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Mandatory life sentence for murder: remain or be abolish?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
If you are found guilty of murder, you will receive a mandatory life sentence. This therefore suggests that every murder is equally serious; that every offender is equally dangerous to both himself or herself and the wider society; and that all murders have the same facts. It assumes that all murders are the same and it in no way recognises the individuality of every murder.
Take the following three examples:
1) An husband was suffering from an exceptionally painful and incurable illness. He was in bed all day and had no real life. He was desperately unhappy. His wife knew this and consequently smothered him with a pillow, from which he died, even though he did not ask her to do it;
2) A person carried a knife and stabbed a passer-by in the chest. This passer-by subsequently died; and
3) A terrorist planted a bomb in a car with the intention of killing a specific person. When the targeted person sat in the car, it exploded, when subsequently killed him.
All of the above people would have been charged with murder, because there would have been a dead body and maliaceaforethought (i.e. the intention to kill or to cause GBH).
Are all of the three examples equally serious? Is the offender in all three examples equally dangerous and does he or she pose an equal risk to him or herself and the wider society? Or are the facts in each case sufficiently different to warrant different sentences?
I am arguing that every crime - from the most serious to the least grave - is very different, and thus this individuality must be recognised by deciding each case upon its facts and its facts alone. If you do not decide merely upon the facts of each case, the outcome might be unsound and thus unjust.
Yes, all three people died in my three examples, but it is the circumstances surrounding their deaths which differenciates each death into categories of seriousness - something that must be considered in deciding upon a relevant sentence.
I sincerely believe that the mandatory life sentence should be abolished so that the trial judge has absolute discretion to decide a relevant sentence based merely upon the facts of the case. If this is not done, he or she will have to pass the mandatory life sentence, even if it is wholly inappropriate.
Do you think that the mandatory life sentence for murder should remain or be abolished? Please fully justify your answer.
The government's proposals regarding the hierarchical system of seriousness will be debated later. In the meantime, please concern yourself with answer the question above.
Take the following three examples:
1) An husband was suffering from an exceptionally painful and incurable illness. He was in bed all day and had no real life. He was desperately unhappy. His wife knew this and consequently smothered him with a pillow, from which he died, even though he did not ask her to do it;
2) A person carried a knife and stabbed a passer-by in the chest. This passer-by subsequently died; and
3) A terrorist planted a bomb in a car with the intention of killing a specific person. When the targeted person sat in the car, it exploded, when subsequently killed him.
All of the above people would have been charged with murder, because there would have been a dead body and maliaceaforethought (i.e. the intention to kill or to cause GBH).
Are all of the three examples equally serious? Is the offender in all three examples equally dangerous and does he or she pose an equal risk to him or herself and the wider society? Or are the facts in each case sufficiently different to warrant different sentences?
I am arguing that every crime - from the most serious to the least grave - is very different, and thus this individuality must be recognised by deciding each case upon its facts and its facts alone. If you do not decide merely upon the facts of each case, the outcome might be unsound and thus unjust.
Yes, all three people died in my three examples, but it is the circumstances surrounding their deaths which differenciates each death into categories of seriousness - something that must be considered in deciding upon a relevant sentence.
I sincerely believe that the mandatory life sentence should be abolished so that the trial judge has absolute discretion to decide a relevant sentence based merely upon the facts of the case. If this is not done, he or she will have to pass the mandatory life sentence, even if it is wholly inappropriate.
Do you think that the mandatory life sentence for murder should remain or be abolished? Please fully justify your answer.
The government's proposals regarding the hierarchical system of seriousness will be debated later. In the meantime, please concern yourself with answer the question above.
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Comments
but life for murder should stay, euthanasia shouldnt be counted as murder
I agree with that. :yes:
No, I was very careful to word that so that it would be murder. For murder, you need two elements:
1) A dead body;
2) Maliceaforethought (intention to kill or to cause GBH).
The wife in my instance would have had maliceaforethought (she intended to kill him by smothering him) and there would have been a dead body. As such, she would be charged with murder.
Euthanasia, as you know, is illegal in England and Wales.
No, it was not his wish.
Reread what I put: 'even though he did not ask her to do it'
This alone indicates the fundamental importance of deciding a case merely upon its facts.
well she wouldnt have done it if he wanted to live now would she?!
That's a fact for the counsels to argue over - see, if you ASSUMED every murder (or every criminal case) was the same and so transparent, it would result in a lot of unsound and unjust sentences. This aptly illustrates the importance of deciding a case upon its facts.
trust you to take his side!!!!!
I'm not saying the woman would have done the wrong (or even right) thing, as that's a question of morals...not of the law.
I believe (unless convinced otherwise) that the mandatory sentance for murder should stay.
now thats a bit of decent advice!!!! some people take debates too seriously
LET'S IGNORE WHETHER OR NOT SHE SHOULD BE CHARGED WITH MURDER. THE FACT IS - SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN.
Continue!
dont shout at a baby!!
It was noisey - I had to speak more loudly to be heard.
The terrorist should get the most severe sentence, it was premeditated, we need to get the message out that being a terrorist will get you the most severe sentence.
The knife carrier im not sure about to be honest. They should not have been carring a knife but we dont know why he stabbed the passer by. Was it a mental condition? so Im not willing to say mcuh about that one.
The wife who smothered hubby. Yes she did murder him wether we like it or not but I dont think she deserves the same sentence as the terrorist. She must have loved her hubby so much and just couldnt stand seeing him suffer so much, so she decided to let him suffer no more and be free from pain etc.
So I do agree with your comments Mobily
Precisely. They all warrant different sentences because the facts of each example are sufficiently different. It would be unjust to assume that all three examples were the same and thus equally serious and that the offender is equally dangerous.
Currently, the trial judge would have had to have passed a mandatory life sentence to all three, even though they are two clearly different crimes, including in seriousness. If, however, the judge had discretion to pass a sentence as he saw fit, i.e. upon the facts, you would see, assuming that there was no defence in any of these examples, much different - and more sound and just - sentencing.
Becky - for murder, it must be proven that 'maliceaforethought' existed. This is the intention to kill or the intention to cause GBH. In addition, it is the state of the mind of the defendant at the time of the crime. It is split into two: direct (or specific) intention and oblique intention.
Direct intention means that the defendant desires the consequences of his conduct, for instance where a person stabs another to death with the intention that the victim is killed.
Oblique intention means that the accused does not desire to kill but nevertheless the result of his or her conduct is that the person is dead.
There's loads more to it, but that's the bare bones.
There is no room for movement in my eyes.
In all of those situations an unlawful death has taken place, a life lost. therefore each amount of liability is equal.
Mobily have you took law or something cos you sound like my teacher
Nonsense. So you are saying that the circumstances in which the crimes were excuted are irrelevant and unimportant? That is absurd. All crimes VARY because of the circumstances in which they are committed, because these are the FACTS of the case.
By saying that each murder is equal, you are presuming that the state of the mind of the defendant at the time of the crime was the same in every situation; that every murder is equally serious; and that every offender poses an equal risk to society. In terms of the latter, would the wife who murdered her husband for compassionate reasons go onto the streets with a gun and shoot someone? Would she plot to kill her noisey neighbour? I think not. As such, it is essential to consider the facts.
I fail to understand why you think that the facts of the case are unimportant.
what would happen though if say some random person started a fight with you, say on a night out. They're punching you etc, then you fight back, self-defense, but your a better fighter than them, your adreneline(sp?) is going, you can't stop coz your so mad at them, eventually they stop fighting back, you've knocked them out. Police arrive, take a statement. They guy who started the fight ends up in hospital, and dies two days later from his injuries. You get charged with murder coz after all there's a dead body. You have a few broken ribs but thats it. The case goes to trial, judge doesn't drop the charge to the lesser crime of manslaughter, and you get put on trial for MURDER for defending yourself. Does that seem fair? Should you then get put away for life?
I think the circumstances surrounding the case make all the difference to the sentence.
(mobily is that case actually possible?)
Well, I was ignoring any defences that could have been raised in my three examples.
In your example, he or she could have raised the defence of self-defence, provocation and possibly intoxication (assuming they were drunk on their "night out").
In terms of provocation, if the judge thinks that he or she was provoked to such an extent that he or she instantly lost self-control (as opposed to it building up) then the murder charge might be reduced to voluntary manslaughter*. However, if he cooled down for a period of time - however small - and then fought back, the defence of provocation would not be possible because he would have regained control.
If the judge reduces the murder charge to voluntary manslaughter and the defendant is found guilty, the judge will have discretion in sentencing. If, however, the judge does not reduce it to voluntary manslaughter and the jury finds the defendant guilty even though the defence pleaded self-defence, he will still be charged with murder. If found guilty, he will receive a mandatory life sentence.
* Voluntary manslaughter requires the same as murder, i.e. maliaceforethought (the intention to kill or to cause GBH). The difference between it and murder is that you can plead one or more defences out of provocation, diminished responsibility or suicide pact.
In forms of assault like common assault, abh, reckless gbh and intentional gbh the sentences go up in order or how serious they are.
To have the same theory when the end result of each case ends in a murder would be outrageous.
You cant have an objective factor in murder and allow for either a jury or a judge to assess the case and sentence them according mental state or 'seriousness'.
There is a lot lenient judges and lenient juries. By allowing them to choose how long to sentence them for would bring a huge amount of uncertainty into this area of law. An area as serious as this doesn't need uncertainty or lenient judges. People may feel sorry for the defendant when they have in fact committed a cold blooded murder. But because of a sob story put forward and a clever defence lawyer you could see a person who has committed the most heinous crime get a sentence of only 5 years.
How far would you take this?
If a more important person is killed does the defendant get a long sentence?
Because someone was stabbed 5 times instead of 30 times that should knock a few years off the sentence?
The state of mind can be put forward in murder cases like diminsihed responsibility or provocation. This does allow for some movement but dont forget even for manslaughter the max sentence is murder.
Also in a lot of self defence cases the people are not even charged with the murder.
But if you kill someone in a fistfight, that shouldn't go unpunished.
All crimes against the person, from the second most serious (i.e. voluntary manslaughter) to the least serious (assault), with the exception of murder, are deciding upon the facts of the case. This is because the judge has complete discretion in deciding an appropriate sentence having taken into consideration all of the facts, such as the type of mens rea, the emotional consequence, the likelihood of reoffending and suchlike. This is surely better than merely passing a sentence without any regard for these factors, as with murder. What if a person found guilty of murder is, according to doctors, totally unlikely to reoffend having killed, for example, a partner for compassionate reasons? What if the offender has shown considerable remorse? What if the offender is deemed to posed no risk to society? Yes, murder is of course an exceptionally serious crime (the most serious offence against the person), but when one looks at the facts of the cases, it is clear that there are distinct divisions between the level of
seriousness, despite there being a dead body for all (the actus reus). This is because the facts of the cases are very different. As such, I am of the firm belief that the trial judge should have absolute discretion in deciding an appropriate sentence for murder based upon the facts, and that the mandatory life sentence should be abolished.
Just because they are oh so sorry doesn't mean: if they get the feelings next time in a similar situation they wont do exactly the same thing and kill that person.
Accidental deaths are usually charged with M/S.
There is room for movement concerning murder with voluntary manslaughter and involuntary manslaughter.
If there is the lack of specific intent then the facts and the seriousness of the case ARE taken into account.
Where there is a specific intent to kill someone how can you differenciate?
How much more room for movement do you want?
The abolishment of the life sentence would lead to the disintegration of the value of a human life.