This is what I mean when I'm talking about intent. You say, "At the end of the day the guy killed someone." But that's not the end of the day for me. The end of the day for me is, "Why did he kill someone?" and if it was an accident then really I think the penalty should be what it is for assault. Manslaughter is a charge which has never made much sense to me when it comes to these one punch killings.

For example, why does this person who killed someone by accident with one punch deserves 3 years or life, but someone who doesn't kill someone with 20 punches only deserves 6 months?

It shouldn't matter why he killed him though. It shouldn't matter if he intended to. He got drunk and his intent was to go out and hurt someone. He took these choices, he got a shi aftermath, he should've took the fall and full consequences for these action. It would be different if he threw a pot off the roof and it fell on someone's head and killed him, but he was intentionally going to harm another human. Idk we just look at things differently.

I'm not a solider so don't know about there training, but I'm sure there trained to fight in hand to hand combat and know how to kill someone, the man killed my father which I got to live the rest of my life with with that missing gap, when he gets a slap on the wrist. That's bullshit.

Vial wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Allnutt wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Click to View Content

He didn't get 'special treatment.'

Most of these kinds of deaths result in prison sentences ranging from 2-7 years depending on whether or not alcohol was involved and intent.
Leon didn't intend to kill anyone and he was drunk.

Intent matters because it tells us what a person is likely to do in the future which is why pre-meditated murder charges a longer sentence than manslaughter.

Prison is about rehabilitation as much as it is about punishment. Logically I don't know how you can punish someone for a drunken accident.
All you can do is rehabilitate them, and if that takes 3 years or 1 and a half years then there is no point in keeping him in prison for any longer.

Obviously this is not something that you want to hear because you are personally involved, and if I were personally involved in the way that you are I would want to kill him with my own hands, but I would happily go to prison and serve my sentence for that because society has to be better on issues like this than the emotionally involved individual can be.

It's wrong to describe these types of sentences as 'fair' because like the recorder said, "No sentence I can pass can do anything to reduce the feeling of loss and anger which Im sure are felt by those whom you have taken a loving family member and friend. Nothing I can do can ease the pain you caused."

It's not 'fair', it's far from fair, but it does make sense.

Completely agree prison is just as much punishment as is rehabilitation. But 1.5 years for killing someone, drunk or not is ridiculous. Probably me being black and white but what you said about not " knowing how you could punish someone for a drunken accident" is stupid. At the end of the day the guy killed someone, mistake or not he deserves a lot longer that what he got.

Thrill wrote Drunk or not, he took a mans life. Took that life from a family. He deserves to rot in prison for life. If you go out and get that drunk and start punching people you either don't need to be drinking, or moderate your damn self. He deserves nothing more but his freedom taken.

This is what I mean when I'm talking about intent. You say, "At the end of the day the guy killed someone." But that's not the end of the day for me. The end of the day for me is, "Why did he kill someone?" and if it was an accident then really I think the penalty should be what it is for assault. Manslaughter is a charge which has never made much sense to me when it comes to these one punch killings.

For example, why does this person who killed someone by accident with one punch deserves 3 years or life, but someone who doesn't kill someone with 20 punches only deserves 6 months?

Which of these people is going to be more difficult to rehabilitate? Which of these people deserves more punishment?
I think the answer is quite obviously the latter person, but because a death occurred and familial emotion is involved the former is treated more harshly.
To me that is the justice system being unfair.

And yes the system is very corrupt. Get out of murder for being good but get life and stay locked up for marijuana or other petty shi.

I'm not saying that the justice system is never unfair, I'm only talking about this specific case.

Well he was taunting people in the pub so he was looking for trouble he clearly meant to do something either attack or kill someone.At the end of the day that ex soldier destroyed a family.A parent lost a son,a son lost a father,a wife lost a husband.They will never get him back because of his actions.Yeah the soldiers gonna have to live with the consequences of killing him but I think he should have gotten life in prison imo.

Imagine if this situation went differently. Imagine he was taunting people in the pub, a man comes outside and he punches him 30-40 times all over his body.
The man goes to the hospital and recovers and his attacker is put in jail for assault and receives a 6 month sentence.

This man intended to assault him, he intended to cause him great amounts of harm because he decided to punch him 30-40 times.

Now contrast that with a man who punches someone just once and accidentally kills him.
He didn't intend to cause him great amounts of harm otherwise he would have punched him a lot more.
This man should go to jail for life, as opposed to the former getting 6 months? That is fair to you?

Thrill wrote It shouldn't matter why he killed him though. It shouldn't matter if he intended to.

It absolutely matters what he intended to do. Intention is everything.

If your neighbor sets their house on fire by accident and burns it down that is one thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of collecting the insurance, that is another thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of also burning yours down and killing you, that is another thing.
If they set fire to the entire neighborhood with the intention of killing everybody, that is another thing.

Intentions tell us everything about what a person is likely to do next. This is why sentences are divided up by intention.
This is the difference between pre-meditated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc.

You say, "He got drunk and his intent was to go out and hurt someone" if his intention was to go out, then get drunk, and then hurt someone from the beginning of his night, then yes I would think he deserved a longer sentence. But that's not what happened. He went out, presumably with the intention of getting drunk and having a laugh, but then he got into an altercation with someone in the pub while he was already drunk. This led to him being ejected from the pub and the altercation occurring which resulted in the death of a man.

The important part is that all of his violent intent appeared while he was drunk and that changes things, legally and ethically in my view.

I don't think he should be allowed near alcohol again, I don't think he should be allowed near a pub again, but I don't think he needs to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for a drunken mistake when he could be out trying to lead a good life.

I'm not a solider so don't know about there training, but I'm sure there trained to fight in hand to hand combat and know how to kill someone, the man killed my father which I got to live the rest of my life with with that missing gap, when he gets a slap on the wrist. That's bullshit.

Here's the thing, I think his ability to live with what he did says more about his mental state and what he is likely to be like for the rest of his life than what he did to your father.
He made a mistake, yes, but If I had made that mistake and ended someone's life I would have found the nearest bridge and jumped head first off it.
Legally I think he should be allowed to make the best of the rest of his life and try to atone for what he did by being a good person, but ethically and personally I think the guilt should have made him take his own life a long time ago.

Perhaps this will help clear up the misconceptions about murder vs manslaughter. This is how the judge determines whether or not to withdraw a murder charge in cases like this.

Abnormality of mental functioning means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable person would term it abnormal. It covers the ability to exercise willpower or to control physical acts in accordance with rational judgement. It is a question for a jury.

There is now essentially a four-stage test:: whether the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functoning; if so, whether it had arisen from a recognised medical condition; if so, whether it had substantially impaired his ability either to understand the nature of his conduct or to form a rational judgment or to exercise self-control (or any combination). Where there is unchallenged medical evidence of diminished responsibility and no other evidence which, looked at in the round, was at least capable of rebutting the defence, the trial judge should withdraw a charge of murder from the jury

Impairment must be substantial, there must be evidence of this and it must be raised by defence, c.f. R v Campbell [1987] 84 Cr App R 255, R v Kooken [1982] 74 Cr App R 30. The new section 2(1)(b) states that the abnormality of mental functioning must have substantially impaired the defendant's ability to do one or more of those things as mentioned in the new section 2(1A):

a) to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct;
b) to form a rational judgement;
c) to exercise self-control.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Being drunk is classified as mental impairment. The police officers would have tested his blood alcohol level when he was arrested and corrected for the time in which he wasn't in their custody, and the judge would have taken the amount to be substantial enough to withdraw the murder charge.

This isn't the type of thing where the courts will flippantly issue whatever sentence feels right to them. They have to follow strict procedures and, I would argue, very logical procedures.
Like I said, this won't be logical or reasonable to someone personally involved in the situation, but society has to be more disconnected than the individual in these cases.

doesn't matter on the situation at all.
If someone actions lead to someone losing their life then they deserve a lot more than one **** year in prison

sorry about your dad bro.. I would unleash a can of whoop ass on him in the street if you ever see him around

MrWednesday wrote

Vial wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Allnutt wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Click to View Content

He didn't get 'special treatment.'

Most of these kinds of deaths result in prison sentences ranging from 2-7 years depending on whether or not alcohol was involved and intent.
Leon didn't intend to kill anyone and he was drunk.

Intent matters because it tells us what a person is likely to do in the future which is why pre-meditated murder charges a longer sentence than manslaughter.

Prison is about rehabilitation as much as it is about punishment. Logically I don't know how you can punish someone for a drunken accident.
All you can do is rehabilitate them, and if that takes 3 years or 1 and a half years then there is no point in keeping him in prison for any longer.

Obviously this is not something that you want to hear because you are personally involved, and if I were personally involved in the way that you are I would want to kill him with my own hands, but I would happily go to prison and serve my sentence for that because society has to be better on issues like this than the emotionally involved individual can be.

It's wrong to describe these types of sentences as 'fair' because like the recorder said, "No sentence I can pass can do anything to reduce the feeling of loss and anger which Im sure are felt by those whom you have taken a loving family member and friend. Nothing I can do can ease the pain you caused."

It's not 'fair', it's far from fair, but it does make sense.

Completely agree prison is just as much punishment as is rehabilitation. But 1.5 years for killing someone, drunk or not is ridiculous. Probably me being black and white but what you said about not " knowing how you could punish someone for a drunken accident" is stupid. At the end of the day the guy killed someone, mistake or not he deserves a lot longer that what he got.

Thrill wrote Drunk or not, he took a mans life. Took that life from a family. He deserves to rot in prison for life. If you go out and get that drunk and start punching people you either don't need to be drinking, or moderate your damn self. He deserves nothing more but his freedom taken.

This is what I mean when I'm talking about intent. You say, "At the end of the day the guy killed someone." But that's not the end of the day for me. The end of the day for me is, "Why did he kill someone?" and if it was an accident then really I think the penalty should be what it is for assault. Manslaughter is a charge which has never made much sense to me when it comes to these one punch killings.

For example, why does this person who killed someone by accident with one punch deserves 3 years or life, but someone who doesn't kill someone with 20 punches only deserves 6 months?

Which of these people is going to be more difficult to rehabilitate? Which of these people deserves more punishment?
I think the answer is quite obviously the latter person, but because a death occurred and familial emotion is involved the former is treated more harshly.
To me that is the justice system being unfair.

And yes the system is very corrupt. Get out of murder for being good but get life and stay locked up for marijuana or other petty shi.

I'm not saying that the justice system is never unfair, I'm only talking about this specific case.

Well he was taunting people in the pub so he was looking for trouble he clearly meant to do something either attack or kill someone.At the end of the day that ex soldier destroyed a family.A parent lost a son,a son lost a father,a wife lost a husband.They will never get him back because of his actions.Yeah the soldiers gonna have to live with the consequences of killing him but I think he should have gotten life in prison imo.

Imagine if this situation went differently. Imagine he was taunting people in the pub, a man comes outside and he punches him 30-40 times all over his body.
The man goes to the hospital and recovers and his attacker is put in jail for assault and receives a 6 month sentence.

This man intended to assault him, he intended to cause him great amounts of harm because he decided to punch him 30-40 times.

Now contrast that with a man who punches someone just once and accidentally kills him.
He didn't intend to cause him great amounts of harm otherwise he would have punched him a lot more.
This man should go to jail for life, as opposed to the former getting 6 months? That is fair to you?

Thrill wrote It shouldn't matter why he killed him though. It shouldn't matter if he intended to.

It absolutely matters what he intended to do. Intention is everything.

If your neighbor sets their house on fire by accident and burns it down that is one thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of collecting the insurance, that is another thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of also burning yours down and killing you, that is another thing.
If they set fire to the entire neighborhood with the intention of killing everybody, that is another thing.

Intentions tell us everything about what a person is likely to do next. This is why sentences are divided up by intention.
This is the difference between pre-meditated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc.

You say, "He got drunk and his intent was to go out and hurt someone" if his intention was to go out, then get drunk, and then hurt someone from the beginning of his night, then yes I would think he deserved a longer sentence. But that's not what happened. He went out, presumably with the intention of getting drunk and having a laugh, but then he got into an altercation with someone in the pub while he was already drunk. This led to him being ejected from the pub and the altercation occurring which resulted in the death of a man.

The important part is that all of his violent intent appeared while he was drunk and that changes things, legally and ethically in my view.

I don't think he should be allowed near alcohol again, I don't think he should be allowed near a pub again, but I don't think he needs to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for a drunken mistake when he could be out trying to lead a good life.

I'm not a solider so don't know about there training, but I'm sure there trained to fight in hand to hand combat and know how to kill someone, the man killed my father which I got to live the rest of my life with with that missing gap, when he gets a slap on the wrist. That's bullshit.

Here's the thing, I think his ability to live with what he did says more about his mental state and what he is likely to be like for the rest of his life than what he did to your father.
He made a mistake, yes, but If I had made that mistake and ended someone's life I would have found the nearest bridge and jumped head first off it.
Legally I think he should be allowed to make the best of the rest of his life and try to atone for what he did by being a good person, but ethically and personally I think the guilt should have made him take his own life a long time ago.

Perhaps this will help clear up the misconceptions about murder vs manslaughter. This is how the judge determines whether or not to withdraw a murder charge in cases like this.

Abnormality of mental functioning means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable person would term it abnormal. It covers the ability to exercise willpower or to control physical acts in accordance with rational judgement. It is a question for a jury.

There is now essentially a four-stage test:: whether the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functoning; if so, whether it had arisen from a recognised medical condition; if so, whether it had substantially impaired his ability either to understand the nature of his conduct or to form a rational judgment or to exercise self-control (or any combination). Where there is unchallenged medical evidence of diminished responsibility and no other evidence which, looked at in the round, was at least capable of rebutting the defence, the trial judge should withdraw a charge of murder from the jury

Impairment must be substantial, there must be evidence of this and it must be raised by defence, c.f. R v Campbell [1987] 84 Cr App R 255, R v Kooken [1982] 74 Cr App R 30. The new section 2(1)(b) states that the abnormality of mental functioning must have substantially impaired the defendant's ability to do one or more of those things as mentioned in the new section 2(1A):

a) to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct;
b) to form a rational judgement;
c) to exercise self-control.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Being drunk is classified as mental impairment. The police officers would have tested his blood alcohol level when he was arrested and corrected for the time in which he wasn't in their custody, and the judge would have taken the amount to be substantial enough to withdraw the murder charge.

This isn't the type of thing where the courts will flippantly issue whatever sentence feels right to them. They have to follow strict procedures and, I would argue, very logical procedures.
Like I said, this won't be logical or reasonable to someone personally involved in the situation, but society has to be more disconnected than the individual in these cases.

uhh yea.. in the end the judge does get to issue whatever bs sentence he wants lmao

ThriII wrote

Click to View Content

MrWednesday wrote

Vial wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Allnutt wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Click to View Content

He didn't get 'special treatment.'

Most of these kinds of deaths result in prison sentences ranging from 2-7 years depending on whether or not alcohol was involved and intent.
Leon didn't intend to kill anyone and he was drunk.

Intent matters because it tells us what a person is likely to do in the future which is why pre-meditated murder charges a longer sentence than manslaughter.

Prison is about rehabilitation as much as it is about punishment. Logically I don't know how you can punish someone for a drunken accident.
All you can do is rehabilitate them, and if that takes 3 years or 1 and a half years then there is no point in keeping him in prison for any longer.

Obviously this is not something that you want to hear because you are personally involved, and if I were personally involved in the way that you are I would want to kill him with my own hands, but I would happily go to prison and serve my sentence for that because society has to be better on issues like this than the emotionally involved individual can be.

It's wrong to describe these types of sentences as 'fair' because like the recorder said, "No sentence I can pass can do anything to reduce the feeling of loss and anger which Im sure are felt by those whom you have taken a loving family member and friend. Nothing I can do can ease the pain you caused."

It's not 'fair', it's far from fair, but it does make sense.

Completely agree prison is just as much punishment as is rehabilitation. But 1.5 years for killing someone, drunk or not is ridiculous. Probably me being black and white but what you said about not " knowing how you could punish someone for a drunken accident" is stupid. At the end of the day the guy killed someone, mistake or not he deserves a lot longer that what he got.

Thrill wrote Drunk or not, he took a mans life. Took that life from a family. He deserves to rot in prison for life. If you go out and get that drunk and start punching people you either don't need to be drinking, or moderate your damn self. He deserves nothing more but his freedom taken.

This is what I mean when I'm talking about intent. You say, "At the end of the day the guy killed someone." But that's not the end of the day for me. The end of the day for me is, "Why did he kill someone?" and if it was an accident then really I think the penalty should be what it is for assault. Manslaughter is a charge which has never made much sense to me when it comes to these one punch killings.

For example, why does this person who killed someone by accident with one punch deserves 3 years or life, but someone who doesn't kill someone with 20 punches only deserves 6 months?

Which of these people is going to be more difficult to rehabilitate? Which of these people deserves more punishment?
I think the answer is quite obviously the latter person, but because a death occurred and familial emotion is involved the former is treated more harshly.
To me that is the justice system being unfair.

And yes the system is very corrupt. Get out of murder for being good but get life and stay locked up for marijuana or other petty shi.

I'm not saying that the justice system is never unfair, I'm only talking about this specific case.

Well he was taunting people in the pub so he was looking for trouble he clearly meant to do something either attack or kill someone.At the end of the day that ex soldier destroyed a family.A parent lost a son,a son lost a father,a wife lost a husband.They will never get him back because of his actions.Yeah the soldiers gonna have to live with the consequences of killing him but I think he should have gotten life in prison imo.

Imagine if this situation went differently. Imagine he was taunting people in the pub, a man comes outside and he punches him 30-40 times all over his body.
The man goes to the hospital and recovers and his attacker is put in jail for assault and receives a 6 month sentence.

This man intended to assault him, he intended to cause him great amounts of harm because he decided to punch him 30-40 times.

Now contrast that with a man who punches someone just once and accidentally kills him.
He didn't intend to cause him great amounts of harm otherwise he would have punched him a lot more.
This man should go to jail for life, as opposed to the former getting 6 months? That is fair to you?

Thrill wrote It shouldn't matter why he killed him though. It shouldn't matter if he intended to.

It absolutely matters what he intended to do. Intention is everything.

If your neighbor sets their house on fire by accident and burns it down that is one thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of collecting the insurance, that is another thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of also burning yours down and killing you, that is another thing.
If they set fire to the entire neighborhood with the intention of killing everybody, that is another thing.

Intentions tell us everything about what a person is likely to do next. This is why sentences are divided up by intention.
This is the difference between pre-meditated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc.

You say, "He got drunk and his intent was to go out and hurt someone" if his intention was to go out, then get drunk, and then hurt someone from the beginning of his night, then yes I would think he deserved a longer sentence. But that's not what happened. He went out, presumably with the intention of getting drunk and having a laugh, but then he got into an altercation with someone in the pub while he was already drunk. This led to him being ejected from the pub and the altercation occurring which resulted in the death of a man.

The important part is that all of his violent intent appeared while he was drunk and that changes things, legally and ethically in my view.

I don't think he should be allowed near alcohol again, I don't think he should be allowed near a pub again, but I don't think he needs to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for a drunken mistake when he could be out trying to lead a good life.

I'm not a solider so don't know about there training, but I'm sure there trained to fight in hand to hand combat and know how to kill someone, the man killed my father which I got to live the rest of my life with with that missing gap, when he gets a slap on the wrist. That's bullshit.

Here's the thing, I think his ability to live with what he did says more about his mental state and what he is likely to be like for the rest of his life than what he did to your father.
He made a mistake, yes, but If I had made that mistake and ended someone's life I would have found the nearest bridge and jumped head first off it.
Legally I think he should be allowed to make the best of the rest of his life and try to atone for what he did by being a good person, but ethically and personally I think the guilt should have made him take his own life a long time ago.

Perhaps this will help clear up the misconceptions about murder vs manslaughter. This is how the judge determines whether or not to withdraw a murder charge in cases like this.

Abnormality of mental functioning means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable person would term it abnormal. It covers the ability to exercise willpower or to control physical acts in accordance with rational judgement. It is a question for a jury.

There is now essentially a four-stage test:: whether the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functoning; if so, whether it had arisen from a recognised medical condition; if so, whether it had substantially impaired his ability either to understand the nature of his conduct or to form a rational judgment or to exercise self-control (or any combination). Where there is unchallenged medical evidence of diminished responsibility and no other evidence which, looked at in the round, was at least capable of rebutting the defence, the trial judge should withdraw a charge of murder from the jury

Impairment must be substantial, there must be evidence of this and it must be raised by defence, c.f. R v Campbell [1987] 84 Cr App R 255, R v Kooken [1982] 74 Cr App R 30. The new section 2(1)(b) states that the abnormality of mental functioning must have substantially impaired the defendant's ability to do one or more of those things as mentioned in the new section 2(1A):

a) to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct;
b) to form a rational judgement;
c) to exercise self-control.

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

Being drunk is classified as mental impairment. The police officers would have tested his blood alcohol level when he was arrested and corrected for the time in which he wasn't in their custody, and the judge would have taken the amount to be substantial enough to withdraw the murder charge.

This isn't the type of thing where the courts will flippantly issue whatever sentence feels right to them. They have to follow strict procedures and, I would argue, very logical procedures.
Like I said, this won't be logical or reasonable to someone personally involved in the situation, but society has to be more disconnected than the individual in these cases.

uhh yea.. in the end the judge does get to issue whatever bs sentence he wants lmao

That doesn't mean that they did.
This sentence was perfectly reasonable and did fall in line with what one punch killers usually get, it also fits the guidelines that I posted above for manslaughter, rather than murder.
He didn't get special treatment, intentions and mental impairment matter hugely, and you seem to be doing very little to engage with those points.

Empathy is something which, when it comes to a court of law or a decision like this, can't be a factor.
It is crazy to me that character witnesses exist in terms of praising the victim's character. These people stand up in a court of law and give a speech about how amazing of a person their husband, wife, son, etc. was. What they liked to do in their spare time, how much they would donate to charity, etc.
They usually cry and plead emotionally for a certain sentence to be given and we are supposed to believe that this won't affect the Jury's verdict or the sentence the Judge decides to hand out?

That is exactly what has happened on this topic.
I mean I don't know if people will disagree with the law no matter how much sense it makes, or are just afraid of looking insensitive if they tell OP that this man got what he deserved?

If I were to post the documentary aired not too long ago about one punch killings with clips where you see these people trying to make the best of their lives, racked with guilt, and even the victim's families showing them forgiveness, this would seem like the perfect sentence for a crime like that because it tugs on your heart strings, not your brain goo.

MrWednesday wrote

ThriII wrote

Click to View Content

MrWednesday wrote

Vial wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Allnutt wrote

MrWednesday wrote

Click to View Content

He didn't get 'special treatment.'

Most of these kinds of deaths result in prison sentences ranging from 2-7 years depending on whether or not alcohol was involved and intent.
Leon didn't intend to kill anyone and he was drunk.

Intent matters because it tells us what a person is likely to do in the future which is why pre-meditated murder charges a longer sentence than manslaughter.

Prison is about rehabilitation as much as it is about punishment. Logically I don't know how you can punish someone for a drunken accident.
All you can do is rehabilitate them, and if that takes 3 years or 1 and a half years then there is no point in keeping him in prison for any longer.

Obviously this is not something that you want to hear because you are personally involved, and if I were personally involved in the way that you are I would want to kill him with my own hands, but I would happily go to prison and serve my sentence for that because society has to be better on issues like this than the emotionally involved individual can be.

It's wrong to describe these types of sentences as 'fair' because like the recorder said, "No sentence I can pass can do anything to reduce the feeling of loss and anger which Im sure are felt by those whom you have taken a loving family member and friend. Nothing I can do can ease the pain you caused."

It's not 'fair', it's far from fair, but it does make sense.

Completely agree prison is just as much punishment as is rehabilitation. But 1.5 years for killing someone, drunk or not is ridiculous. Probably me being black and white but what you said about not " knowing how you could punish someone for a drunken accident" is stupid. At the end of the day the guy killed someone, mistake or not he deserves a lot longer that what he got.

Thrill wrote Drunk or not, he took a mans life. Took that life from a family. He deserves to rot in prison for life. If you go out and get that drunk and start punching people you either don't need to be drinking, or moderate your damn self. He deserves nothing more but his freedom taken.

This is what I mean when I'm talking about intent. You say, "At the end of the day the guy killed someone." But that's not the end of the day for me. The end of the day for me is, "Why did he kill someone?" and if it was an accident then really I think the penalty should be what it is for assault. Manslaughter is a charge which has never made much sense to me when it comes to these one punch killings.

For example, why does this person who killed someone by accident with one punch deserves 3 years or life, but someone who doesn't kill someone with 20 punches only deserves 6 months?

Which of these people is going to be more difficult to rehabilitate? Which of these people deserves more punishment?
I think the answer is quite obviously the latter person, but because a death occurred and familial emotion is involved the former is treated more harshly.
To me that is the justice system being unfair.

And yes the system is very corrupt. Get out of murder for being good but get life and stay locked up for marijuana or other petty shi.

I'm not saying that the justice system is never unfair, I'm only talking about this specific case.

Well he was taunting people in the pub so he was looking for trouble he clearly meant to do something either attack or kill someone.At the end of the day that ex soldier destroyed a family.A parent lost a son,a son lost a father,a wife lost a husband.They will never get him back because of his actions.Yeah the soldiers gonna have to live with the consequences of killing him but I think he should have gotten life in prison imo.

Imagine if this situation went differently. Imagine he was taunting people in the pub, a man comes outside and he punches him 30-40 times all over his body.
The man goes to the hospital and recovers and his attacker is put in jail for assault and receives a 6 month sentence.

This man intended to assault him, he intended to cause him great amounts of harm because he decided to punch him 30-40 times.

Now contrast that with a man who punches someone just once and accidentally kills him.
He didn't intend to cause him great amounts of harm otherwise he would have punched him a lot more.
This man should go to jail for life, as opposed to the former getting 6 months? That is fair to you?

Thrill wrote It shouldn't matter why he killed him though. It shouldn't matter if he intended to.

It absolutely matters what he intended to do. Intention is everything.

If your neighbor sets their house on fire by accident and burns it down that is one thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of collecting the insurance, that is another thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of also burning yours down and killing you, that is another thing.
If they set fire to the entire neighborhood with the intention of killing everybody, that is another thing.

Intentions tell us everything about what a person is likely to do next. This is why sentences are divided up by intention.
This is the difference between pre-meditated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc.

You say, "He got drunk and his intent was to go out and hurt someone" if his intention was to go out, then get drunk, and then hurt someone from the beginning of his night, then yes I would think he deserved a longer sentence. But that's not what happened. He went out, presumably with the intention of getting drunk and having a laugh, but then he got into an altercation with someone in the pub while he was already drunk. This led to him being ejected from the pub and the altercation occurring which resulted in the death of a man.

The important part is that all of his violent intent appeared while he was drunk and that changes things, legally and ethically in my view.

I don't think he should be allowed near alcohol again, I don't think he should be allowed near a pub again, but I don't think he needs to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for a drunken mistake when he could be out trying to lead a good life.

I'm not a solider so don't know about there training, but I'm sure there trained to fight in hand to hand combat and know how to kill someone, the man killed my father which I got to live the rest of my life with with that missing gap, when he gets a slap on the wrist. That's bullshit.

Here's the thing, I think his ability to live with what he did says more about his mental state and what he is likely to be like for the rest of his life than what he did to your father.
He made a mistake, yes, but If I had made that mistake and ended someone's life I would have found the nearest bridge and jumped head first off it.
Legally I think he should be allowed to make the best of the rest of his life and try to atone for what he did by being a good person, but ethically and personally I think the guilt should have made him take his own life a long time ago.

Perhaps this will help clear up the misconceptions about murder vs manslaughter. This is how the judge determines whether or not to withdraw a murder charge in cases like this.

Abnormality of mental functioning means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable person would term it abnormal. It covers the ability to exercise willpower or to control physical acts in accordance with rational judgement. It is a question for a jury.

There is now essentially a four-stage test:: whether the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functoning; if so, whether it had arisen from a recognised medical condition; if so, whether it had substantially impaired his ability either to understand the nature of his conduct or to form a rational judgment or to exercise self-control (or any combination). Where there is unchallenged medical evidence of diminished responsibility and no other evidence which, looked at in the round, was at least capable of rebutting the defence, the trial judge should withdraw a charge of murder from the jury

Impairment must be substantial, there must be evidence of this and it must be raised by defence, c.f. R v Campbell [1987] 84 Cr App R 255, R v Kooken [1982] 74 Cr App R 30. The new section 2(1)(b) states that the abnormality of mental functioning must have substantially impaired the defendant's ability to do one or more of those things as mentioned in the new section 2(1A):

a) to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct;
b) to form a rational judgement;
c) to exercise self-control.

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Being drunk is classified as mental impairment. The police officers would have tested his blood alcohol level when he was arrested and corrected for the time in which he wasn't in their custody, and the judge would have taken the amount to be substantial enough to withdraw the murder charge.

This isn't the type of thing where the courts will flippantly issue whatever sentence feels right to them. They have to follow strict procedures and, I would argue, very logical procedures.
Like I said, this won't be logical or reasonable to someone personally involved in the situation, but society has to be more disconnected than the individual in these cases.

uhh yea.. in the end the judge does get to issue whatever bs sentence he wants lmao

That doesn't mean that they did.
This sentence was perfectly reasonable and did fall in line with what one punch killers usually get, it also fits the guidelines that I posted above for manslaughter, rather than murder.
He didn't get special treatment, intentions and mental impairment matter hugely, and you seem to be doing very little to engage with those points.

Empathy is something which, when it comes to a court of law or a decision like this, can't be a factor.
It is crazy to me that character witnesses exist in terms of praising the victim's character. These people stand up in a court of law and give a speech about how amazing of a person their husband, wife, son, etc. was. What they liked to do in their spare time, how much they would donate to charity, etc.
They usually cry and plead emotionally for a certain sentence to be given and we are supposed to believe that this won't affect the Jury's verdict or the sentence the Judge decides to hand out?

That is exactly what has happened on this topic.
I mean I don't know if people will disagree with the law no matter how much sense it makes, or are just afraid of looking insensitive if they tell OP that this man got what he deserved?

If I were to post the documentary aired not too long ago about one punch killings with clips where you see these people trying to make the best of their lives, racked with guilt, and even the victim's families showing them forgiveness, this would seem like the perfect sentence for a crime like that because it tugs on your heart strings, not your brain goo.

I would of agreed with you if he showed a little emotion, but all he did was show no emotion, didn't apologies for what he did, in fact I had to bit my lip sitting there watching him show no remorse at all.

Here a screen shot from a news article of him leave the court house after the verdict.
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MrWednesday wrote

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He didn't get 'special treatment.'

Most of these kinds of deaths result in prison sentences ranging from 2-7 years depending on whether or not alcohol was involved and intent.
Leon didn't intend to kill anyone and he was drunk.

Intent matters because it tells us what a person is likely to do in the future which is why pre-meditated murder charges a longer sentence than manslaughter.

Prison is about rehabilitation as much as it is about punishment. Logically I don't know how you can punish someone for a drunken accident.
All you can do is rehabilitate them, and if that takes 3 years or 1 and a half years then there is no point in keeping him in prison for any longer.

Obviously this is not something that you want to hear because you are personally involved, and if I were personally involved in the way that you are I would want to kill him with my own hands, but I would happily go to prison and serve my sentence for that because society has to be better on issues like this than the emotionally involved individual can be.

It's wrong to describe these types of sentences as 'fair' because like the recorder said, "No sentence I can pass can do anything to reduce the feeling of loss and anger which Im sure are felt by those whom you have taken a loving family member and friend. Nothing I can do can ease the pain you caused."

It's not 'fair', it's far from fair, but it does make sense.

Completely agree prison is just as much punishment as is rehabilitation. But 1.5 years for killing someone, drunk or not is ridiculous. Probably me being black and white but what you said about not " knowing how you could punish someone for a drunken accident" is stupid. At the end of the day the guy killed someone, mistake or not he deserves a lot longer that what he got.

Thrill wrote Drunk or not, he took a mans life. Took that life from a family. He deserves to rot in prison for life. If you go out and get that drunk and start punching people you either don't need to be drinking, or moderate your damn self. He deserves nothing more but his freedom taken.

This is what I mean when I'm talking about intent. You say, "At the end of the day the guy killed someone." But that's not the end of the day for me. The end of the day for me is, "Why did he kill someone?" and if it was an accident then really I think the penalty should be what it is for assault. Manslaughter is a charge which has never made much sense to me when it comes to these one punch killings.

For example, why does this person who killed someone by accident with one punch deserves 3 years or life, but someone who doesn't kill someone with 20 punches only deserves 6 months?

Which of these people is going to be more difficult to rehabilitate? Which of these people deserves more punishment?
I think the answer is quite obviously the latter person, but because a death occurred and familial emotion is involved the former is treated more harshly.
To me that is the justice system being unfair.

And yes the system is very corrupt. Get out of murder for being good but get life and stay locked up for marijuana or other petty shi.

I'm not saying that the justice system is never unfair, I'm only talking about this specific case.

Well he was taunting people in the pub so he was looking for trouble he clearly meant to do something either attack or kill someone.At the end of the day that ex soldier destroyed a family.A parent lost a son,a son lost a father,a wife lost a husband.They will never get him back because of his actions.Yeah the soldiers gonna have to live with the consequences of killing him but I think he should have gotten life in prison imo.

Imagine if this situation went differently. Imagine he was taunting people in the pub, a man comes outside and he punches him 30-40 times all over his body.
The man goes to the hospital and recovers and his attacker is put in jail for assault and receives a 6 month sentence.

This man intended to assault him, he intended to cause him great amounts of harm because he decided to punch him 30-40 times.

Now contrast that with a man who punches someone just once and accidentally kills him.
He didn't intend to cause him great amounts of harm otherwise he would have punched him a lot more.
This man should go to jail for life, as opposed to the former getting 6 months? That is fair to you?

Thrill wrote It shouldn't matter why he killed him though. It shouldn't matter if he intended to.

It absolutely matters what he intended to do. Intention is everything.

If your neighbor sets their house on fire by accident and burns it down that is one thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of collecting the insurance, that is another thing.
If they set their house on fire with the intention of also burning yours down and killing you, that is another thing.
If they set fire to the entire neighborhood with the intention of killing everybody, that is another thing.

Intentions tell us everything about what a person is likely to do next. This is why sentences are divided up by intention.
This is the difference between pre-meditated murder, murder, voluntary manslaughter, manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc.

You say, "He got drunk and his intent was to go out and hurt someone" if his intention was to go out, then get drunk, and then hurt someone from the beginning of his night, then yes I would think he deserved a longer sentence. But that's not what happened. He went out, presumably with the intention of getting drunk and having a laugh, but then he got into an altercation with someone in the pub while he was already drunk. This led to him being ejected from the pub and the altercation occurring which resulted in the death of a man.

The important part is that all of his violent intent appeared while he was drunk and that changes things, legally and ethically in my view.

I don't think he should be allowed near alcohol again, I don't think he should be allowed near a pub again, but I don't think he needs to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison for a drunken mistake when he could be out trying to lead a good life.

I'm not a solider so don't know about there training, but I'm sure there trained to fight in hand to hand combat and know how to kill someone, the man killed my father which I got to live the rest of my life with with that missing gap, when he gets a slap on the wrist. That's bullshit.

Here's the thing, I think his ability to live with what he did says more about his mental state and what he is likely to be like for the rest of his life than what he did to your father.
He made a mistake, yes, but If I had made that mistake and ended someone's life I would have found the nearest bridge and jumped head first off it.
Legally I think he should be allowed to make the best of the rest of his life and try to atone for what he did by being a good person, but ethically and personally I think the guilt should have made him take his own life a long time ago.

Perhaps this will help clear up the misconceptions about murder vs manslaughter. This is how the judge determines whether or not to withdraw a murder charge in cases like this.

Abnormality of mental functioning means a state of mind so different from that of ordinary human beings that the reasonable person would term it abnormal. It covers the ability to exercise willpower or to control physical acts in accordance with rational judgement. It is a question for a jury.

There is now essentially a four-stage test:: whether the defendant was suffering from an abnormality of mental functoning; if so, whether it had arisen from a recognised medical condition; if so, whether it had substantially impaired his ability either to understand the nature of his conduct or to form a rational judgment or to exercise self-control (or any combination). Where there is unchallenged medical evidence of diminished responsibility and no other evidence which, looked at in the round, was at least capable of rebutting the defence, the trial judge should withdraw a charge of murder from the jury

Impairment must be substantial, there must be evidence of this and it must be raised by defence, c.f. R v Campbell [1987] 84 Cr App R 255, R v Kooken [1982] 74 Cr App R 30. The new section 2(1)(b) states that the abnormality of mental functioning must have substantially impaired the defendant's ability to do one or more of those things as mentioned in the new section 2(1A):

a) to understand the nature of the defendant's conduct;
b) to form a rational judgement;
c) to exercise self-control.

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Being drunk is classified as mental impairment. The police officers would have tested his blood alcohol level when he was arrested and corrected for the time in which he wasn't in their custody, and the judge would have taken the amount to be substantial enough to withdraw the murder charge.

This isn't the type of thing where the courts will flippantly issue whatever sentence feels right to them. They have to follow strict procedures and, I would argue, very logical procedures.
Like I said, this won't be logical or reasonable to someone personally involved in the situation, but society has to be more disconnected than the individual in these cases.

uhh yea.. in the end the judge does get to issue whatever bs sentence he wants lmao

That doesn't mean that they did.
This sentence was perfectly reasonable and did fall in line with what one punch killers usually get, it also fits the guidelines that I posted above for manslaughter, rather than murder.
He didn't get special treatment, intentions and mental impairment matter hugely, and you seem to be doing very little to engage with those points.

Empathy is something which, when it comes to a court of law or a decision like this, can't be a factor.
It is crazy to me that character witnesses exist in terms of praising the victim's character. These people stand up in a court of law and give a speech about how amazing of a person their husband, wife, son, etc. was. What they liked to do in their spare time, how much they would donate to charity, etc.
They usually cry and plead emotionally for a certain sentence to be given and we are supposed to believe that this won't affect the Jury's verdict or the sentence the Judge decides to hand out?

That is exactly what has happened on this topic.
I mean I don't know if people will disagree with the law no matter how much sense it makes, or are just afraid of looking insensitive if they tell OP that this man got what he deserved?

If I were to post the documentary aired not too long ago about one punch killings with clips where you see these people trying to make the best of their lives, racked with guilt, and even the victim's families showing them forgiveness, this would seem like the perfect sentence for a crime like that because it tugs on your heart strings, not your brain goo.

I would of agreed with you if he showed a little emotion to the verdict , how all he did was show no emotion, didn't apologies for what he did, in fact I had to bit my lip sitting there watching him show no remorse at all.

Here a screen shot from a new article of him leave the court house after the verdict.

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This isn't Leon Wells leaving the court after this verdict.
This is him leaving court after he lost his 40,000 GBP compensation claim that he had injured his knee because of council neglect.
He is smiling after he lost a court case. This is why we can't trust individual pictures of people to determine their levels of remorse.

Every news story that uses this image is about that case, not his altercation with the man he killed and one of them even has the caption, "Wells, pictured at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre, was told he must pay his £61,000 costs at risk of bankruptcy"

I don't know if you are purposefully obfuscating the truth here, but you definitely have motive to and the news article you got this image from would have been mainly about his compensation claim and only peripherally about his manslaughter charge.

You might be right, he might be one of the most disgusting and vile people on this planet, he might do something like this again, but the only way to avoid there being people who are exceptions to the general rule that if you go to prison you are rehabilitated and don't re-offend is to kill everyone who commits a violent crime.

Statistically speaking, even if he were sentenced to over 10 years there would still be an 18% chance of him re-offending, if you know the name of the Prison he was in I can give you a more accurate percentage. 1-4 years usually equals a 36% chance of re-offending, but the likelihood that he will kill someone again is extremely small.

Personally I think our prison system should reform itself to be more like Norway's, but that's another topic really.

Pfft you kill someone the average sentence for murder in the uk is 14 years yet if armed robbery if no one gets hurt is at least 15 years also what's even worse if you are drunk or high and you kill someone while driving you will get less than 5 years like wtf. In theory you could serve more time for dealing weed than for killing someone that's how **** our legal system is. Also like I'm not proud of things I've done in the past but Ive been arrested for assault of a police officer, criminal damage gbh , assault again (I'm a dumbass Ik) and ares see lastly for hitting someone with a baseball bat I'm glad I didn't permantly injury anyone or anything but I managed to do all that and not get a single juvenile sentence to prison yet my friend got caught with 5g of coke and got sent straight to prison for a second offence his first was shoplifting , like wtf how does that even make sense. Imo judges need to be harsher for crimes like for assault you should have to server a mandatory 6 month sentence and go to anger management classes, for cases such as murder you should simply get 25 years minimum sentence.