<< I like the idea of mandatoey sentences, & elected judges. >>

Oh heavens no, Hasbeen!

Each case needs to be judged on its merits. Mandatory sentencing is enormously dangerous if the law is not properly constituted to prevent very minor cases or cases with strong mitigating circumstances from being subjected to a harsh mandatory penalty.

Judges need to be appointed on merit and certainly not on the basis of who has the best public persona, the most money, the richest financial contributors to an election campaign, etc, etc.

It really isn't up to us to comment on any trial (murder or otherwise) unless we have been in the courtroom throughout the proceedings. Even then, some of the evidence is not revealed at all, or only during sentencing.

In the last 18 months, I have sat on 3 juries (1 rape trial, 2 murder trials). In each instance, there were drugs and alcohol involved, affecting various people's cognition and responses.

On the rape trial, I found the female judge to be manipulative and the jury to be both heavily biased and incapable of weighing up the evidence. It seems to me that Matriarchal Law applies to sexual assaults these days, and the chance of any alleged paedophile, rapist or incest committer going home is about a snowball's hope in Hades.

In this instance, I think the judge should have banged most of the people at a party's heads together and sent them to Rehab, since they didn't behave in the best interests of themselves or their friends. Instead the man got 7 years for 1 count of rape, and another woman and I steadfastly held out against a second rape conviction. The judge decided she was going to go for him on the second charge with a fresh jury. The defendant was black and spoke only broken English.

The jury on the first murder trial I sat on was sent home after I let the Justice know that the defendant had no chance of getting a fair trial from the mottly bunch of classist, racist jurors. I also voiced concerns about action/inaction by the police. Again, the defendant was a coloured person.

On the second murder trial, a white man was convicted on the greater charge of Murder, after he tried unsuccessfully to get off on a Manslaughter Charge. I liked the way this particular case was handled by the Justice, Police and Legal Teams.

Whether or not someone can get off on a lesser charge is dependent on the degree of provocation when weighed up against the degree of damage inflicted, and also the other possible solutions or escape routes available to the alleged murderer or victim. This person got a life sentence (about 10 years in Queensland) for a very heinous murder. In Victoria, the prison term would be 20 years.

I have to wonder if Mandatory Sentencing is more about helping Serco make money, or more about getting criminals off the streets. I think it could be the former.

In any case, I think we need a wholesale crackdown on adults and teenagers who do the wrong thing. This needs to happen quite early in the piece, not after they have committed multiple crimes, possibly of increasing severity.

I think the punishment should fit the crime e.g. if teenagers beat up a disabled child, perhaps they should each have to:

1. wash his underwear and socks by hand for a month.
2. bake him a cake every week for a month.
3. give him their most prized possession.

The courts could also get graffiti artists onto a Graffiti Removal Gang for an entire weekend.

From my own experiences in the courts, I think Residential Rehab needs to be the main destination/solution for those committing many criminal offences but, if you're a major psychopath, you need to be locked away.

Great points, Lorikeet,
I enjoyed reading of your real life experiences.
I agree with your thoughts re rehab, as I do feel that some of our prisons are really crime universities.
And I do think we've become sufficiently civilised to move away from the eye for an eye model.
Anthony
Htto://www.observationpoint.com.au

I think if we started electing judges, we would end up with the same type of rich shonks we finish up with in the parliament.

In some European countries, cases are tried by a panel of judges. It's hard to know if this would be better or worse than a jury system (might depend who is influencing them).

My advice to the government would be to screen all potential jurors for both mental health status and personal biases, using a questionnaire. It is also essential that they are literate in English, and can see and hear well.

Some people believe that we have an independent judiciary here in Australia, but I know that in civil court matters involving damages claims against various levels of government, the government sometimes influences the outcome in advance.

I think if there's a big criminal court case and the general public is howling for blood, politicians might try to bring some pressure to bear on the outcome to serve their own purposes.