The Lemon Fool

Like many, I've seen the outcome of the case of Mahek and Ansreen Bukhari and others:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-l ... e-66686382

I'm just a bit puzzled by the lenth of the jail terms which often had a few months tagged onto a very long term - 31 years plus eigth months for example. Given the sentences I cannot understand why an odd few months were added on. I could understand 31 years or 32 years so why the added months?

Consider the alternative. The judge issues his sentence: "I was thinking in terms of twelve years, maybe fourteen, but my breakfast was served lukewarm this morning and I'm not in the mood. Eighteen years."

Or: "I've spent a week weighing up the various factors, and I've decided that the defendant deserves a 5% reduction for being open and co-operative with the court, and another 10% for showing sincere remorse, minus 8% for telling initial porkies to the police. My calculator says thirteen years and eighty-seven and a half days."

Spurious precision, obviously. But at least you get the feeling that the judge has put some thought into all the factors. Judge Jeffreys wouldn't have bothered.

BJ

It's probably a calculation based on the sentencing guidelines, and he hasn't bothered rounding it up or down.

Scott.

bungeejumper wrote:...But at least you get the feeling that the judge has put some thought into all the factors. Judge Jeffreys wouldn't have bothered. BJ

Though I doubt that Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys was significantly crueller than his contemporaries, and those were the days when you could be hanged for what today are trivial offences. He is remembered especially for the Bloody Assizes – trying the conspirators of the Monmouth Rebellion. But since the sentence for treason was death, a fate which could only be altered by the James 11 (who chose not to) and not Jeffreys, his reputation as an unusually vicious ('just hang him up') judge is not based on fact.

Even today, our judges are not paragons of impartiality, though. In 1979, Mr Justice (Sir Joseph Donaldson) Cantley gave such overtly biased guidance to the jury at the trial of Jeremy Thorpe that his grotesque summing up was parodied by Peter Cook in “Entirely a Matter for You”. Cook’s version, filmed at ‘The Secret Policeman's Ball’ is reportedly very close to what Cantley said and is perhaps the finest and funniest monologue Cook ever presented: see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M4 ... IGNvb2s%3D .

Maybe the sentence was in months, in this case 380 months. 31x12+8.

pompeygazza wrote:Maybe the sentence was in months, in this case 380 months. 31x12+8.

Objection, my lord, the average month in a standard year is 30.41 days. And I hope you've made allowance for the leap years?

BJ

bungeejumper wrote:Consider the alternative. The judge issues his sentence: "I was thinking in terms of twelve years, maybe fourteen, but my breakfast was served lukewarm this morning and I'm not in the mood. Eighteen years."

Or: "I've spent a week weighing up the various factors, and I've decided that the defendant deserves a 5% reduction for being open and co-operative with the court, and another 10% for showing sincere remorse, minus 8% for telling initial porkies to the police. My calculator says thirteen years and eighty-seven and a half days."

Spurious precision, obviously. But at least you get the feeling that the judge has put some thought into all the factors. Judge Jeffreys wouldn't have bothered.

BJ

A gruesome subject, but many years ago, I stayed at a friend's house and started reading a book about executions through the ages.

Apparently, an experienced hangman could make the victim's suffering relatively fast or horrendously long. A thinner rope with knot put behind the jaw pressed on the jugular vein or carotid artery and caused unconsciousness within seconds with little pain. That's how people like Dr Harold Shipman committed suicide. The knot behind the neck caused death by slow strangulation which was worse if the victim's legs were not tied together.

That's before you get onto the question of suspension, short/long drops. Apparently, Guy Fawkes leapt into the air prior to being hanged, just to make it a speedier death.

Steve

PS That was just one chapter! The others were just as bad. Almost as horrible as an episode of Eastenders!

stevensfo wrote:A gruesome subject, but many years ago, I stayed at a friend's house and started reading a book about executions through the ages.

Oddly enough, it was only a few days ago that I sat in the very pub where the local condemned prisoners from the Monmouth Rebellion were allowed to have their last beer on their way to the gallows at Norton St Philip. A small act of mercy, you might suppose. But just imagine sitting there with the thought that every sip you took would mean another minute taken off your life?

(History does not relate what happened if the prisoner tried to spin it out till closing time, which was basically never around those parts. )

Almost as horrible as an episode of Eastenders!

Aw, now you're exaggerating. There's nothing in the world so horrible as EastEnders. Although I suspect that the Great Sewing Bee might come close....

BJ

Nemo wrote:
I'm just a bit puzzled by the lenth of the jail terms which often had a few months tagged onto a very long term - 31 years plus eigth months for example.

Given the sentences I cannot understand why an odd few months were added on.

I could understand 31 years or 32 years so why the added months?

I see they don't tend to mess about with the 'months' bit any more out in Turkey -


A Turkish cryptocurrency boss and his two siblings have been jailed for 11,196 years each for defrauding investors of millions of dollars.

Faruk Fatih Ozer, 29, fled to Albania in 2021 with investor assets after his Thodex exchange suddenly collapsed.

He was extradited back to Turkey in June and found guilty of money-laundering, fraud and organised crime.

.....

Such extraordinary prison sentences are common in Turkey since the abolition of the death penalty in 2004 to aid efforts to join the European Union.

Adnan Oktar, a TV cult preacher, was jailed for 8,658 years in 2022 for fraud and sex crimes. Ten of his followers received the same sentence.

Prosecutors had asked for Ozer to be sentenced to 40,562 years in prison, AFP reported.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66752785

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Itsallaguess wrote:[i]A Turkish cryptocurrency boss and his two siblings have been jailed for 11,196 years each for defrauding investors of millions of dollars.

Ah yes, but those sentences will have been denominated in the local currency. At the current rate of depreciation they'll be out within a week.

BJ