It’s not like he’s going to be release after 21 years. They just declare that he’s still a danger to the public and keep him locked up for the rest of his life. It’s much the same situation in Canada, where a ‘life sentence’ is 20 years, but we have ‘danger offenders’ like Paul Bernardo who are kept locked up permanently.
Uh… what?
So is it a “minimum of 21 years”? Or is 21 years the max sentence?
Because, at least in the US, if you are sentenced with some specific number of years and don’t commit another crime, then you get out after that many years.
The government isn’t allowed to just arbitrarily extend the sentence.
From NPR:
CONAN: And has scoffed at the conceivable punishment. As I understand it, he could get 21 years in jail if convicted and found sane and that he says, wait a minute, either I should be acquitted or I should be put to death.
TALOS: Yeah. Instead that - but we can’t really put anyone to death in Norway, but it’s correct that there are maximum - maximum punishment is 21 years. But we also have what we call - I’ve been looking for the correct English expression, and I think it’s called containment, which is a system where a person that is considered to be a threat even after a certain period of time, he can actually be held in prison indeterminate because the - we can’t - it’s not really considered safe to let him out again in the society.
In Canada is it called dangerous offender status. It’s not constitutional in the US.
Gitmo
Do you really think people who’re both willing and capable of slaughtering dozens are just waiting around to be inspired by some media circus?
I have heard that the media circus around student gunmen inspires others to do the same thing. I don’t know how true that is though. Mental midgets like the media coverage.
Not the US.
There’s this as well:
In fact, Coalinga is something quite different - a maximum security hospital containing some of the state of California’s more serious paedophiles and rapists.
Coalinga is the flagship of a relatively new programme created in response to public anxiety about the release of sexual predators from prison. All the men at Coalinga have completed their custodial terms, but instead of being released they’ve been diagnosed as mentally ill, and locked up again - this time indefinitely and not in prison but in hospital.
It is an ongoing thing in Australia as well, where any serious offender up for release gets a large media presence berating the state government responsible to lock them up for some period of time on some pretext or other. Or to just implement a “just because” extension on the maximum sentence for whatever law they broke that allows it for no pretext whatsoever.
Gitmo isn’t operating on US citizens, and it’s really part of the US criminal justice system.
Military law is significantly different than civilian law for us.
In the case of this guy, he’s being prosecuted by the country’s normal civilian justice system.
In Canada is it called dangerous offender status. It’s not constitutional in the US.
Hmm… seems kind of crazy to me. I mean, if the law says X is the maximum penalty for a crime, then… that’s the maximum penalty. Seems troubling to have the government capable of just deciding that you need to be punished harder. Kind of removes the notion of a maximum penalty.
Keep reading about the Norwegian prison system. It’s quite an interesting thing.
For example, a suspected criminal (where there is “reasonable grounds for suspicion”) can be held in detention for an indefinite period of time before trial, in breach of international human rights conventions. The Norwegian state does not consider this an issue.
On the other hand, most prisons – even high-security ones – look more like low-end apartment complexes or student housing than detention facilities. The system emphasizes treatment and offering opportunity (work, education, therapy) than punishment or containment per se.
The ideal is to rehabilitate criminals. Norway has some of the lowest recurrence rates for previously convicted criminals in the world. I think that’s the right idea, and I think it works. The prison systems in the US strikes me as inhuman and counter-productive by comparison, an expensive and ultimately hollow exercise in power that only serves to divorce convicted criminals even further from the society whose values they’re expected to respect and obey.
The biggest problems with the US prison system stem from the whole war on drugs fiasco. Drug laws result in a huge number of people being imprisoned, which ends up overcrowding the jails, which results in them becoming criminal breeding grounds.
IIRC, in Canadian law, sentences are usually served concurrently. So murder 1 person, 20 years. Murder 10 people, also 20 years. However, if you murder 10 people, you are going to be convicted as a dangerous offender, so your actual sentence is 20 years and then parole hearing every two years to judge if you are still a danger to society. In the US, as I understand it, you’d be sentenced to 200 years, or whatever.
It’s not arbitrary, there is a process. The government has to prove the status to the court, they can’t just declare it.
Unless you’re insane. All bets are off, then.
I have already explained this at length in the previous thread.
Very few countries in the world consider pre-trial detention very much of an issue, given that most Countries in the world have systems that are equivalent or worse.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/26/thousands-sing-anders-breivik-hates
Up to 40,000 Norwegians have staged an emotionally charged singalong in Oslo near the court building where Anders Behring Breivik is on trial for the murder of 77 people in a protest organisers said showed he had not broken their tolerant society.
“It’s we who win,” said guitar-strumming folk singer Lillebjørn Nilsen as he led the mass singalong and watched the crowd sway gently in the rain. Many held roses above their heads, and some wept.
Thousands more Norwegians held similar musical protests in towns across the country. The protest came as survivors lined up inside the courtroom to take the witness stand and describe the bombing.
“I was spitting teeth,” said Harald Foesker, who had been at work in the Ministry of Justice when the 950kg fertiliser bomb went off outside his window.
“I felt at once that this was a terror attack on the government building … I called for help but nobody answered.”
He said he lost 80% of his vision and his face had to be restored afterwards, but added he was proud to live in a country that treated criminal defendants with dignity.
“'You do not get to win, shitbird: we do.”
See people? Not the US.
Without question, the US treats citizens of our country different than people who aren’t citizens. If you want to receive the full rights of a US citizen, then you need to actually become a US citizen, and accept being bound by US law.
Anwar al-Aulaqi would beg to differ.
These days, we treat our citizens differently unless we really, really don’t like them.
I thinks its useful to remind non-Americans that no one gets a long jail sentence like that without…
a) pleading to guilty to a crime, or…
b) being found guilty at a trial.
In option b), the Norwegian would have had a trained lawyer to argue the merits of his case and cross examine witnesses. Guilt for each crime would have been determined not by a judge, but 12 common citizens chosen almost by lottery, who hear all legally admissible evidence, including witness testimony. Their vote would have to be unanimous for each charge, with instructions that guilt must be proven beyond a “reasonable doubt.”
Sentencing is then done by the judge who takes mitigating and aggravating circumstances into account, as most crimes have a range of sentencing (like 2-3 years, or 25 years or life imprisonment for very serious crimes).
Point is, he did not get 7 and half years for driving down the wrong side of the street, and the American system has a lot of ways to make sure innocent people don’t get found guilty. The people who did find him guilty knew a lot more about this case than we do.
Edit: You know what, I think I thought this post was for that other thread about a Norwegian in the Arizonian justice system. No matter, the points on the justice system remain the same.
Time to throw a shoe at him!