Port Arthur massacre conspiracy

maccy said:
You're on a skeptics' forum - if you make statements based on ignorance people will give you a hard time. :)
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Yeah, a real hard time. I actually had third degree burns from this third degree. :)
 
Lonewulf said:
Quick question: If it leads straight to sentencing, and evidence was not scrutinized, then is there any actual possibility that there was a second shooter? I'm not claiming conspiracy, but it seems like potentially significant data could have been overlooked.

Am I getting something wrong?
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If there was evidence of a second shooter then you would expect the defence to bring this forward.

It isn't the job of the court to investigate the incident. If their are problems with the investigation, they weren't caused by Bryant pleading guilty. If anybody says there was a second shooter they need to provide evidence for this - they can't claim that a trial would have shown it and the lack of a trial covered it up.
 
maccy said:
If there was evidence of a second shooter then you would expect the defence to bring this forward.

It isn't the job of the court to investigate the incident. If their are problems with the investigation, they weren't caused by Bryant pleading guilty. If anybody says there was a second shooter they need to provide evidence for this - they can't claim that a trial would have shown it and the lack of a trial covered it up.
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Okay, I see now. Sorry for wasting your time.
 
Lonewulf said:
Okay, I see now. Sorry for wasting your time.
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Don't apologise. You made me look a lot of stuff up and think about why the court system is the way it is. I've enjoyed myself and learned something. I don't consider my time to have been wasted at all.
 
maccy said:
Sophia8 is wrong, in Australia and the UK (and, I'm sure, in many other places) a plea of not guilty leads straight to sentencing, without a trial to establish innocence or guilt. See the citations in this post:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2312956#post2312956
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Not in the UK, according to t'other half, who used to work in the law - he says that evidence corroborating a confession has to be presented, precisely to avoid unjustly convicting somebody who has falsely pleaded guilty because of mental illness or coercion. But I'll look at the citations.

EDIT: Ah, it's true that evidence doesn't have to be presented at a Crown Court if the defendant pleads guilty. However, all cases that go to a Crown Court have to first go before a Magistrates Court where the evidence is examined; the case only goes forward if the magistrates are convinced.
 
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EDIT: Ah, it's true that evidence doesn't have to be presented at a Crown Court if the defendant pleads guilty. However, all cases that go to a Crown Court have to first go before a Magistrates Court where the evidence is examined; the case only goes forward if the magistrates are convinced.
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It might be worth checking if this holds for capital crimes. In Australia (By state law) The lowest court a capital crime can be heard is the Supreme court... Is that the same as your Crown Court? If so then our version of the magistrates court would be the District Court.

With this case. It is important to remember Bryant never signed a confession. It was actually assumed he was going to plead not guilty. Which raised an intersting point about enpaneling a jury. Because of the super intense media coverage, there were concerns where people could be found who could be trusted to be unbiased
 
sophia8 said:
Not in the UK, according to t'other half, who used to work in the law - he says that evidence corroborating a confession has to be presented, precisely to avoid unjustly convicting somebody who has falsely pleaded guilty because of mental illness or coercion. But I'll look at the citations.

EDIT: Ah, it's true that evidence doesn't have to be presented at a Crown Court if the defendant pleads guilty. However, all cases that go to a Crown Court have to first go before a Magistrates Court where the evidence is examined; the case only goes forward if the magistrates are convinced.
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Interesting, thanks for that. I assume that what the magistrate looks at is the case documents that the prosecution have put together. They wouldn't go so far as to call witnesses, would they?
 
MG1962 said:
It might be worth checking if this holds for capital crimes. In Australia (By state law) The lowest court a capital crime can be heard is the Supreme court... Is that the same as your Crown Court? If so then our version of the magistrates court would be the District Court.

With this case. It is important to remember Bryant never signed a confession. It was actually assumed he was going to plead not guilty. Which raised an intersting point about enpaneling a jury. Because of the super intense media coverage, there were concerns where people could be found who could be trusted to be unbiased
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It looks like the defendent doesn't enter a plea at in Magistrates Court in a murder case:

Magistrates deal with three kinds of cases:
  • Summary offences. These are less serious cases, such as motoring offences and minor assaults, where the defendant is not entitled to trial by jury.
  • Either-way offences. As the name implies, these can be dealt with either by the magistrates or before a judge and jury at the Crown Court. Such offences include theft and handling stolen goods. A suspect can insist on their right to trial in the Crown Court. Similarly, magistrates can decide that a case is sufficiently serious that it should be dealt with in the Crown Court - which can impose tougher punishments.
  • Indictable-only offences, such as murder, manslaughter, rape and robbery. These must be heard at a Crown Court.
If the case is an indictable-only offence, the involvement of the Magistrates’ Court is brief. A decision will be made on whether to grant bail and other legal issues, like reporting restrictions, will be considered. The case will then be passed to the Crown Court.
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source: http://www.cjsonline.gov.uk/the_cjs/how_it_works/magistrates_court/index.html
 
sophia8 said:
Not in the UK, according to t'other half, who used to work in the law - he says that evidence corroborating a confession has to be presented, precisely to avoid unjustly convicting somebody who has falsely pleaded guilty because of mental illness or coercion. But I'll look at the citations.
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I think you're confusing "confession" and "guilty plea". They're distinctly different things.

A "confession" is essentially just a piece of evidence to be scrutinised during the trial. Whereas a guilty plea is the defendant saying to the court "yes I did it".

The New Zealand and British court systems are pretty much identical (in fact until 2004 the highest New Zealand court WAS a British court).

First off, a defendant has to be judged fit for trial (generally it's accepted that you are, but if there's any doubt you'll be given an evaluation). Once it is determined that you are fit for trial, if you plead guilty to a crime, there is no trial, and you jump straight to sentencing.

-Gumboot
 
The New Zealand and British court systems are pretty much identical (in fact until 2004 the highest New Zealand court WAS a British court).
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Was that the Privy council?
 
[slight derail]
IIRC you could still appeal to the Privy Council in Australia until 1988. That's what my High School Legal Studies teacher told me anyway.
[/slight derail]
 
IIRC you could still appeal to the Privy Council in Australia until 1988. That's what my High School Legal Studies teacher told me anyway
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I am not sure of the date, but otherwise you would be 100% correct. I was curious if New Zealand had the same court, or something else
 
Brainache said:
This is a new one to me. Australians would be pretty familiar with this case, but I had never heard any suggestion that Martin Bryant was framed or that there was any sort of cover-up. Now of course someone is claiming that it was all part of some government evil plot to convict an intellectually impaired young man of Australia's worst mass murder.

I haven't looked into it too deeply as I only heard about it last night.

I guess it makes a change from 9/11.

http://home.overflow.net.au/~nedwood/portarthur.html
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The conspiracy allegations weren't that Bryant was wrongfully convicted, but that he was somehow enabled or empowered to commit the shootings so as to create the impetus necessary for the sweeping gun bans that followed in Australia.

Whether there was a conspiracy or not, Australians lost most of their gun rights after Port Arthur.
 
Tippit said:
The conspiracy allegations weren't that Bryant was wrongfully convicted, but that he was somehow enabled or empowered to commit the shootings so as to create the impetus necessary for the sweeping gun bans that followed in Australia.

Whether there was a conspiracy or not, Australians lost most of their gun rights after Port Arthur.
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But do you accept that what the Australian government did next is not evidence for a conspiracy?

If you can show that there was a conspiracy, then it might explain why they did it. So, where is the evidence that he was "somehow enabled or empowered to commit the shootings"? And where is the evidence of government complicity in this? Also, how do you square this with the idea that "The conspiracy allegations weren't that Bryant was wrongfully convicted"? Surely, if the conviction is sound then Bryant was found to be responsible for his own actions? How, then, is there a conspiracy?
 
maccy said:
But do you accept that what the Australian government did next is not evidence for a conspiracy?

If you can show that there was a conspiracy, then it might explain why they did it. So, where is the evidence that he was "somehow enabled or empowered to commit the shootings"? And where is the evidence of government complicity in this? Also, how do you square this with the idea that "The conspiracy allegations weren't that Bryant was wrongfully convicted"? Surely, if the conviction is sound then Bryant was found to be responsible for his own actions? How, then, is there a conspiracy?
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I can't show there was a conspiracy in the Port Arthur case. There is no logical contradiction in the possibility that Bryant was guilty and there was a conspiracy to enable him somehow.

I wasn't trying to make the case that there was a conspiracy, but to correct the poster above on what the essence of that conspiracy was about. It was about the Australian gun bans.
 
Tippit said:
Whether there was a conspiracy or not, Australians lost most of their gun rights after Port Arthur.
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That is a fallacy, there was never and has never been a constitutional right to bear arms in Australia, merely an implied one.
 
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