I’m listening to LBC callers say that forcing the convict to attend their sentencing hearing ‘smacks of medievalism’. All kinds of hell-fire would be unleashed if this law was overturned.
Yet in the US and other countries, convicts are forced to attend their sentencing hearings and the sky didn’t fall. What is so fucking special about the UK?
Ok I don’t really have an opinion on this particular thing, but in general - if the US forces people to do something and the UK doesn’t, I’m willing to give UK the benefit of the doubt.
And more in general, if in doubt, then giving people more freedom is not a bad thing. It never happens these days though - citizen rights keep being constantly eroded everywhere, so it may be worth fighting even for little things like this to keep the idea in mind.
This is my stance. Before sentencing, we must give the defendant as much freedom as realistically possible (even in fringe cases where we ‘know’ beforehand that they’ll die behind bars).
Might be an unpopular opinion around here but I don’t think that after this sort of crime you’re still a citizen. You’ve moved yourself outside of the accepted definition of citizen to something else. I’m not saying you no longer have any rights, of course you do. But I don’t think you should be afforded citizens rights as we know them. Call it criminal rights or whatever you want but you’re no longer a citizen if you choose so brazenly to murder defenceless babies in the way she did. And given that, I don’t think criminals should be allowed to skip sentencing.
Sounds like bullshit to me.
Which part?