Grace Millane murder - do we believe the accused?

LondonJohn said:
Indeed.

And of course in a case such as this there can never be empirical "right" or "wrong" - given that this man confessed to nothing and there's no other direct* evidence of any kind. All that is ever possible is an objective, rational, intelligent analysis of the available evidence, leading to a set of inferences and ultimately to a deduction about either what must have happened, what might have happened, or what definitely could not have happened.

And in this case, I strongly submit that such an exercise leads to only one unequivocal deduction: that a) this man must have had the intent to at least seriously injure Millane on account of the very long period he must have continued choking her after she fell unconscious, b) this man caused the death of Millane from choking her, and c) this man's actions immediately after Millane's death and in the ensuing 36 hours are only compatible with guilt. And this combined deduction can only lead to a finding of murder.


* ETA: I'm making an assumption that people reading this post know what is meant by "direct evidence" in the context of a criminal trial.
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"All that is ever possible is an objective, rational, intelligent analysis of the available evidence, leading to a set of inferences and ultimately to a deduction about either what must have happened, what might have happened, or what definitely could not have happened."

No use writing this stuff and so pretending that is what you've done when you haven't. We've now got 'instantly', a matter of 'seconds' and up to '90' seconds. 'Instantly' (as in a common source of death) comes from a world leading authority. Immediate unconsciousness was dealt with at trial - but there is no record of 'instant' death being raised, recovery from shallow breathing when pressure is again applied - or an explanation as to bruising on only 1 side. Nothing to do with photos or what he 'must have thought,' sorry.
 
That's the first time I think the carotid sinus effect has been mentioned in this thread I think. It's something I looked into in relation to the Suzanne Pilley murder and I found a reference saying its existence is disputed and it's a very rare occurrence. I questioned that because I've seen it happen (indeed I caused it) twice. Once in a horse and once in a pony, both times when I was taking a blood sample from the jugular vein and must have set something off. This was in the context of having taken an enormous number of blood samples during my PhD work, but still, twice? (The animals staggered and might have fallen if they hadn't been standing in stocks at the time which supported them. The effect was short-lived and they recovered their balance and composure, because I had only been working on one side of the neck and only one carotid had spasmed. I can only imagine what would happen if both carotids spasmed simultaneously.)

Fixit's reference certainly contradicts the wiki page I looked at, saying that it's common, and apparently not disputed at all. I certainly confirm that it's instantaneous - I just put the needle in the animal's neck, as I had done many times before, and got a real fright when I had an apparently fainting equine on my hands.

In the context of the Pilley murder this is very useful information, in the light of the very limited timeframe in which the murder must have occurred. And since it was a straightforward violent attack it doesn't change the culpability in the slightest.

Does the possibility of a carotid sinus event leading to instant cerebral hypoxia, unconsciousness and fairly rapid death during sex play impact at all on the question of culpability though? If the man didn't know that could happen? I ask merely from academic interest. I'm still in the "string-him-up-and-throw-away-the-key" camp.

ETA:

Matthew Best said:
Would carotid sinus pressure produce a different cause of death to strangulation that would be picked up in a post mortem?
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I'm not certain but I don't think so, not specifically. I suspect you'd see a surprising absence of the extent of bruising that might otherwise have been expected.
 
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Vixen said:
The first example at first sight, seems to have little to do with Game Theory, which presumes more than one 'player'. The preconditions are that you each have to make a decision but you do not know what the other/s will decide and can only guess at. So, the theory goes, each 'player' as it were makes a decision that is optimal for himself.

So say, you have someone looking for BDSM thrills. Say, this is a woman, as they will be most vulnerable by having sex with a stranger (or could easily be male, if a gay relationship is sought after). She will be optimising her thrills by putting herself in great danger by ultimately (a) putting her trust in a complete stranger, (b) going to his room in a seedy hotel on the first date, (c) allow him to get her blind drunk and (d) allowing him to squeeze her neck to the point of unconsciousness, having drunkenly chatted together about her previous experiences and desires.

For the other player, in this case, the man, here he has hit lucky: he has found a woman who has put her complete trust in him, even to the extent she leaves her handbag behind when she goes to the loo for him to rummage through.

Her optimal outcome in going through with her decision that fatal night is experiencing the most intense sex (although how alcohol helps this, don't ask) and coming out alive at the end of it, and possibly in a continuing relationship with 'an oil company manager' [sic], and young and good-looking with it.

For him, his optimal outcome is that he has successfully fooled someone into believing him and trusting him! (Note: his second date that day gave him the bum's rush and said she never wanted to see him again, having seen right through him, as did his previous roommates who made him leave.) He gets her drunk, gets her into his room. The ultimate price for believing and trusting a con man? Well, he is not going to take his hands away from her throat - the sucker! - and if he can get away with murder then he is the ultimate con-merchant.

The other case is just simply a woman whose optimal outcome (strategy) was to get the **** away from this creep. His was to stop her. That he did but they both lost, as she didn't foresee he would force his way into her home nor that by stabbing her to death he had lost her anyway, not to mention his freedom. Had she known what his strategy was going to be she would have made herself safe by confiding her fears of his violence to her mother.
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Do you have a cite for this? I'm not challenging you, I'm simply curious to read anything that second girl has said on the matter. How she must be feeling has crossed my mind a lot.
 
No-verdict-of-guilty-is-ever-correct crowd, I'm really starting to wonder about some of you guys. Do you ever pull back and look at what it is you're trying to defend? This isn't a "he was framed" case. He ******* killed this woman, boner ruling the day, by his own account. He took pictures of her body. He went on another date while still in possession of her body. What are you thinking?
 
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isissxn said:
No-verdict-of-guilty-is-ever-correct crowd, I'm really starting to wonder about some of you guys. Do you ever pull back and look at what it is you're trying to defend? This isn't a "he was framed" case. He ******* killed this woman, boner ruling the day, by his own account. He took pictures of her body. He went on another date while still in possession of her body. What are you thinking?
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Who are the "No-verdict-of-guilty-is-ever-correct" crowd?

Or is it something you just made up?
 
Matthew Best said:
Who are the "No-verdict-of-guilty-is-ever-correct" crowd?

Or is it something you just made up?
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It's something I made up, obviously, to express an opinion I hold?

I think there are a couple posters on this forum who frequently defend obviously-guilty people past a point that I'd consider reasonable. When a case hits me hard on a personal level, as this one has done, that tendency annoys me much more than times when i just see it as an interesting devil's advocate. So I lashed out.

If you haven't noticed that tendency on here sometimes, then I don't know what to tell you. Everything is subjective.
 
Matthew Best said:
Yes, but who are they?
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Well, in this particular thread, I feel that Samson and Fixit are being unnecessarily skeptical of the verdict, and it's kind of blowing my mind (due to the details of the case itself). Sorry, guys. I'm not trying to call you out, but it is definitely how I feel.
 
Rolfe said:
It's probably against the MA to name names but I know who she's talking about.
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I'm really not trying to break the MA and I hope I didn't. I'm just trying to be transparent and stand behind my remark to a degree when asked. I admit it was made emotionally, but I should still be honest about it.
 
And then there are the people who can never actually contemplate the possibility that a court verdict might actually be a miscarriage of justice. Just saying. It cuts both ways.
 
Rolfe said:
And then there are the people who can never actually contemplate the possibility that a court verdict might actually be a miscarriage of justice. Just saying. It cuts both ways.
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Oh, absolutely.

I often (usually?) find myself on the fence with controversial court cases. That's why I usually just read. But this case - it looked pretty bad out of the gate, and then the more information that's come out, it just seems like it should be enough to satisfy anyone (from my perspective). Though I did admit that the case made me emotional, and that can certainly cloud judgment to a degree, but in this case, I think I have at least a decent basis for feeling the way I do.
 
isissxn said:
No-verdict-of-guilty-is-ever-correct crowd, I'm really starting to wonder about some of you guys. Do you ever pull back and look at what it is you're trying to defend? This isn't a "he was framed" case. He ******* killed this woman, boner ruling the day, by his own account. He took pictures of her body. He went on another date while still in possession of her body. What are you thinking?
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I suggest manslaughter is a safe verdict here, and a sentence reflecting the lying to upgrade his attractiveness and his actions after can lead to a very long sentence. The cases in the UK similar did not lead to murder convictions, eg

LAURA HUTESON, 21
2018, Hull

Laura is killed by a man she'd just met that day. Jason Gaskell, 24, was charged with murder but admitted manslaughter. He had strangled a woman 11 days before he killed Laura, and was later given a 16 week sentence for that earlier attack. Gaskell held a knife to Laura's neck while having sex - he claimed with her consent - and used mild to moderate force to cut through her carotid artery. The court accepted that Gaskell, the only surviving witness, had not intended to use the knife to kill Laura and was engaged in what the judge called “bizarre and violent sadomasochistic sexual activity”

Manslaughter, 6 years

As far as no guilty verdict is ever correct, I hardly ever discuss those that are clear cut, but on this forum

West Memphis 3
Brendan Dassey, Steven Avery
David Tamihere
Mark Lundy
Oscar Pistorius
Luke Mitchell
Amanda Knox, Rafaele Sollecito
Jeremy Bamber
Anjelika Graswald
Darlie Routier
Gable Tostee
Lindy Chamberlain
Cardinal Pell
Ewan MacDonald

and so on with many others. Which of the above do you consider safe convictions? Many have been exonerated during discussion on this forum.
Further, I see there is no way for the accused in Grace Millane to prove he did not apply pressure until he believed she was dead, so this case becomes more about the safety of a murder conviction, and thus differs from most other cases.
 
Given that frequent reasons for discussing a case here are that it has been raised as a potential miscarriage of justice (not just within this forum) for specific reasons and/or that there are unusual characteristics, the probability that a case involves a miscarriage of justice is likely to be much higher than the baseline rate of wrongful convictions.

Even if the rate of wrongful convictions is low (e.g. 3-5% is often estimated), given the number of cases going before courts, the absolute number of wrongful convictions is likely to far exceed the number ever receiving serious attention as potential miscarriages. It’s also reasonable to assume that apparent weaknesses in the evidence increase the chance of the case receiving such attention. I mention that because I’ve seen people make statements to the effect that we can dismiss concerns about a wrongful conviction on the grounds that the courts hardly ever get it wrong. Using baseline rates of wrongful convictions - even as a prior probability before looking at the claims - would only make sense if the case was selected for discussion at random.

This particular case wasn’t raised as a potential wrongful conviction in the first place but does have some unusual features (and apparently the first of its kind in NZ?). I don’t have any problems with the verdict, but can see why people might consider some issues require further discussion.
 
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Samson said:
I suggest manslaughter is a safe verdict here, and a sentence reflecting the lying to upgrade his attractiveness and his actions after can lead to a very long sentence. The cases in the UK similar did not lead to murder convictions, eg

LAURA HUTESON, 21
2018, Hull
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That's one case - what about all the ones I listed after you said that the first time?
 
Samson said:
I suggest manslaughter is a safe verdict here, and a sentence reflecting the lying to upgrade his attractiveness and his actions after can lead to a very long sentence. The cases in the UK similar did not lead to murder convictions
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I'm just going to point out that we aren't in the UK, so what happens there is pretty much irrelevant.
 
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