Perverse Soteriology

Soft-Touch Judiciary

Every so often in New Zealand a case comes before a judge who ends up ruling without proper regard to the safety of citizens.  Instead, the focus falls rather upon "doing kindness" to repeat offenders. 

Stuff provides the following account:

A judge has admitted he is taking a risk in not sending a man with a history of reckless driving and driving at police back to jail for the same offence.  “It’s a huge risk, and I have to acknowledge that,” Judge Tony Greig said as he spared Dillan Mclellan in the New Plymouth District Court on Wednesday.

Mclellan was being sentenced for a reckless driving incident involving a police pursuit. It took place after his release from jail for the same offending committed in 2018.  “Somebody could have died in Mr Mclellan’s last set of offending, somebody could have died in this set of offending, and if he offends again somebody could die next time.”

However, Judge Greig said it was time to take a chance on the 22-year-old.  Mclellan’s court appearance stemmed from his late night drive on January 10, two months after he had been disqualified from getting behind the wheel for a period six months.

Police spotted him on an Opunake road and attempted to pull him over.  However, Mclellan ignored the order, accelerated and hit State Highway 45 (SH45).  He crossed the centre line, causing two cars to stop, and switched off his headlights while reaching speeds of up 146kmh.  He then slammed on his breaks, completed a U-turn, crossed the centre line and drove in the opposite lane towards the pursing patrol car.  Police had to take immediate action to avoid a collision.

In court, prosecutor Georgia Milne accepted the recommended sentence for Mclellan’s latest offending was intensive supervision but said imprisonment remained the Crown’s position.  Defence lawyer Rajan Rai said his client had been in custody since January which had provided time for Mclellan to “dry out” and adjust his attitude.  He was determined to sort his life out, which included engaging with his Māori culture, Rai said.

Judge Greig said Mclellan’s latest lot of offending was almost the exact repetition of his last.  In March 2018, police had used road spikes in an attempt to stop Mclellan, who had a warrant for his arrest, south of Omata on SH45.  He had driven his van at an officer, who dived for cover, before an unsuccessful attempt to flee on foot ended in arrest.

At Wednesday's hearing, Judge Greig said a “compelling” cultural report advised Mclellan wanted to change and to lead a “solid life”.  “And so if that’s what you want to do, that’s what I want to help you with.”  He sentenced Mclellan to 18 months’ intensive supervision coupled with judicial monitoring.
 
“If you stuff up I’ll probably be the judge who re-sentences you. Good luck, Mr Mclellan.”

The fundamental error with this kind of approach to sentencing is this: innocent members of the community have to bear the risk of the offender breaching his promises of "reformed behaviour".  It is not the judge who bears the risks.  It is his neighbours and fellow citizens.  Did they have a say?  Were their concerns taken into account? Not on your nellie.   

We applaud the fact that the offender promises to reform.  It is appropriate that he engage in the variety of programmes available in prison to help remove potentially murderous behaviour. But not at the expense of the innocent public. 

We suggest that such merciful judges be allowed to apply such accommodating sentences, if they felt so inclined.  But, the priviso would need to be that the sentencing judge be made culpable for the subsequent behaviour of the repeat offender.  Such a judge would need himself to be imprisoned if the offender subsequently failed to meet all his release obligations. 

We wonder if that would change Judge Greig's particular outlook on the administration of justice?

"Three Strikes" Is Working

Something To Be Thankful For

To the layman it would seem that the NZ justice and penal systems must be one of the more tolerant and permissive in the world.  The irony is that the people (that is, ordinary mums and dads) consistently expect criminal sentences to be weighty.  In NZ we have no death sentences.  It is, therefore, expected that serious sentences ought to manifest lengthy time in prisons.  There is no other form of punishment available.

For a long time now, it has been clear that judges (some, not all) appear to believe that any sentence longer than a dog whistle is unjust, cruel, and down right primitive.  Fortunately, the more conservative politicians have passed a "Three Strikes" law which requires repeat offending and sentences must attract progressively longer sentences. 

It is gratifying that "Three Strikes" is working.  It is both punishing the recalcitrant and protecting society from evil doers who have little or no regard for their evil actions.  This from David Farrar:

What's Sauce For the Goose Must Be Sauce For the Gander

The Hypocrisy on Tara Reade Is a National Disgrace

By The Editors,
National Review Online


We do not know whether the accusations that Tara Reade has leveled against Joe Biden are true or false. That is a question of evidence and of inquiry that might be answered as time rolls on. We do know, by contrast, that the double standard that has been exhibited by Biden’s campaign and by the political press in tandem is a national disgrace. Both culturally and legally, due process must be habitually applied to nobody or to everyone. If, upon the most frivolous and protean of pretexts, it is routinely accorded to one faction while being denied to another, it is effectively lost.

Though he has not deigned to address it directly, Joe Biden insists that he is innocent of the charge that he digitally penetrated an intern back in 1993. “It is untrue,” his communications director says. “This absolutely did not happen.” If so, we hope that this incident has taught Biden that his previous approach toward accusations of sexual assault was dangerous, illiberal, and ultimately untenable.

Threatening the Monopoly of "Soft Justice"

Guess Who was Punished...


A judge told a career crook to slim down and get a job 

Peter Hitchens
The Mail On Sunday


Here is a perfect story of modern Britain. A judge has been publicly reprimanded by a Tory Cabinet Minister for advising a criminal to lose weight and get a job.

I do not know if the allegedly overweight offender took the well-meant advice, but I somehow doubt it. Having spotted the way power and morals are going in modern Britain, he made a formal complaint that the judge had used 'abusive language' – and it succeeded. I wonder if he is now also entitled to compensation?

The judge, Recorder Julian Malins QC, flatly refused to agree that he had done anything wrong. Partly because he stood up for himself in this way, he was given a formal warning by the then Justice Minister and Lord Chancellor, David Gauke. Mr Gauke has since left this post but is, I believe, still a member of the 'Conservative' Party.

The official public notice from the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office (JCIO), highly damaging to a judge's career, says that, in reaching their decision, Mr Gauke and the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, 'took into consideration that the Recorder failed to acknowledge the inappropriateness of his conduct'.

The JCIO posted the reprimand on its website, but refuses to discuss the matter. I asked Mr Gauke to comment, asking him what was conservative about his action, and in what way he differed from the most politically correct wing of the Labour Party, but he has so far chosen not to do so. I do not know the identity of the criminal.

Mr Malins, 69, an experienced barrister, tells me he still has no regrets.

Complicit Politicians Sneering At Those Attacked by Recidivist Criminals

Guest Post: Is Three Strikes “Silly”?

Republished from Kiwiblog

A guest post from David Garrett:

Before and after his abortive attempt to repeal the three strikes (3S) law, Andrew Little’s only comment on it was and remains that it is “silly”, and “the high water mark of policy stupidity”. To the best of my knowledge, he has never actually explained what is “silly” about it, or explained why he thinks it is “stupid”. Perhaps he thinks  the voters are stupid, and will just take his word for it? So, do his  officials agree with him? It would seem not.

In a report on 3S released in December last year, Justice Department officials said inter alia  “the existing evidence is mixed and more robust research is needed to understand the true effects of these laws” and “Research in this area appears to be prone to political bias.” Aint that the truth.  However buried in the report is this:

“…in comparison with second strikeable offences committed before the law came into effect there has been a drop in the number of second strike offences since the laws implementation.”

That statement clearly states that specific deterrence is occurring.

Judiciary's l Disregarding of Three Strikes

Mockery of the Law

It is universally acknowledged, with few exceptions, that one of the core objectives of penology or punishment for crime is protection of the public.  If repeatedly violent criminals are locked up for longer, the public are safer, less likely to be struck down by knife or gun.

Despite New Zealand having a Three Strikes law, an increasing number of justices it seems believe they have a right to override the black and white sentencing requirements of the law.  The mandatory, longer sentences are deemed "manifestly unjust".  But in whose eyes?  In the eyes of the judge.  For some reason there appears to be plenty of judges in New Zealand who want to second guess the law. 

Let's be clear.  We are all for treating prisoners with decency and respect.  We believe strongly in every project or service which helps prisoners develop self-criticism and personal integrity.  We strongly believe in every rehabilitation project, whether in the prisons or outside, that works.  But we also believe that repetitive violent criminal behaviour must result in consequences--and the core consequence must be to apply the mandatory, longer sentences for repeated criminality.  Facing these heavier consequences is an intrinsic part of giving prisoners the opportunity to become self-critical.

Wheels of Justice Grinding Slowly

Sauce For Both Goose And Gander

One of the most offensive things about Hillary Clinton is her apparent belief that sauce for the goose is definitely not sauce for the gander.  In other words, she and her "organization" seem to believe that they are above the rules and regulations to which lesser mortals must adhere.  They convey the impression that rules and regulations do not apply to them.

One of the most alarming examples was Clinton's maintaining a private e-mail server whilst Secretary of State.  Now a Federal Judge has laid into Clinton and her cabal over the matter.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered additional fact-finding in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server to probe whether or not Clinton's private email system, which she used during her four-year tenure as secretary of state, was a deliberate attempt to bypass the Freedom of Information Act. [The Blaze]

Judicial Watch--an organization dedicated to keeping the government subject to the rule of law--has won a case in which the Clinton machine (and the State Department) was attempting to "keep things hidden".  This, from Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch:

New Zealand Has Become a Criminal's Paradise

Justice and Occam's Razor

New Zealand is embroiled in an immigration case so bizarre, so extreme, that the instinctive reaction is to wonder how much money a convicted criminal paid the Immigration Minister under the table to get residence in this country.  What else could explain such apparent malfeasance on the past of Iain Galloway, NZ Immigration Minister?

Here is Kiwiblog's summary of the case:

The full background of the guy given residency by Labour

I blogged yesterday on how (Minister of Immigration) Iain Lees-Galloway has granted permanent residency to a prisoner (Jan Antolik) who was due to be deported when released. Well his full record is worth looking at. Here it is:

2003: Entered NZ with a false passport

2010: Arrested with two Hells Angels on aggravated robbery and blackmail charges. Guilt not proven beyond reasonable doubt.

2011: Found guilty of using false passport and giving false details to Immigration officials

2011: Arrested as part of Operation Ark, a covert investigation into Ecstasy-like pills.

2012: Discharged without conviction on false identity charges

2014: Convicted of manufacturing Class-C drug from Operation Ark arrest. Conviction overturned but Crown abandons second trial

2014: Arrested importing 5kg of MDMA, a Class-B controlled drug, used in Ecstasy.

2016: Convicted of importing MDMA and jailed for five years and nine months
It is bad enough that he has been granted permanent residency, but even worse the Minister won’t explain why.

The Parole Board is not known for its hard line when it comes to deciding whether a prisoner is granted parole.

Disproportionate Racism Against Black Men on College Campuses

Black Men Understand the Stakes


By David French
National Review Online

Earlier today, freshly minted Atlantic writer Jemele Hill published a piece that broke new ground in the Brett Kavanaugh debate. She revealed that, in her experience, black men were more sympathetic to Kavanaugh than she anticipated: 

On Tuesday night, I was in an auditorium with 100 black men in the city of Baltimore, when the subject pivoted to Brett Kavanaugh. I expected to hear frustration that the sexual-assault allegations against him had failed to derail his Supreme Court appointment. Instead, I encountered sympathy. One man stood up and asked, passionately, “What happened to due process?” He was met with a smattering of applause, and an array of head nods.

Hill says this support makes a “twisted kind of sense,” because, “Countless times, black men have had to witness the careers and reputations of other black men ruthlessly destroyed because of unproved rape and sexual-assault accusations.” But there’s nothing “twisted” about it. Their experience highlights the vital importance of due process and the presumption of innocence.

In fact, according to a report she cites, while black men account for 22 percent of sexual-assault convictions, they account for a whopping 59 percent of exonerations.  And that’s just criminal convictions and exonerations. Hill doesn’t even delve into the ongoing scandal of campus Title IX adjudications, where the stakes, like those of a judicial confirmation hearing, aren’t criminal but nevertheless remain high: An accused student’s enrollment in school is often on the line.

Last September Emily Yoffe wrote a troubling essay (also in The Atlantic) detailing how preliminary evidence indicates that campus courts are disproportionately punishing black men.

Politicians and Do-Gooders Living in Alice's Wonderland

Gangs are Changing All Right – For The Worse

David Garrett
Kiwiblog

Gangs are changing alright – for the worse

One of the “experts” at Andrew Little’s justice talkfest is Dr Jarrod Gilbert of Canterbury University. Gilbert has pretty much supplanted Greg Newbold as the media’s “go to” guy on gangs and crime. Gilbert is the author of “Patched: the history of gangs in New Zealand”. In it, Gilbert manages for the most part to disguise the fact that he is essentially an apologist for gangs. His recent message – and no doubt the message  he will  preach  at the Justice Summit – is that gangs are changing for the better, and so must our attitude to them. The subtext is that gangs are becoming more like the “alternative form of whanau” that Tariana Turia has claimed for years that they are. Nothing could be further from  the truth.

This morning, 21 August,  Stuff reports a gang shooting in Wanganui in which a gang member died  when a rival gang invaded his house. Two months ago there was a similar incident in which a young gang associate died and his girlfriend, who he apparently died trying to protect, was seriously injured. Wanganui was also the scene of a drive by gang shooting in which a young baby was killed in 2007.

And it’s not just  gang members shooting at  each other. In January 2017 the Black Power took a funeral procession through Mongrel Mob “territory” in Whakatane. It was an organized confrontation in  which numerous shots were fired at police in the streets of Whakatane. The members of the two gangs involved  were obviously totally unconcerned about the safety of innocent bystanders. By pure chance, no-one was killed.

This sort of behaviour has been going on for at least twenty years, and contrary to Gilbert’s claims,  gang violence involving firearms is becoming more not less common.  This morning’s murder is just the latest such incident. And for any reader of Gilbert’s book, none of this can be a surprise. The Mongrel Mob for example idolize  and aspire to ever more “mongrelish behaviour”. “Mongrelish behaviour” is anything which is contrary to and grossly affronts the norms of ordinary civilized behaviour: raping and sometimes killing women to get a patch (Mallory Manning); bashing and even  killing anyone who gets in their way; bashing, raping and intimidating the “bitches” who serve their material and sexual needs.

The gang problem is of course not new: in 1972 Norman Kirk pledged to “take the bikes off the bikies”. Once in office, nothing was done.

Justice Minister Wants Three Strikes Gone , But . . .

Three Strikes Law Working Extremely Well

David Farrar at Kiwiblog writes:

Very few second strikers

The Ministry of Justice’s latest figures show that the number of First Strikers has just reached 10,000, or 10,031 to be exact.

Only 302 of those 10,031 were unwilling or unable to control themselves from re-offending and went on to become Second Strikers.

And just four of those 302 second strikers have gone on to become Third Strikers.

This appears to me to be working very well in discouraging reoffending. Yet Labour wants to repeal the law.

The strikes by year are:

2010 – 160, 0, 0
2011 – 912, 1, 0
2012 – 1,310, 12, 0
2013 –  1,335, 16, 0
2014 – 1,277, 32, 0
2015 –  1,297, 53, 0
2016 – 1,446, 57, 1
2017 – 1,538, 85, 1
2018 – 747, 57, 2

Justice UK Style For Those Deemed An Enemy of the Realm

"I Was Kept in Solitary Confinement 23.5 Hours a Day"

Jack Montgomery
BreitbartLondon

Tommy Robinson has described a Spartan existence in prison in an interview following his release, claiming he was kept locked in solitary confinement for 23 and a half hours at a time and had to subsist on one can of tuna a day.

The activist was bounced into prison to serve two consecutive prison sentences for contempt of court within five hours of an arrest for an alleged breach of the peace in May.

The decision was defended at the time by a number of left-liberal talking heads and legal commentators, including the pseudonymous ‘Secret Barrister’, but quashed on August 1st in the Court of Appeal by the Lord Chief Justice, who ruled that the sentencing judge had moved with unseemly haste and deviated from proper due process in a way that was “much more than a technical failure”.

Robinson’s time in prison appeared to have a taken a serious toll on him in the interview, conducted by his former employer at Rebel Media, Ezra Levant. The Luton native appeared gaunt, hollow-eyed, and slurred his words.

Police Show-Boating Diced and Sliced

An Important Victory

I hate his cheesy hits, but I’ve just joined the Cliff Richard fan club after his court victory

Peter Hitchens
MailOnSunday 

My congratulations to Sir Cliff Richard. By taking the BBC and the police to court over their shocking treatment of an unproven allegation against him, he has struck a mighty blow for justice. I wish all my journalistic colleagues would recognise this and stop carping about a mythical threat to press freedom.

I sympathise with Sir Cliff because I have spent quite a lot of the past few years trying to restore the reputation of a great Englishman, Bishop George Bell, unfairly besmirched after the Church of England publicly revealed ancient and uncorroborated allegations of child sex abuse against him, and appeared to have accepted them.

George Bell has nothing to do with the modern Bishop Peter Ball, by the way, who is a convicted abuser and whose disgusting acts I condemn. By contrast, George Bell (who died in 1958) was never tried, and had no chance to defend himself. Accusations made more than six decades after the alleged offence were lazily accepted by various prelates and apparatchiks, after a sloppy and prejudiced apology for an investigation.

Many otherwise intelligent people assumed his guilt, largely due to an incorrect claim that he would, if alive, have been arrested by the police, who were dragged into the matter by the Church. This would not have been proof of guilt even if true, but it did what it was intended to do, and poisoned many minds against him.

It also helped that several supposedly responsible newspapers, and the BBC, proclaimed prominently that his guilt was established, when it was not. Only the BBC have ever admitted that they were wrong. A dead man has no rights.

My small role in getting justice for Bishop Bell (a battle that is still not over) taught me a lot about the tattered, decrepit state of justice in this country. And here is what I learned. Hardly anyone understands British justice any more, especially the vital presumption that all of us are innocent until proven guilty.

Police actions can prejudice fair trials. Well-publicised arrests and spectacular raids (often, absurdly, at dawn) on homes serve no serious purpose except to shatter the morale of the target and to prejudice the public mind.

Can anyone tell me what South Yorkshire Police actually hoped to find when they searched Sir Cliff’s home in conditions of total publicity in 2014?

Confusion, Misdirection, and Minimisation of Crime

An Immoral Compass With a Bent Needle

We wonder how many New Zealand males have walked up to a female and groped her buttocks.  In law this constitutes an assault.  We are confident that such criminal actions have been rare--when the entire population is taken into account.  

A prisoner has been convicted of just such an assault upon a female prison officer.  Immediately a serious matter becomes even more serious.  He attacked someone in authority over him, thus breaching the command and control conditions of incarceration.  Thus the assault is not just a sexual assault of a male assaulting a female, it also was a rejection and rebellion against lawful state authority.

The prisoner in this case was on a Third Strike.

A Just Law Will Remain A Bit Longer

Three Strikes and You Won't Get Out

New Zealand's Three Strikes Law has been saved--at least for now.  The minor coalition party, NZ First had campaigned on retaining Three Strikes.  This week the party informed the Labour Minister of Justice, Andrew Little that it would not be supporting repeal--and so the Government lacks the votes to remove it.  

We are thankful.  But the Left Wing are not happy.  They have trumpeted forth the argument that money ought to be invested into prisons to rehabilitate prisoners, not to keep them incarcerated.  In putting this argument to the electorate they regrettably commit a childish fallacy.  Building an argument upon a false dichotomy fails miserably to win the case. 

The argument runs like this: rehabilitation of prisoners is essential if we are to build a stellar community.  Money spent upon rehabilitation prisoners is an investment in the future.  It is an affirmation of good will towards those who have made a bad start in life.  It makes sense that if you can interdict a prisoner going deeper and deeper over to the dark side, you save lost of public money in the long term.  Thus to its many merits fiscal rectitude can be added.  All of these evidences and arguments are both valid and good. 

But, Three Strikes does not deny the importance of such efforts and social investment.

The Consequences of Repealing "Three Strikes"

Nowhere to Hide

The present mess of a government is fomenting plans to dump NZ's highly effective Three Strikes Law.  In doing so, it is going to end up taking huge political risks.  David Farrar, at Kiwiblog has pointed out the nature of the risks about to be undertaken. 

He presents three reasons why it is so politically risky, albeit an ideologically rich vein for the Left.

The first is that the Three Strikes Law has strong public support. 

The net support (support less opposition) is:

All NZers +48%
National voters +65%
NZ First voters +39%
Labour voters +38%
Green voters +16%

A second reason is that the consequences of repeal will be bloody, if not mortal for the innocents who get attacked and preyed upon by the recidivist violent criminals released back into the community.  The harm will be obvious.  The repeal, then, represents a clear and present danger to innocent people.  It is a very clear "cause and effect" situation. 

Moreover, the one's responsible for this harm will be clearly identifiable: it will rest on the shoulders of the Minister of Justice, the Labour Party of which he is member, and all politicians who vote for repealing Three Strikes.  We will, as the saying goes, "know who you are", and we are coming to get you via the ballot box.

The biggest problem is that if the law gets repealed, those who vote to repeal the law can be held accountable for crimes committed by second strikers released early.

With most law changes, you can’t know for certain that a law change led to that criminal being out on the streets. Changes to maximum sentences, to bail eligibility etc can’t allow you to conclude with certainity that the criminal who bashed or raped someone would have been in or out of prison before the law change. Because Judges and the Parole Board use discretion in deciding each case.

But the three strikes law is all about removing that discretion. It is about certainty. So one will be able to say “This crime would never have happened if Politician A had not voted to change the law”.  Let’s take an example. Say a second striker is given a nine year jail sentence for a rape. Under the current law they must serve the full nine years. If the law is repealed, they can be let out anytime between three years and nine years.

If they get let out after say six years and then a month later rape someone else, it will be crystal clear that the law change allowed that rape to happen. It won’t be the fault of the Parole Board. It will be the fault of the MPs who voted to repeal three strikes.  If the law is repealed, it is almost beyond doubt that some second strikers will get parole and go on to commit horrible crimes while on parole. The MPs who vote to repeal three strikes will not know what hit them when this happens.

A third reality is that repealing Three Strikes won't achieve diddley squat in terms of reducing prison numbers--which is one of the major objectives identified by the Minister of Justice.

Another reason repealing three strikes is stupid, is because it will free up almost no prison space. First strikers do not server longer under this law – only second and third strikers. At best there are probably only 100 to 150 more people still in prison due to the three strikes law. Compare that to the almost 2,000 more due to the bail changes.

In fact as the reoffending rate of strike offences is down since the three strikes law passed, it is possible repealing the law could increase the prison population.

So in summary MPs who vote to repeal three strikes will:

Be voting against a very popular piece of legislation with both Labour and NZ First voters

• Be making a law change that will allow victims to conclude with certainty that their assailant was only able to beat/rape them because of this law change
• Will make almost no difference to the overall prison population
• You would have to have an electoral death wish to vote for it.

But, despite all this, Leftist do-gooders know what's best for us all.  The carnage they will face at the ballot box in two years time will be the appropriate form of utu.  By then the bloody consequences of letting out recidivist violent offenders early will be painted across the sky.  The electorate will, indeed, want vengeance and will know without a skerrick of doubt who is responsible and who is to blame. 

Oh How Clever We Are . . .

Crime and Punishment

The present NZ Government appears all at sea over crime and criminality.  In a nutshell, its naive and simplistic view is that crime is caused by social problems.  Fix society's problems within the sectors of Health, Education, and Welfare, and crime would drop away to nothing.  As is always the case, the Left runs this reductionist absurdity with a high octane dose of self-righteousness.

The Left sees itself as compassionate and nuanced on the matter.  It is deeply aware of the social causes of crime and criminality which have captured people, turning them into criminals.  It's love for such disadvantaged folk who have ended up in the prison system quickly morphs into self-righteousness.  It characterizes its ideological opponents as cruel, simplistic, narrow, and bigoted.  This implies that the Left is compassionate, nuanced, sophisticated, and broad-minded.

• The Left presents itself as intelligent, advanced, and sophisticated.  It refuses to address criminality in a superficial manner.  It relishes the complexity of the social causes of crime because to pontificate and meditate upon such things creates a self-image of Leftist sophistication and intelligence.  Those who oppose Leftist sophistication are easily and readily characterised as red-necks.
  
• The Left relishes the prospect of the State being cast as the Saviour and Redeemer of society.  Prisons are essentially negative in the "solutions" they offer to crime.  They punish by their very nature.  But the Left sees  that as both negative and cruel.  On the other hand, to use the power, resources, and functions of the State to redeem people from criminal lifestyles, is a high and holy calling.

At this point, the Left is feeling really good about itself.  Oozing moral superiority it stands forth as the Great Solution to NZ crime and criminality. Cue Andrew Little, the present Minister of Justice.

Here's Hoping

A Great Proposal--If Reified 

One of the commitments made by the new Labour Government has our strong support.  It has made a commitment to establish a Criminal Cases Review Commission.  Now, ordinarily the prospect of the State establishing yet another commission, committee, review panel, or plaintive Greek chorus would fill us with mirthful Monty-Pythonesque sarcasm.  But not in this case.  

What is in view?  It has been the disturbing reality that far too many people have been convicted by courts, only to have their convictions be subsequently judged as "unsafe".  New Zealand is a small place, only slightly larger than your average village.  The judicial fraternity is even more tightly knit and matey.  A truly independent review of convictions is hard to come by.

Dr Jarrod Gilbert has done us all a service in his recent article in the NZ Herald.  He has reminded us of an unjustly convicted man named Peter Ellis.  Here is a summary of the affair:

There Is a New Redeemer in Town

Guilt and Pity: The Marxist "Horse and Carriage"

When Dostoevsky penned his famous novel, Crime And Punishment, it seemed to all reasonable folk that, like the horse and carriage which always went together, crime and punishment were but two sides of the one coin.

But Marxism and its step-children have long since departed from this rather obvious position.  Instead, Marxism and its derivatives have created an alternative universe.  In this universe man is fundamentally righteous: sin and evil is not intrinsic to the human condition.  Rather, evil exists only because there is a handful of exploiters at the top of the socio-economic pile.  These "capitalists"--to use the old term--have controlled and rigged the system to exploit the downtrodden, the worker, the powerless.

One by-product of such suffering and exploitation is that the exploited can end up in anti-social behaviour.  The exploited comes to hate the system which is rigged against him.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

I Suggest We Not Vote for Dirtier Elections

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

So I begin these ruminations with a most necessary qualifier, necessary at least in these troubled days of ours. To defend due process is not to defend the dirty deeds that must be prosecuted or rejected under a system of due process. A civilized society, in order to institutionalize a bias against lynchings—against a populace taking what they might call “direct action” based upon what “everybody knows—must insist upon due process.

That said, here is the qualification yet again. I indent it so that certain people can find it more easily. If Roy Moore is guilty of what his accusers say, then he deserves everything he is going to get, good and hard. With a career and reputation in shambles, he would have no complaint against the Almighty over what transpired. As the bluesman Paul Butterfield once put it, trenchantly enough, “Ain’t no one to blame but myself.”

But if he is not guilty of the charges, then the Washington Post and the suborned women who accused him are the guilty ones. Not only are they guilty of false accusation, but they are guilty of something every bit as bad as what they accused Moore of doing. “And the judges shall make diligent inquisition: and, behold, if the witness be a false witness, and hath testified falsely against his brother; Then shall ye do unto him, as he had thought to have done unto his brother: so shalt thou put the evil away from among you” (Deut. 19:18–19).

We have an accusation of a disqualifying sexual crime; if guilty, Moore ought not to be a senator. We have the counteraccusation that WaPo was offering money to women if they were willing to accuse Moore. This too is disqualifying; people who do this should be run out of the business of journalism. But notice that I am withholding judgment in both cases. I do not know if Moore molested a girl decades ago, and I do not know if the WaPo paid women to lie about Moore.