Comment on Jury unanimously acquits Churchill statue spray-painter
FishFace@piefed.social 1 day ago“Israel is committing genocide” is not relevant to a charge of criminal damage. English law does not recognise “I was protesting something grievously wrong” as a general defence, and nor should it - so trying to lead the jury to be sympathetic because they agree with your message instead of finding according to the law would indeed be unjust.
nor should it
Hard disagree there. How to create such a system is a separate question though, that much I will grant.
would indeed be unjust
It wouldn’t be “correct” in the application of the law. That wouldn’t make it unjust necessarily. Law is not the same as justice, it’s just our best effort.
Law in capitalist countries is not an effort towards justice, it is an effort towards protecting private property and the rights of capitalists.
The law, incidentally, is also what makes it illegal for said capitalists to kill you for example. Why do you think they always want their industries deregulated, E.g when it comes to safety regulations.
Doesn’t get much better under communism either since party elites are allowed to do anything they want and enrich themselves in the process.
The law, incidentally, is also what makes it illegal for said capitalists to kill you for example
This only limits certain actions, not killing in general. There are ways that capitalists legally kill people all the time, like by enforcing car-centric infrastructure or with climate change or by refusing necessary healthcare in privatized healthcare systems or by evicting tenants.
Those laws are always temporary under capitalism, just look at the deregulation happening now in the US. Meanwhile China has gradually been improving its worker protections for almost a century, with almost no setbacks.
And speaking of China, if you are a senior party member of the CPC and you use it to enrich yourself, you get executed. As usual, accusations of communist misdeeds by capitalists are just confessions.
Who went to jail for PFOA’s?
Who went to jail after the 2008 debacle that almost crashed the world economy?
Laws in capitalistic countries protect capital. You are a fool for not understanding this.
Safety regulations are there to protect capital as well because without healthy safe workers you will not be able to run your business.
Ask yourself why safety is routed through HR in your company.
Surely you have examples of a successful transition from socialism to communism and then it’s failure, then?
But it is our best effort. I don’t think even an abstract concept of justice is served by taking into account political motivation for your actions unless you apply the principle blindly. Do you think someone spraying right-wing slogans like “deport all migrants” or “traitors” or just “fuck you” on RNLI buildings should be off the hook because they think there’s an existential threat to the country from a trickle of refugees? Do you think they should be allowed to bring up those beliefs in court?
Besides assigning consequences to bad actions, justice must in the first instance be fair. I see no fair way to privilege motivations that I sympathise with (anti-Israeli-genocide) but not ones that I find detestable (anti-immigrant).
If this is y’alls best effort y’all kinda suck at this ngl
Wow, incisive argument.
Everything is relevant when you’re deciding the guilt or innocence of a man being pressed under the boot of the state.
Fuck the law, when it is unjust and immoral we must fight to change it or, in this case, at least realize it and use jury nullification as it was intended.
University of Birmingham disagrees: academic.oup.com/ojls/article/45/2/329/8078322?lo… they say that it should be a legal defence.
They’re welcome to say that. I’ll stick with my own beliefs and those of the judge in this case though, after a brief read of some of that long paper. You’re welcome to make the case, though.
I’m sorry. You’re beliefs don’t matter. Only facts.
Like the fact that the article linked does not represent the law in the UK at the moment?
locahosr443@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
This is the value of jury trials, the people get a chance to decide what is just. What’s the point in having a justice system that results in outcomes the vast majority would consider unjust.
FishFace@piefed.social 22 hours ago
Why is the judge able to exclude evidence?
KeithD@lemmy.nz 18 hours ago
That’s part of their job. Anything that’s more prejudicial than probative, anything that isn’t relevant to the charges, anything that has no verifiable source, that all gets tossed if the judge is doing their job. And that’s not an exhaustive list.
locahosr443@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Yeah which is a good thing for fairness, and then the fact the jury decided based on more than what was allowed alone was also a representation of a public desire for real justice
I think everyone played their roles
FishFace@piefed.social 17 hours ago
And so the judge decided in this case that the defendants motivations were similarly not relevant.
0x0@infosec.pub 21 hours ago
No fucking clue, they shouldnt be
FishFace@piefed.social 21 hours ago
I encourage you to look it up :)