h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Bentley would most certainly have lived if the responsibility for sentencing rested with the jury and not the judge.

The job of a judge should be as a referee and adviser on points of law, ensuring the rules of trial are followed and the law of the land correctly interpretted. Sentencing should be the reponsibility of the jury which would rid the legal system of the abaility of a judge to completely ignore a jury's plea for mercy or leniency as in the Bentley case.

That way, the feelings of the people, who are the usual victims of crime, and not a servant of the ruling classes, would determine the punishment.

In the Bentley case, the jury were eminently more qualified to understand the social background of Craig and Bentley, since they shared the same social and economic environment. Under the present system, the jury's decision has to be black and white, when in reality, their opinions concerning a suitable sentence may be any shade of grey in between.

I always get the impression when watching re-enactments of trials on TV and in the movies, that it is very easy for evidence to be muddled or even suppressed by barristers.

The jury should have the right to directly question the accused and any witness to clarify points they they don't fully understand or they suspect have not been revealed.

If the United Kingdom were a democracy, which it most definitely is not, this system would already be in place and far fewer people would have been unjustly executed or imprisoned.

On the subject of capital punishment; we have to consider the severity
of the crime. If we had captured Hitler before he managed to kill himself, should we have put him in prison and then let him out for good behavior 10 years later or executed him? Should Sadam eventually go free or should mass murderers spend time in prison and eventually be freed?

Who should make those kind of decisions, those farthest from the effects of such crime or the surviving victims?

A few years ago, a young woman was battered to death by an Australian youth in her house in Winchester. The lad was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison. I think he was freed after 3 years.

His sentence was so lenient because defence council managed to convince the jury that the murder was not premeditated. The accused had gone to visit the girl but she had rejected him and he was so upset, he battered her to death on her with a meat tenderiser and then set fire to the mattress.

A neighbour, who is a friend of mine, had witnessed that the accused had entered the girl's bedroom through the rear bedroom window, via a ladder propped up against the back of the house. He had then laid in wait till the girl returned home from her work as a librarian and battered her to death.

The neighbour was never called as a witness for the prosecution!

Clearly, our legal system is lacking on more than one front. The neighbour should have had the right to demand his evidence be heard.

So I have raised three questions:

Should the jury, not the judge, be soley responsible for sentencing according to the penalties prescribed by law?

Should the jury have the right to directly question the accused and the witnesses to clarify or reveal the facts?

Should a witness to a crime have the right to be heard and not called at the discression of council?