Should Lucy Letby have been allowed to miss her sentencing?
Should Lucy Letby have been allowed to miss her sentencing?
Until a few years ago I had never heard of a single case of a murderer declining to go into the dock to hear their sentence. I doubt whether any of them even realised that they had the choice. Yet in recent years, the word seems to have spread and something of a fashion has
I'm listening to LBC callers say that forcing the convict to attend their sentencing hearing 'smacks of medievalism'. All kinds of hell-fire would be unleashed if this law was overturned.
Yet in the US and other countries, convicts are forced to attend their sentencing hearings and the sky didn't fall. What is so fucking special about the UK?
I don't think they're given a choice exactly. But if they refuse to attend, current policy is not to force them.
I am not big on the heavy hand of the state but I do think that where prison is inevitable and lives have been taken or irreparably damaged, it should be compulsory. It's not like they're volunteering to go to prison either.
The reason I think it should be required is because it is (a partial form of) restorative justice and because it's an element of any kind of rehabilitation (to the extent that rehabilitation is possible after crimes of this nature).
Anyways, moot point. The government has an easy win here given the publicity around this case and another high profile one in Liverpool recently. Unless there is a good reason I can't think of, policy will likely change for PR points.
Ok I don't really have an opinion on this particular thing, but in general - if the US forces people to do something and the UK doesn't, I'm willing to give UK the benefit of the doubt.
And more in general, if in doubt, then giving people more freedom is not a bad thing. It never happens these days though - citizen rights keep being constantly eroded everywhere, so it may be worth fighting even for little things like this to keep the idea in mind.
in general... giving people more freedom is not a bad thing
This is my stance. Before sentencing, we must give the defendant as much freedom as realistically possible (even in fringe cases where we 'know' beforehand that they'll die behind bars).
citizen rights keep being constantly eroded everywhere, so it may be worth fighting even for little things like this to keep the idea in mind.
Might be an unpopular opinion around here but I don't think that after this sort of crime you're still a citizen. You've moved yourself outside of the accepted definition of citizen to something else. I'm not saying you no longer have any rights, of course you do. But I don't think you should be afforded citizens rights as we know them. Call it criminal rights or whatever you want but you're no longer a citizen if you choose so brazenly to murder defenceless babies in the way she did. And given that, I don't think criminals should be allowed to skip sentencing.
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If I had to guess, I'd say until the sentence has been passed the defendant's still officially either in custody or on bail, and therefore not under obligation to be moved around at the behest of others, lest they were to be given a non-custodial sentence (obvs not gonna happen in this case, but everyone must be treat the same regardless).
And I guess they therefore have to treat being in custody (a 'necessary evil' for flight risks or public safety) the same as being on bail, as the defendants must be treat as equally as possible pre-sentencing.
That being said, I'd think a judge would look disfavourably upon a no-show, and could affect the sentencing accordingly. Obviously in this case it was always likely to be a whole life tariff anyway, so Letby had nothing to lose.
Edit: OK I've actually now read the article (go me, lol) and the sentiment in it seems similar.
My issue with people like her not attending is that it still gives them control. A good theory on why people like her commit the crimes they do is for the control it gives them.
She's found guilty of those crimes and should attend her sentencing but... She doesn't fancy it so she gets to decide she doesn't want to. Those parents didn't get a choice.
It seems like it would be difficult to stop a defendant, having been physically forced into the dock, from disrupting proceedings.
Indeed. What do you do when the person in the dock just yells ‘Nah nah nsh nah nah nah’? Gag them?
The defendant is going to be punished. Forcing them to attend the sentencing, especially in cases like this, would not be in their interest at all, only in the interest of punishment and the victims families would this be a benefit. I'm not saying that I agree with that at all, but it's a rational argument against forcing them to attend.
Forcing them to attend the sentencing, especially in cases like this, would not be in their interest at all, only in the interest of punishment and the victims families would this be a benefit.
See I think this is a bit dangerous to the victims families. This is a murderer, going away for their entire life. She has literally nothing to lose at this point. She could have hurled abuse at the victims. At the judge. Screamed incoherently. Self harmed. Attempted to harm others. There is no further punishment that we as a society could inflict upon her.