What is the purpose of sentencing?

[Tangled Metal]

I am of a mind that family shouldn't really be allowed in court for such cases. I think instead they would possibly be better served with publicly funded, quality counselling. Anything you get from sitting in a court case like this won't be good for your mental health and besides I don't want to remember deceased as a victim. I saw my gran close to death and it's the strongest image of her I have. It was not good for me but I had to do it to support my mum as the closest child of her.

I think part of the judicial system should be to protect victims and those close to them. In that I think sentencing and allow them in to court to see the full evidence of the case doesn't do that. Images seen don't leave you easily.

However my main issue is that the criminal court system is supposed to be close to falling apart at the seams. To help thus i think safe streamlining needs to be done. Pointless court pantomime is a low hanging fruit. The reports read out are produced before court time. Publish it online costs but that will be less than court time. Easier for justice to be seen when read online and by more ppl.

Incidentally at work ppl hear about court cases involving ppl they know through the court circular on the local newspaper's website. It's just an official form of that.

[reohn2]

Not sure such charades are helpful. Someone can still be very disruptive bound and gagged if they want to.

Also while I have sympathy for the victims/families of of such crimes, the idea that they're going to get some kind of closure from the sentencing theatre seems rather optimistic. It's just another type of revenge and there's usually little peace of mind to be found from that.

Regarding transparency. Given the modern age, a rather better goal might be for the immediate publication (online) of sentencing remarks rather than them cropping up days later.

Not in an sound proof booth they can't,if begin to jump up and down in an effort to disrupt,cover the booth up like you would a budgie cage

[briansnail]

Watch " Medical Detectives" in USA its scary how many innocent people are sentenced some even getting the death penalty. What's is criminal on the part of District Attorneys is that an application for DNA Testing is denied to jailed people years ago pre DNA. New science could clear them and the jailed people are willing to pay for it. For the most part the system works but its terrible a small percentage that could be cleared have no recourse.
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I ride Brompton and a 100% British Vintage

[Tangled Metal]

There was a saying i vaguely remember being told as a kid about how our criminal system worked. Something about 9 guilty men going free to prevent one innocent man going to jail. Or death penalty as I think it was a very old quote from somewhere.

[Jdsk]

There was a saying i vaguely remember being told as a kid about how our criminal system worked. Something about 9 guilty men going free to prevent one innocent man going to jail. Or death penalty as I think it was a very old quote from somewhere.

Blackstone's ratio:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

Jonathan

[DaveReading]

I am of a mind that family shouldn't really be allowed in court for such cases.

A court has no authority to exclude them, nor should it have.

[Tangled Metal]

I am of a mind that family shouldn't really be allowed in court for such cases.

A court has no authority to exclude them, nor should it have.

They changed the rules forcing the guilty in for sentencing. Authority is just a rule change away but of course the judge can evict anyone if they cause issues to the court process.

I'm not sure it's a good idea neither but part of me thinks it can't help them to hear the full details of their family member's death in such a court case.

I heard somewhere that the BBC gives it's court reporters counselling as a result of sitting in on cases such as the Letby one.

[briansnail]

The other problem in USA is that prosecutors "forget" to give the Défense information that might lead to a NOT guilty verdict. They really should punish any such oversights as it is a possible source of corruption. An Ambitious DA/Policeperson could be tempted to deliberately withhold to increase the chance of a guilty verdict.