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Time to educate our judges : Comments
By Barbara Biggs, published 22/9/2006Apparently women and children are more prone to lie than men - and some really believe it!
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http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/public-softer-on-crime-than-judges-study-finds/2006/09/29/1159337341315.html
The second and third paragraphs read:
"If anything, people who were made familiar with the circumstances of a violent crime and offenders were more lenient and less likely to believe they should be jailed for long periods, said criminologist Austin Lovegrove.
The results include members of the public discounting by a third a jail sentence for a rapist who attacked a woman in her home. "When they realise they are sentencing a real person, then it gets trickier for the bulk of people," Dr Lovegrove said. "They have to think about the woman who has to look after two children, the armed robber who has a pathetic background, the white-collar criminal who has ruined his life."
It is also worthwhile remembering that in the vast majority of sex assault cases that go to trial, the decision is made by a jury, that is members of the public, not by judges. It is the jury who decides who lies, not a judicial officer.
Where a magistrate, in a committal hearing, declines to send a case to trial, the DPP can still bring the matter before a jury through the use of ex officio indictments.
Or are some here suggesting that jury trials should be abolished, judges 're-educated' to produce guilty verdicts in spite of evidence, or perhaps the re-introduction of the rack in order to get 'confessions' out of people (read: "men") who are accused of sexual assault?
If the problem is with Family Law, then maybe evidence, and accusations, gathered in those proceedings should be able to be used more in (or perhaps be automatically be referred to)criminal courts, after all the best way of removing an abusive father from parenting is to put him in gaol. Pity that fathers in gaol cannot easily pay child support, which is maybe why that course is not followed.
Also, criminal courts tend to take perjury very seriously.