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Criminal Justice- What Would You Do? Part I

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  • 07-03-2008 4:52pm
    #1
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭


    You are married with 2 teenage children and your spouse is killed in a collision on their way home from a meal with some friends at around 10:15pm

    Under a new Criminal Justice Bill the victims of the crime are allowed to have an input into the sentencing procedures for the driver of the other car who, the court has established, was at fault for the collision due to dangerous driving (they were using their mobile phone).

    You are asked by the judge which of the above options you would prefer.

    Which one do you choose and why?

    Which of the following sentence options do you choose for vehicular homicide? 16 votes

    Life imprisonment
    0% 0 votes
    12 years with possibility for probation after 8
    31% 5 votes
    12 years suspended
    50% 8 votes
    4 years with 2 suspended
    18% 3 votes


Comments

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    #2
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    The actual nature of the accident is the biggest factor in this case. I would consider the mobile phone scenario to be a serious accident on the part of the other driver. Seriously bad judgement, but an accident all the same.

    If it was a drink-driver, I would consider it to be less of an accident and more sinister, therefore worthy of a heavier penalty.


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    #3
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Seamus, just to let ya know, I intend to put up a secind poll in a week with a slightly amended opening post to judge that very difference.


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    #4
    johnnyskeleton
    Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 14,478 Mod ✭✭✭✭johnnyskeleton


    Deleted User wrote: »
    You are married with 2 teenage children and your spouse is killed in a collision on their way home from a meal with some friends at around 10:15pm

    Under a new Criminal Justice Bill the victims of the crime are allowed to have an input into the sentencing procedures for the driver of the other car who, the court has established, was at fault for the collision due to dangerous driving (they were using their mobile phone).

    You are asked by the judge which of the above options you would prefer.

    Which one do you choose and why?

    What difference does it make? Your wife is dead.


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    #5
    Dades
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    The circumstances of the accident dictate what the punishment should be. There are degrees of negligence/recklessness.

    And I completely disagree with involving anyone other than a member of the judiciary in sentencing. Especially not a family member of a victim.


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    #6
    seamus
    Registered Users Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    Indeed, family members and/or victims are the last people who should be asked to decide on sentencing. They are incapable of applying proportionality.

    Just ask anyone who's had their car keyed; They'd advocate beating the perp to a pulp.


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    #7
    Sleepy
    Registered Users Posts: 24,158 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    There's rather a divergence in your poll 2 years of actual jail time jumps to 8, hardly a sliding scale.

    Like others have said, it'd largely depend on the particulars of the accident, the attitude and nature of the perpetrator etc.


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    #8
    stovelid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    Dades wrote: »
    And I completely disagree with involving anyone other than a member of the judiciary in sentencing. Especially not a family member of a victim.

    ++

    I would also have a severe problem with this.

    I went for the more lenient sentence because - like others - I don't think using the phone is comparable to reckless driving. Or driving when drunk.


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    #9
    blue shimmering
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭blue shimmering


    stovelid wrote: »
    ++

    I would also have a severe problem with this.

    I went for the more lenient sentence because - like others - I don't think using the phone is comparable to reckless driving. Or driving when drunk.
    I went for life in prison because a family has lost a mother through the negligence of another person who was so selfish as to be on a mobile phone while driving. It is against the law, we all know that and nothing is so important that it cannot wait until we stop to either answer a call or to make one!

    Years ago there wasn't mobiles at all and we go on just as well, I do have one but would never use it while driving, I would stop first, park and see who had called and return the call if I thought it was urgent but I would never take my life and others into my hand by using a mobile phone!

    My whole family - I was driving was nearly wiped out by a VET who was on her mobile phone and was on the wrong side of the road going around a bend and meeting me! I pulled in as far as I could to the ditch and she still cleaned off my wing mirror! It could have been a lot worse, she admitted fault - then her boss the owner of the VETERINERY Surgury told her that it was 50/50! He knew she was on the mobile phone and still tried to make out that it was no ones fault, eventually after a lot of argueing she did pay for the mirror to be fixed - I think she knew she was wrong and that there could have been a much more tragic outcome from what she had done!

    Everyone who has mobile should at least have blue tooth and preferrably not answer their phone until it is safe to do so! I do think using a phone while driving is definitely reckless driving and just as bad as driving while drunk.


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    #10
    stovelid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 27,252 ✭✭✭✭stovelid


    blue shimmering wrote: »
    My whole family - I was driving was nearly wiped out by a VET who was on her mobile phone and was on the wrong side of the road going around a bend and meeting me!

    The fact that she was taking a bend on the wrong side of the road is the most reckless action here.

    I didn't say mobile phone use should go unpunished; just that the severity of punishments should be gradated.


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    #11
    blue shimmering
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭blue shimmering


    stovelid wrote: »
    The fact that she was taking a bend on the wrong side of the road is the most reckless action here.

    I didn't say mobile phone use should go unpunished; just that the severity of punishments should be gradated.
    Yes you are right but being on the mobile phone while driving is also reckless because she should have known better! There was five of us on the car including three young children, the mobile phone does distract people from driving and should not be answered or used while driving - full stop! Anyone caught will get no sympathy from me, it is dangerous and carelessness - just as bad as drunk driving!


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    #12
    WindSock
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,239 ✭✭✭✭WindSock


    I don't see how an act of stupidity is going to help society by locking someone away for it. People will do stupid and dangerous things regardless and they have the rest of their life as punishment to mull over how they caused the death of someone.


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    #13
    blue shimmering
    Closed Accounts Posts: 222 ✭✭blue shimmering


    WindSock wrote: »
    I don't see how an act of stupidity is going to help society by locking someone away for it. People will do stupid and dangerous things regardless and they have the rest of their life as punishment to mull over how they caused the death of someone.
    I can see your point and to be honest I thanked our lucky stars that we were all ok, but in the question above the mother was killed by this act of stupidity and carelessness - maybe something like community service would be more appropriate, I don't really know! I do realise that when someone is put in prison, there life is wasted and quite often they come out worse than when they went in - drugs, learning more of the trade they are in etc... At the same time it is very serious when someone's life is ended and it ruins all of the surviving peoples lifes forever, how can anything aside from not using a mobile phone in the first place mend that?

    I don't know what my reaction would have been if someone of us had been hurt or killed but think I would have wanted someone to pay big time - then probably later when things had calmed down would have realised that really having someone in jail didn't bring the lost person back! It really is a very difficult question to answer, no one goes out intentionally to hurt or maim someone else but can we really call an accident and accident when before we do these things we know they are wrong and what the consequence of our actions could be?


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    #14
    pH
    Registered Users Posts: 4,188 ✭✭✭pH


    I don't want to derail this thread but I've never fully understood the hatred against 'talking on a mobile' whilst driving.

    I talk to my passengers all the time, no one thinks this is dangerous or completely irresponsible behaviour, so it can't be the act of engaging in conversation that's a problem.

    So maybe it's the use of one of your hands while driving, yet many people smoke or drink a can or eat an apple whilst driving and there has never been a huge outcry about these. I guess some people even go as far as to talk to their passenger while smoking, and yet we've never seen a political campaign to make smoking in a car cost 3 penalty points.

    Now I know there are some caveats, like the act of dialling (but then we've all changed radio stations haven't we) and texting, but the they're side issues, it's talking on a mobile phone that makes people see red, can someone explain why talking on a mobile phone is more dangerous than smoking and chatting to your passenger? Both are taking diverting the driver's attention with conversation and tying up one of their hands - I really can't see any difference whatsoever.


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    #15
    Alun
    Registered Users Posts: 21,432 ✭✭✭✭Alun


    pH wrote: »
    I don't want to derail this thread but I've never fully understood the hatred against 'talking on a mobile' whilst driving.

    I talk to my passengers all the time, no one thinks this is dangerous or completely irresponsible behaviour, so it can't be the act of engaging in conversation that's a problem.
    There has been a lot of research done in the UK, mainly using driving simulators, that shows that there is indeed a massive difference between talking to someone on a phone and talking to a passenger. They measure things like hazard perception and reaction times, and also monitor eye movements. IIRC it had to do with the detachment of the person on the other end to the situation in the car and on the road ahead, something a passenger either consciously or unconsciously picks up on. I.e. a passenger will automatically pick up on busy traffic conditions, or the fact that the driver is busy with a tricky traffic situation and needs to concentrate and will stop talking, whereas a person on the other end of a phone won't.


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    #16
    Phototoxin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,398 ✭✭✭Phototoxin


    Input - similar to 'victim impact statement' ?


    But they are not impartial and hence might not be proportional as mentioned.


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    #17
    Stones85
    Closed Accounts Posts: 199 ✭✭Stones85


    OP, I chose the lightest sentence. Yes my wife is dead. But what pleasure or proper "healing" will I get out of putting someone away for something that was an accident. Is the other driver a family man too?
    From these tragic events why destroy 2 families?

    Most people will be haunted by their actions forever, that's punishment enough for me.


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    #18
    turgon
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,762 ✭✭✭turgon


    Stones85 wrote: »
    Most people will be haunted by their actions forever, that's punishment enough for me.

    I was the cause of a head on collision 2 months ago in which an old man broke his hip and had to get a new one. If he had died I would have been devastated, prison would have been a lot easier than my own conscience.


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    #19
    GirlInterrupted
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,440 ✭✭✭GirlInterrupted


    blue shimmering wrote: »
    Anyone caught will get no sympathy from me, it is dangerous and carelessness - just as bad as drunk driving!

    I can't agree that speaking on a mobile is as bad as a senseless drunk who can't see straight getting behind the wheel.
    WindSock wrote: »
    they have the rest of their life as punishment to mull over how they caused the death of someone.

    If I had been the cause of an accident, it would punish me for the rest of my life, most people have that inner voice, and would have to live with it.
    Stones85 wrote: »
    Is the other driver a family man too?
    From these tragic events why destroy 2 families?

    Quite.

    The families of vicitims are the last people who should have a say in the punishment of the convicted, I couldn't have any impartiality in those circumstances. And as the punishment should fit the crime, the intent, and the degree of recklessness should be deciding factors.


This discussion has been closed.
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