catsmate
No longer the 1
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One slight change and I agree.
Grace Millane murder - do we believe the accused?
- Thread starter Rolfe
- Start date
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Just like this case, then?
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Grace Millane murderer launches appeal against conviction and sentence [The Guardian]
The man who murdered British backpacker Grace Millane in Auckland, New Zealand, has begun an appeal against his guilty verdict and jail term.
Grace Millane murder: Accused's actions 'inexcusable' but trial process 'miscarried' [New Zealand Herald]
The man convicted of murdering Grace Millane acted inexcusably after her death but the trial that found him guilty was flawed, an appeal has heard today.
His legal team have argued that the jury was not properly directed when it came to considering the issue of consent - nor were they equipped to properly analyse expert evidence.
And they say errors were made in the 17-year sentence handed down, making it too harsh and unjust.
The man who murdered British backpacker Grace Millane in Auckland, New Zealand, has begun an appeal against his guilty verdict and jail term.
Grace Millane murder: Accused's actions 'inexcusable' but trial process 'miscarried' [New Zealand Herald]
The man convicted of murdering Grace Millane acted inexcusably after her death but the trial that found him guilty was flawed, an appeal has heard today.
His legal team have argued that the jury was not properly directed when it came to considering the issue of consent - nor were they equipped to properly analyse expert evidence.
And they say errors were made in the 17-year sentence handed down, making it too harsh and unjust.
The two men on the judging panel demonstrated grave lincompetence in the Lundy debacle, any pleas will fall on deaf ears regardless of merit in my opinion.
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
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I predict that his appeal will certainly fail on the issue of the conviction, but that he might possibly get a slight reduction in his sentence.
That’s where my money is.
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
Why isn't Grace Millane's killer Jesse Kempson being named in New Zealand? The reason for his anonymity
The TL/DR is that we don't know.
"The order remains in place until the judge lifts it. The legal reasons for Justice Moore's decision have been given in court but this too is being kept secret."
The TL/DR is that we don't know.
"The order remains in place until the judge lifts it. The legal reasons for Justice Moore's decision have been given in court but this too is being kept secret."
The reason is possibly that his father may be a very senior member of the New Zealand police.
However it seems an odd reason.
Any ideas from other jurisdictions?
Last edited:
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55361640
A man who murdered a British backpacker he met on a dating app in New Zealand has lost an appeal against his conviction and prison sentence.
The Court of Appeal in New Zealand found on Friday that the murder was "committed with a high degree of callousness", due to Miss Millane's killer failing "to call for assistance, searching on the internet for methods of body disposal ... taking steps preparatory to disposing of the body and going on another date while Miss Millane's body remained in his room".
The three judges who considered the case also found his sentence was not "manifestly unjust".
If other women have come forward with allegations against him due to the initial publicity, it's possible that further charges will be brought. Keeping his name a secret, and even the knowledge that other cases will be forthcoming, may be necessary to avoid any suggestion of a mistrial in those cases due to adverse publicity.
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
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What a toxic, disgusting piece of ****. And the extreme nature of his previous form would definitely have helped to inform the sentence he received for the Millane murder. It sounds like an awful lot of work will have to be done with him before he's anywhere near being considered safe to allow back into the community.
17 years no parole is obviously absurd.
Grace Millane was a willing participant in extreme sex, so Kempson has a legitimate defence. Actions after are realistically explained by panic. The other convictions are propensity evidence of extreme sexual need, not homicide.
At some point you hang em highers should be realistic about the need for extreme sentences.
Matthew Best
Penultimate Amazing
I don't find it obvious at all.
Participating in sex isn't an excuse for murder
Sexual need isn't an excuse for rape
This isn't extreme, and he's not being hanged.
Agreed, it does seem rather short to me.
For murder? You have to be kidding.
What, filming the corpse, and going out for another Tinder date straight afterwards?
Get serious. Rape and forcing someone to have sex at knifepoint are signs of more than sexual need.
I’m opposed to the death penalty, but I have no problem with a long sentence in this instance.
Ridiculously short. A failure of the NZ legal system.
LondonJohn
Penultimate Amazing
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I have no idea how you're arriving at those beliefs.
Firstly, you (and I) have no idea what was and was not consented to by Millane in that hotel room with Kempson. You only have Kempson's own claims - claims which have been fundamentally contradicted by the evidence in many respects.
And in any case, irrespective of what Millane may or may not have consented to, all notions of consent go out of the window the moment she goes unconscious. There is zero chance that Kempson could somehow have missed observing that Millane had gone limp, had stopped interacting in any way, and had closed her eyes. Yet he must have continued holding his hands to her neck for a considerable period of time beyond that point, in order for her to have experienced brain death at his hands.
Secondly: as for your "actions after are realistically explained by panic" claim, I fundamentally disagree - as did the court. I've explained previously in this thread precisely how/why I (and the court) fundamentally disagree with your view here.
Thirdly, it's a generally-accepted psychiatric belief that wrt crimes committed by males against females in the areas of rape, sexual assault and domestic violence, these are expressions of power, control and dominance first and foremost. Any sexual elements are subordinate. So I don't think you'd be able to find a single respected expert in this field who would profess the opinion that "extreme sexual need" was at the core of any of Kempson's offending.
And lastly, I most certainly don't regard myself as one of the "hang them high brigade". Kempson committed a string of crimes which were right up at the top end of the tariff for seriousness and extremity, at the top of which was the Millane murder. I am personally wholly satisfied that Kempson was correctly convicted of the Millane murder (though I do not know enough about his other convictions for rape and sexual/physical assault to form an opinion on their safety). I think Kempson got the correct sentence for the Millane murder (and I mean "correct" in two ways: 1) in the sense of the sentencing structure of the NZ criminal justice system, and 2) in the sense of what is deemed appropriate by jurisprudence views in modern liberalised democracies).
You might or might not also have noticed the final sentence of my post: I wrote "It sounds like an awful lot of work will have to be done with him before he's anywhere near being considered safe to allow back into the community." In my opinion, this man's convictions show that he is a very great danger to the public (and specifically young adult women). Part of the rationale for incarceration of offenders is public protection, and I would say that Kempson would rank as one of the most dangerous people currently in prison in NZ. But there's still the possibility of him being provided with the right sort of counselling and offender management while he's in prison, such that he might eventually return to the general population as a productive and law-abiding member of society. I think it will probably take many, many years of expert work to even get close to that point. But I certainly don't advocate anything akin to a "lock him up and throw away the key" approach.
DuvalHMFIC
Graduate Poster
Agreed, this guy should have gotten a more extreme sentence. 17 years was not enough.
Concurrent is usual in the UK and, I assume, New Zealand. The USA is unusual in, as far as I’ve seen, generally opting for consecutive sentences. I have no idea what non-English-speaking countries normally do.
One argument against consecutive sentences is that if there’s several significant ones, the prospect of probation rapidly recedes beyond the bounds of possibility (that may be viewed as an advantage in some cases, of course).