosecutors leveraging plea
>> bargains, I assume you mean extorting guilty pleas
>> by threats of disproportionate punishment otherwise?
>>
>
>No, the guilty pleas are prety much taken for granted.
>I mean in the plea process, the prosecutors try to
>extort pleas to worse and nore crimes that can be more
>severly punished.
That's what I meant too, one of us is splitting hairs.
> >
>> > >Yours in support of totalitarian represssion,
>> >
>> >I'm not sure a police state, which you seem to be
>> defending, i
>> >
>> >I won't bother to ask you to stop puting words in
>> my mouth.
> >
> > Your words, above, were to the effect that you are
>> in support of totalitarian repression.
>
>You are irony-deaf.
*I'm* irony-deaf!? You ought to worry less about the mote in my eye than planetoid in your own. ;-) But that aside, the accusations originally was that I was putting words in your mouth, now it is clear that you are simply taking offense because I appeared to take you at your word.
>Last time I'll say this. I am an extreme, kneejerk,
>raving, foaming-at-the-mouth civil libertarian. I
>defend no aspect of anything that I would call a
>police state. We seem to disagree on what would
>qualify, so let's not trade insult on this point, it's
>not productive.
I am not insulting you, nor do I take any insult from you. My only complaint has been that you sometimes tend to put words in my mouth.
>Califonia doesn't have cowboys any more, and Chicago
>has no more gangsters in fedoras. As for failing to
>notice Texan psycho boasting, where the f** have you
>been since the Supremes appointed the Cowboy in Chief
>as our Fuhrer?
Come come, he's not psycho. He's just a moron.
No cowboys in Texas anymore, shit! That's very sad, I knew a genuine cowboy once, though he was a Queenslander. It was about 25 years ago and he was from a dying breed, a cattle camp drover from out west Queensland. Back when stock was still driven to the saleyards over outback stock routes by wiry little men on horseback. His name was Robert (or "Red" on account of his hair) Crann, he was only about 20 then, but built like a steel rope, had given the cowboy life away to come on the road selling magazine subscriptions with our little troupe of book boys. (I guess we were some sort of cowboys too, in an allegorical kind of way.) He used to play his guitar and sing Slim Dusty songs everywhere we went. A real character, so I've got a soft spot for cowboys.
His favourite song seemed to an ancient Slim Dusty medley about an aboriginal stockman called Paddy Gramps and how he was mercilessly ripped off by his boss:
"Ten day a'long the week I work, an' sometimes longer still...
Boss say I catch-em overtime, when gov'ment pass the bill..."
I loved listening to him sing that song, I often wonder if he was taking the piss out of our bosses on the job by singing it all the time though, they used to get up to a few sharp tricks with the money they owed us too.
It was something of a comfort to imagine that there were still cowboys somewhere. Maybe in Argentina?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas