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Sat 12 Mar, 2005 08:30 am
The other day in England two seventeen year olds were sent to prison having been convicted of manslaughter.
What they were guilty of was throwing a sixteen year old boy into a river which was swollen by heavy rain knowing full well that the boy could not swim, the boy drowned.
What do you think the prison sentence should be for this crime?
I don't believe in the death penalty so I'd say let them rot in jail for awhile while it eats away at them... guilt can be over whelming.... Being 17 their minds are yet to fully develop but the can still decipher right from wrong... throw them behind bars for awhile and then see what they have to say... but no matter what happens to them... it will never bring back the boy they killed! It's sad..
At 17, you know the difference between right and wrong and you understand that death is permanent. I think life. No parole. And prison without tv and all those comforts. But I think that anyone who commits murder (with intent to kill or cause severe bodily harm) or rape should be locked away for life. Rehabilitation doesn't work, too many repeat offenders have proven this. These people are a menace to society. Lock them up and throw away the key. They've ended another persons life and their life should be ended as well (so to speak).
As horrible as the crime was, it was manslaughter, not murder. In this case, I think that ten years in prison would be an appropriate sentence.
Don1- What WAS the sentence?
I agree with you Phoenix.
It wasnt murder, it wasnt PLANNED for years in advance, and Im sure they didnt mean for it to be FATAL. Unfortunatly, kids at that age are just plain dumb and I am willing to bet they threw him in to scare him.. not to kill him. ( Not that it makes it any BETTER!)
10 years? yeah. No probation, NOTHING. 10 years straight time. They will still be young enough to rejion society and MAYBE get beyond this.. any longer then that in jail . and they are doomed for the rest of thier life ANYWAYS..
Phoenix32890 wrote:As horrible as the crime was, it was manslaughter, not murder. In this case, I think that ten years in prison would be an appropriate sentence.
Don1- What WAS the sentence?
I can see this because that is what they were convicted of. I guess I just think that anyone who commits murder with the knowledge that they are doing it (as these boys were) should get murder, not manslaughter. Manslaughter is when you kill someone and don't know you are, or did. Such as a car accident (not drunk driving).
Phoenix32890 wrote:
I would suspect that what the boys did was more of a spur of the moment thing, .......
I think that if they had held the boy down in the water, it would have been murder.
BINGO!
I would be safe in saying they didnt MEAN to KILL him,, just scare him but knowing he couldnt swim made it manslaughter because of the ACCIDENT resulting in a death not an intent.
I think they knew he could and probably would die. They knew he couldn't swin and they stood there and watched him drown.
I also guess it depends on your definition of pre-meditation. Does it mean 1 day, 12 hours, or 1 minute before the act?
And there was malice involved. They wished him at the very least, bodily harm.
I think drunk driving is manslaughter. You had no intention of killing or harming the person you hit. But you did. Hand to hand, face to face killing is always, in my book, cold murder.
But again, it comes down to personal definition for me. The law can be interpreted in many ways.
shewolfnm wrote:Phoenix32890 wrote:
I would suspect that what the boys did was more of a spur of the moment thing, .......
I think that if they had held the boy down in the water, it would have been murder.
BINGO!
I would be safe in saying they didnt MEAN to KILL him,, just scare him but knowing he couldnt swim made it manslaughter because of the ACCIDENT resulting in a death not an intent.
If they knew he couldn't swim, they knew he would drown. You could argue premediataion. They knew the minute they stood in front of the river that they were putting him in a situation where he would die. And they stood by and watched him die.
Had they tried to save him, but he died anyway, I could see that as involuntary manslaughter.
Did they get voluntary manslaughter?
I agree with that, but how could they have proven to have ' tried to save him?" That would have been next to ' hear say' in a sense ya think
Meaning.. if he was dropped into a ragging river, all you as a person can to do to attempt to save someone is run along side them and hope they get close to shore so you can dive in and get them. It would have been easy for them to say they did just that to attempt to get out of the charge you think?
There is no way of really knowing, from just the information that we have. I am sure that the prosecutor took all the facts into consideration when the boys were charged.
Don1- Do you have a link to the story?
One mans manslaughter is another ones murder. From the facts as they were presented IMO it was the willful taking of anothers life and therefore murder.
As to their age if they can't tell right from wrong at 17 they probably never would have.
Seventeen-year-olds, equipped with their own transportation and fueled by illegal beer are often vandals. Granted, this is a much lesser crime than murder or manslaughter, but most seventeen-year-olds outgrown the notion that destroying other people's property is acceptable fun.
People grow. People change--frequently for the better.
One youth was sentenced to 18 months and the other to 8 months, bear in mind they will only serve half that.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/4337895.stm
Boy, hard lesson.
Kill someone that MIGHT be considered an accident and you only lose a few months of your life. That makes me angry. How do you think that poor dead boy's family feels?
Wow, I would have least given them 3-5 years each... such a sad story... I feel bad for the boys family!!
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