Justice in this world of Unbelief is a pretty thing to behold. The courts are beautiful in elevation; the joy of the nation. They are both divertingly entertaining and instructive.
Recently in New Zealand we have been given an object lesson in avoiding the courts--for the most violent and evil acts. You see, the context in which our Unbelieving system of justice works is like this: evil is believed to be extrinsic to the human heart. Evil acts, therefore, are the product of conditioning--whether biological, chemical, or social. Evil is not truly evil, just different. Morality amounts to nothing more than a general social convention. Justice represents tricks the majority plays on other people and their actions it doesn't like. There is no such thing as genuine evil or wickedness.
A subtle implication of this is that the more extreme and barbaric one's crimes, the more likely it is that you will be treated as sick and needing help.
Only someone who is truly sick would do such things, right? So, if you are going to do crime it is best to do really sadistic, violent and perverted stuff. Then the system will be biased towards regarding you with pity and condescension rather than retributive wrath. It will rush to see you as the piteous victim of biological, genetic, chemical or social demons.
But now we have just been served up with a magnificent development on the theme. If you do really violent, perverted stuff and then can get a psych to diagnose you with dementia, even mild dementia, you will not even go to trial--and you will enjoy name suppression to boot. Off scot-free. Now the most common symptom of dementia is memory loss. So, if you plan and scheme to do terrible crimes, acting like a depraved animalistic brute, and commit acts of barbaric savagery upon others, the Unbelieving justice system will be set up to paternalistically condescend to you. But if you apparently have little or no memory of these acts, it will diagnose you as demented, and you will not even face trial. Stupendous.
Here is the "case"--as reported in Stuff. (Disclaimer: we have yet to hear the other side, if there is one, so regard this as prima facie evidence of a cunning plan to get off scot-free. But since the court is reported as accepting the guilt of the non-accused on the balance of probabilities, it's hard to see how the "other side" could change one's view.)
A serial rapist who kept one of his teenage victims as a sex slave in a remote bush hut is expected to walk free from court because he has developed mild dementia. Court delays, including more than two years elapsing since he was first charged with abduction and rape, have also contributed to what one of his victims says is the justice system failing them.There you have it. This perp was clearly sick, right? He is even more sick now. Unbelieving justice at work. One of the Seven Wonders of the Universe. We have little doubt that if he had been committed to trial, his mild dementia would have become acute within a matter of days.
A judge has accepted the man committed what amounted to hundreds of rapes involving four women – some aged as young as 15. But he is expected to walk free on the charges when he appears in court next month. He is also seeking permanent name suppression. The dragged-out court process has appalled one of his victims, who was 19 when she was lured to a remote part of the North Island and kept as a sex slave for five months. . . . "I was repeatedly terrorised with threats of torture, forced abortion with wire, starvation, being eaten alive by pigs, death and death to any babies born to me," she told The Dominion Post.
She became pregnant to the man and says he shot a healthy pregnant cow, slit it open and threw its unborn calf to be devoured by semi-wild pigs, to demonstrate what he could do to her. In her statement to police she described the pregnancy ending violently as she was being raped. "I was cramping, in a lot of discomfort and groaning in pain. Clearly I was having a miscarriage. He knew I was pregnant. He knew I was bleeding. Clearly I was in pain, yet he continued to rape me." Being repeatedly raped was one thing, but to violently experience the emotional pain of miscarriage during rape was "shattering beyond belief," she said.
"My ability to protect the life within me was smashed to pieces. It affected me on how I viewed myself as a human being and a mother and added a different dimension to the power he held over me as a rapist." Suppression orders mean The Dominion Post cannot reveal specific details of the woman's ordeal, including dates and where the offending took place.
The woman was the first to complain to police, in September 2008. Three more victims subsequently came forward. She wants her own name suppression lifted – and she and the other victims want the man's name suppression lifted so the public knows what he did. He was originally charged in December 2009 with four charges of rape, one of unlawful sexual connection and one of abduction. The charges increased in 2010 to 14, including a representative charge covering hundreds of rapes, and further charges were later laid as more complainants were spoken to. So far he has made 27 court appearances and up till the last two was deemed fit to stand trial.
However his lawyers obtained reports from a psychiatrist and a psychologist saying he has developed mild dementia and is now not fit to be tried. A judge has accepted the medical opinions after the Crown also obtained reports from a psychiatrist and psychologist. (Emphasis, ours)
. . . . Despite her protests, she became a sex slave as the man moved her into his bedroom, raped her almost daily at will – and told her he would kill anyone who tried to help her. She said she was powerless, helpless and completely manipulated and feared that because of the remoteness he would easily track her down if she tried to escape.
Because he will not be criminally tried on rape charges, the judge has viewed the evidence and ruled that on the civil law test of the balance of probabilities the man was a rapist. She was also raped by him in another house where she heard details of a murder being planned and money being exchanged for the hit. He said no-one would know where she was because he would force her to write to her parents saying she had hitch-hiked to Auckland. The man forced her to do heavy labouring work and beat her when she plucked up the courage to ask him to allow her to leave. She eventually escaped using the man's vehicle when he went bush with a visiting friend.
2 comments:
Isn't this simply an outworking of the (true, right and good) principle that one should be considered innocent before the law until proven guilty? The requirement that defendant be 'fit' to stand trial is to avoid convictions in circumstances where the Defendant does not have the capacity to raise a defence that might otherwise be available to him.
The law (rightly) lets many guilty people off under these circumstances to avoid the conviction of the innocent in the same boat. I refer you to your (good) post here: http://jtcontracelsum.blogspot.co.nz/2011/07/burdens-of-proof.html
No problems, of course, with the just standard of innocence until proven guilty. However, there appears a wide discrepancy between "mild dementia" and complete mental incompetence. Most aged people could be diagnosed as having mild dementia, but continue to operate soundly and cogently for the most part--with occasional memory loss, wandering concentration, etc. Such people continue to drive cars, operate bank accounts, and continue to be held accountable to the law. They are not institutionalised, in other words.
Secondly, the accused's capacity to raise a defence needs to be qualified in the light of a professional defence counsel running the defence on behalf of the accused. We are no expert, but it would seem that oftentimes the input of the accused into the defence counsel work and strategy is minimal. Since this is the case, and since the Crown has such a high burden of proof, mild dementia seems a ridiculously low bar to set, particularly when the accused could well be exceedingly cunning.
JT
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