Well, it's been six months...

[Professor Yaffle]

see, for discussion and expansion of this statement, comment below by FP Heur and my reply

You might like to read the whole article and comments, Ziggurat.

The ‘nature of the offence’, which you rightly identify as mentioned in Annex 1 as a relevant factor, seems never in fact to have been permitted to trump the factors identified in paragraph 4.1 of the policy such as terminal illness, as distinct to paragraph 4.2 cases. Once a case was recognised as checking off the 4.1 boxes, the prisoner got compassionate release. That was how it worked.

Had the Justice Secretary turned round last month and said “I know it’s never been the policy to allow the seriousness of the crime to trump terminal illness, but in reaction to this case I am changing that”, ex hypothesi retrospectively, he’d have been challenged by judicial review, and I repeat that I think the prospects of that challenge succeeding would in my opinion have been excellent.
This is not a full description, but a summary, of the law.

 

[Skeptic]

Were you this incensed about the release of a war criminal/convicted murder of 22 people by the US?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Calley

No.

Being a toddler at the time had something to do with it.

 

[Skeptic]

As far as I have been able to find out, the nature of the crime is not one of the things that is taken into consideration, .

Which is precisely the problem.

 

[Ziggurat]

As far as I have been able to find out, the nature of the crime is not one of the things that is taken into consideration, although the risk of reoffending is.

If that's the case, then I see it as a major problem. If the nature of the crime isn't taken into consideration, I don't think justice is being done. This particular case may indeed be normal in that regards, but normal isn't what I would consider acceptable. And not just because of this case, I could imagine plenty of non-terrorist cases in which the nature of the crime should preclude compassionate release.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I can't tell from that what "excellent prospects of success" for an appeal means. Is it simply the author's opinion of which way higher courts would exercise their own judgment, or is there some legal grounds on which a refusal to release cannot be justified? For the former, well, that's not really a reason to release him (if he gets released on appeal, so be it), and if it's the latter, then the laws regarding release sound bad and should probably be changed on general principle.

To put it slightly differently, are there no criminals for whom the government can ever say, "this criminal we aren't willing to release even if he's terminally ill"? Because if there aren't, I see that as a problem. And if there are, I don't see why they couldn't have decided that this terrorist was one such criminal.

From reading the opinion of that QC, I believe they would be on shaky ground if they ever decided the nature of the crime would suddenly trump other factors.

Are you now satisfied that the decision was correct on legal grounds, even though you happen to disagree with the law?

ETA - in case you don't know what a QC is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Counsel

 

[Ziggurat]

Are you now satisfied that the decision was correct on legal grounds, even though you happen to disagree with the law?

Yes. One of the strange aspects of this is the role that precedent has in UK law compared to the US. The fact that nobody has been denied release due to the nature of the offense now seems to mean that nobody can be, even though it sounds like the letter of the law allows for it. I don't think you could make such an argument here. That alone is a secondary issue, the advantages and disadvantages of which I don't think I'm qualified to discuss in any real depth, but at least in regard to this law it does seem to have produced a bad result in terms of the meaning of the law. And not just for this case, I think it's bad that effectively nobody can be denied release based on the nature of their crime.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/This-Week/Speeches/Safer-and-stronger/lockerbiedecision

Fair enough - I was a bit out memorywise.
I know the paper is probably being sensationalist, but it is food for thought I guess when it says....

The Sunday Telegraph revealed last September that the Libyan government had paid for the medical evidence which helped Megrahi, 57, to be released. The Libyans had encouraged doctors to say he had only three months to live.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Yes. One of the strange aspects of this is the role that precedent has in UK law compared to the US. The fact that nobody has been denied release due to the nature of the offense now seems to mean that nobody can be, even though it sounds like the letter of the law allows for it. I don't think you could make such an argument here. That alone is a secondary issue, the advantages and disadvantages of which I don't think I'm qualified to discuss in any real depth, but at least in regard to this law it does seem to have produced a bad result in terms of the meaning of the law. And not just for this case, I think it's bad that effectively nobody can be denied release based on the nature of their crime.

Then we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point.

 

[ddt]

"The compassionate way of letting a mass-murderer go so he can spend the last few months of life in his home country with his family."

Yeah, well, the US never does that? Let's see.

Walther Funk: convicted to life, released in 1957 for ill health, died in 1960.

Gustav Krupp: not even tried because of ill health.

Konstantin von Neurath: convicted to 15 years, released 1954 for heart attack, died in 1956.

Erich Raeder: convicted to life, released 1955 for ill health, died in 1960.

Compared to these guys, Meghrabi is a rank amateur when it comes to mass murdering people.

 

[Nova Land]

Science: Observation, theory, prediction, tests.

Theory: Guy isn't really dying, at least as badly as portrayed by those in charge, including putting up a major fake sickiness.

Prediction: When released, will live a lot longer because he really wasn't as sick as people in charge were fooled into believing.

Prediction 2: Apologists will, when faced with Prediction 1 coming true, claim it's just a random fluke to the progress of his disease.

Yes, scientists use predictions to test their theories. Pseudo-scientists and paranormalists, in contrast, use postdictions to justify theirs.

Are these predictions you are citing in your post, or are they postdictions? In other words, are these things you said at the time of al-Megrahi's release, or are these things you are saying now, after he has been out for 6 months?

Seems to me there were several threads discussing al-Megrahi's release back in August. And it looks as if you even participated in a couple of them:

Convicted Lockerbie bomber released
Should convicted Libyan terrorist have been released?

I don't have the time or energy to wade through these threads in their entirety to see if you or others actually were making such predictions back then. If you did, please quote from (and provide links to) the posts in which these predictions were made.

 

[funk de fino]

Really? Are there many other cases of mass-murdering terrorists in UK prisons who get compassionate release because they develop terminal cancer?

Murderers, yes. There is no other "qualifiers" required for the law.

Check out the Kray release in England.

 

[richardm]

There's certainly a case of a very notorious criminal being released on compassionate grounds.

Assuming you mean Ronnie Biggs - come to think of it, he wasn't supposed to make it to Christmas, but is apparently still on the go. Human survival rates for a given issue are all based on averages, it's hardly an exact science.

 

[Hallo Alfie]

Assuming you mean Ronnie Biggs - come to think of it, he wasn't supposed to make it to Christmas, but is apparently still on the go. Human survival rates for a given issue are all based on averages, it's hardly an exact science.

We don't hear too much about Ronnie here these days despite his Melbourne links. I thought I remembered reading something - even seeing photos - about the poor old codger having his umpteenth stroke (or similar). Does he even know what day it is today?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

We don't hear too much about Ronnie here these days despite his Melbourne links. I thought I remembered reading something - even seeing photos - about the poor old codger having his umpteenth stroke (or similar). Does he even know what day it is today?

It doesn't matter, he MUST BE PUNISHED!!!!

 

[Rolfe]

We don't hear too much about Ronnie here these days despite his Melbourne links. I thought I remembered reading something - even seeing photos - about the poor old codger having his umpteenth stroke (or similar). Does he even know what day it is today?

Yes, Ronnie Biggs was the obvious current comparison. I'm not quite sure what his diagnosis was supposed to be, that he fulfilled the criteria for compassionate release. He was released before Megrahi, he's still on the go, and I don't hear ghoulish demands to know why he's still breathing.

Actually, Biggs was deliberately gaming the system. He skipped, and lived the high life in the sun for many years. Only when he became old and sick did he voluntarily surrender himself for imprisonment, knowing even then that he'd be granted compassionate release in due course. I wonder if he'd have come quite so soon if he'd realised he'd actually be banged up for eight years?

Kenny MacAskill made a point of insisting that any possibility Megrahi was actually innocent was not a factor in his decision, so that one isn't really on the table. I merely repeat that having examined the evidence in the case, I wouldn't give anyone a parking ticket on the strength of that lot. And I suggest that anyone insisting he definitely was a mass murderer should have a similar look at the evidence, and at the shameful events surrounding both the delaying and the abandonment of the appeal proceedings.

I'm also sick fed up explaining to people the difference between the Scottish and UK governments in this affair, which one was angling for Libyan oil contracts and dangling the prospect of prisoner transfer in front of Gadaffi, compared to which one actually had the authority to decide what should be done with Megrahi. And of course that the two governments hate each other like poison, leading to the fact that most of the political posturing going on here is for simple party purposes. Nobody in the Labour party gives a rat's arse what happens to Megrahi so long as they can use the events to criticise the SNP. Go look it up.

The simple fact is that the seriousness of the offence is not a factor in any decision on the granting of compassionate release. That's our law, and we like it that way. We aren't going to overturn it just to satisfy the vengeful instincts of a bunch of Yanks who have little grasp of most of the issues. Also, exact prognosis of time left to live can be a tricky business, see Ronnie Biggs as just the first of many other examples, even before you consider whether a terminally ill patient may survive longer at home with his family, compared to the prognosis if he remained in prison in a foreign country.

The only reason this thread was started was to complain that a man diagnosed with prostate cancer has not yet died.

I simply don't take pleasure in the pain of others.

This, basically.

Rolfe.

 

[Darat]

Assuming you mean Ronnie Biggs - come to think of it, he wasn't supposed to make it to Christmas, but is apparently still on the go. Human survival rates for a given issue are all based on averages, it's hardly an exact science.

I really would like to know what medical advice he was released on, he seemed to be suffering from nothing bar old age.

 

[Francesca R]

I'm also sick fed up explaining to people the difference between the Scottish and UK governments in this affair, which one was angling for Libyan oil contracts and dangling the prospect of prisoner transfer in front of Gadaffi, compared to which one actually had the authority to decide what should be done with Megrahi. And of course that the two governments hate each other like poison, leading to the fact that most of the political posturing going on here is for simple party purposes. Nobody in the Labour party gives a rat's arse what happens to Megrahi so long as they can use the events to criticise the SNP. Go look it up.

The simple fact is that the seriousness of the offence is not a factor in any decision on the granting of compassionate release. That's our law, and we like it that way. We aren't going to overturn it just to satisfy the vengeful instincts of a bunch of Yanks who have little grasp of most of the issues.

Quoted for quality

 

[Skeptic]

It doesn't matter, he MUST BE PUNISHED!!!!

There is an enormous difference between a bank robber who never killed anybody (nor intended to) and someone who killed 270 people. The first I can see can qualify for compassionate release eventually; the latter, no.

I'd say that once you kill 270 innocents people deliberately, you lose all right to compassion.

But that's what you get when the law does not even allow you to consider the enormity of the crime in the "compassionate" release considerations.

 

[Ziggurat]

That's our law, and we like it that way. We aren't going to overturn it just to satisfy the vengeful instincts of a bunch of Yanks who have little grasp of most of the issues.

This is more than a little bit ironic, given your interest in what the US does with health care.

 

[lionking]

There is an enormous difference between a bank robber who never killed anybody (nor intended to) and someone who killed 270 people. The first I can see can qualify for compassionate release eventually; the latter, no.

I'd say that once you kill 270 innocents people deliberately, you lose all right to compassion.

But that's what you get when the law does not even allow you to consider the enormity of the crime in the "compassionate" release considerations.

Yes, I agree.