Island Life: The Guilt of Clayton Weatherston
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The trial of Clayton Weatherston was a disgrace as it allowed a killer to continually persecute his dead ex-girlfriend and her family, a women's advocate group says.
And where was Henare's outrage during the last trial that used provocation, where the victim was being vilely smeared? Oh, that's right, that was a man.
Provocation's gotta go. It's an absurd relic that's useful for little other than the "gay panic" defence. It's worthless for battered partners, which would be the only conceivable situation where one might want a diminished responsibility defence that's not inimical to public sensibilities. It was used successfully not so long ago by a woman who killed her neighbour for refusing to act as babysitter. According to this article, of the four successful invocations of provocation from 15 uses between 2001 and 2005, two were "gay panic" and one was the case above. That's pretty concerning, if you're in the least bit interested in not keeping around parts of the law that appear to be discriminatory.
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Why all the invective against Ablett-Kerr? Her job is to give the most effective legal defence that she can for her client. As Dr Sam Johnson pointed out somewhere, it is not the defence lawyer's brief, but that of the judge and jury to judge the guilt or otherwise of the client.
Weatherston's defence team could have fulfilled that duty without assisting in fabricating a cock and bull story about the victim being the author of her own misfortune. They could have explained to their client that subjecting the Elliott family to the resulting trauma was in no-one's interests. Instead they chose to go there, and energetically abetted him in his attempt to mutilate Sophie Elliott's legacy, which seems to have been his goal all along in choosing the defence of provocation.
It's self-serving legal grotesques like that who damage the public perception of the legal system. Along with the inexcusable delays in cases coming to trial they undermine Sian Ellis's efforts to have the judiciary make a constructive contribution to solving the current crisis in the justice system.
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Tom, you're being an arse now.
I am capable of turning off my tv or changing the channel if there is something on that I don't want to watch.
What I don't do is throw up my hands in horror when there is such an easy avenue to avoid footage that disgusts me.
What if we don't like either option, Stewart? Perhaps we'd like to watch the evening news without being dragged into a dungeon and recounted the horrors of a brutal murder, day after day after day.
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Side note: there seem to be a fair few calls on Facebook for various inventive punishments for Weatherston including the usual calls for the death penalty (as applied to "a dog that mawls [sic] someone") and (direct quote):
a 25 year non parole sentence and torture on a constant basis.
It really frightens me how quickly people move from horror at brutal, intentional sadistic violence to insistence that it be inflicted upon the perp for a few decades until we feel a bit better.
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Oh, that's right, that was a man.
Yes, because it's the responsibility of the head of women's refuge to leap to the public defence of everyone violently killed, whether male or female. Perhaps she should also regularly speak out about the war in Iraq.
Both cases deserved comment and criticism from someone, but it's a bit much to snark about someone for focusing on the people they professionally represent.
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it's a bit much to snark about someone for focusing on the people they professionally represent
B, that is entirely beside the point. Whenever someone from a women's group speaks on behalf of women, someone is constitutionally required to express a variant of 'what about teh menz?' Otherwise the internet will break.
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If I'm not much mistaken, Chris Comeskey invoked the provocation defence on behalf of Bruce Emery.
It really frightens me how quickly people move from horror at brutal, intentional sadistic violence to insistence that it be inflicted upon the perp for a few decades until we feel a bit better.
What next, the PAGAD?
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Whenever someone from a women's group speaks on behalf of women, someone is constitutionally required to express a variant of 'what about teh menz?' Otherwise the internet will break.
lol
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Yes, because it's the responsibility of the head of women's refuge to leap to the public defence of everyone violently killed, whether male or female.
I'd accept that if she'd restrained herself to commenting on the fact that Sophie died at the hands of an intimate partner. That is Women's Refuge's area, after all. But she instead commented on the grotesqueness of his use of the provocation defence to smear his victim, which is absolutely nothing to do with Women's Refuge.
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But she instead commented on the grotesqueness of his use of the provocation defence to smear his victim, which is absolutely nothing to do with Women's Refuge.
Because when men say "if she hadn't done X, I wouldn't have done Y to her", Women's Refuge shouldn't take an interest? I suspect there's a lot of women in Women's Refuge houses who found the past few weeks very familiar.
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What if we don't like either option, Stewart? Perhaps we'd like to watch the evening news without being dragged into a dungeon and recounted the horrors of a brutal murder, day after day after day.
It's simply crime porn,and its a large reason why I'm getting more and more of my news from the internet: because TV is just a waste of time.
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Bollocks, Matthew. Provocation has a long history of being used in the context of intimate partner violence, to further defame the recipient of long years of violence as having deserved it for one reason or another. There was a famous case in England in the 80s like this, I forget the name. But sexual jealousy is one of the classic provocation grounds.
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But she instead commented on the grotesqueness of his use of the provocation defence to smear his victim, which is absolutely nothing to do with Women's Refuge.
What it is is an extreme example of the humiliation of the victim, which is a major contributing factor to women's reluctance to bring rape or domestic violence complaints to the police - and that surely is everything to do with Women's Refuge.
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But she instead commented on the grotesqueness of his use of the provocation defence to smear his victim, which is absolutely nothing to do with Women's Refuge.
A couple of years before my mother finally got it together and left my father, back in the days before women's refuges, we had dinner guests, none of whom commented on my mother's obvious black eye. Later, when she was in the kitchen, one of the younger male guests slipped in and gave her a supportive hug. "You really shouldn't provoke him you know," he said, and it was meant kindly.
Much later, when my mother worked as a refuge volunteer, she'd despair at the endless steam of women who shuttled between the refuge and their abusive home life with their traumatised kids in tow. Time and again they'd blame themselves for 'provoking' the situation.
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If I'm not much mistaken, Chris Comeskey invoked the provocation defence on behalf of Bruce Emery.
You are very much mistaken.
His defence was self defence.
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JLM,
Why all the invective against Ablett-Kerr? Her job is to give the most effective legal defence that she can for her client. As Dr Sam Johnson pointed out somewhere, it is not the defence lawyer's brief, but that of the judge and jury to judge the guilt or otherwise of the client.
Many years ago my husband served on a jury in a case for which Ablett-Kerr was defence witness, and apparently their perception of the accused's very obvious guilt was accelerated enormously by her (then) LA Law type grandstanding. He's never been able to stand her since.
I think it's a shame she didn't act for Bain, as she was mooted to do once.
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The problem with provocation that I have is that it takes guilt away from the perpetrator and places it on the victim. Rather than saying violence as a response isn't acceptable, it tells us that sometimes violence is understandable and that full responsibility doesn't apply.
Never should anyone say to victim of violence "Well you provoked it."
Except... for Buzz Aldrin:
Well I'm not seriously saying that Buzz gets a free pass, but I can see why he did what he did.
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by her (then) LA Law type grandstanding.
This is another reason cameras need to be removed from our courts, pronto. It was clear that the Bain defense team were playing with one eye to the gallery out there in TV land. Ablett-Kerr was also playing it to the house - why? Who knows, maybe it is as simple as she can't can't control her ego. But in high profile cases, expect more and more the first trial to be played out on the six o'clock news, with one eye on making sure if there is a retrial/appeal, you win the P.R. battle first.
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I believe that was the mother on checkpoint saying that while she didn't like the lines of the defence she recognise the team were just doing their job.
If you have a problem with what conduct people can get away with take it up with the system.
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It's simply crime porn,and its a large reason why I'm getting more and more of my news from the internet: because TV is just a waste of time.
Quite. Ditto for the "news"-papers. I rely on secondary sources to filter things I might want to care about for me now; wading through the emotion-drenched slop is often just too much for me now. I believe that I have spent far more on imported news magazines and on Salon subscription than on newspapers in the last 5 years.
Unfortunately, it seems that this stuff attracts more people than it repels. I am sure that these editorial decisions are made to increase circulation, and no one can stop because if they don't run this kind of stuff their competitors will.
This has unfortunate real-world consequences. People vote for stupid crime policy because they get the impression that violent crime is increasing and they feel sorry for the victims' pain and they want vicarious revenge for their vicarious suffering. Meanwhile no one can be bothered accompanying reports of Elias' speech with any information on the efficacy of prison.
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Psychotic is when you think something is happening that isn't. If he thought she was actually literally Satan, that would be psychosis.
And perhaps we could leave the psychiatric diagnoses to people who 1) know what they're talking about and 2) actually have some kind of relationship with the person involved? Not that that's ever stopped the media before, but I live and hope...
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Ablett-Kerr was also playing it to the house - why? Who knows, maybe it is as simple as she can't can't control her ego.
Maybe, Tom, you should take a deep breath before you come across as a patronising, sexist arse.
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Tom, use the 'Off' button (on your tv...)
Why should I have to?
Sounds a bit Mary Whitehouse
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I wonder if we might throw the baby out with the bath water regarding the provocation defense. Let's say after the police had Weatherston under control, Sophie's mother had rushed up and stabbed him in the back. Hell, I could understand a reasonable person losing control in those circumstances. As a juror, I'd prefer to be able to convict her for manslaughter than murder.
What's rankled me about recent cases is the argument - "It was reasonable for *me* to be provoked because I'm narcissistic or homophobic" (or whatever else "characteristic").
But then I'm no legal eagle.
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Sounds a bit Mary Whitehouse
I do worry about that. There are various forms of peversion and filth I'd rather not see, and others I wouldn't mind more of.
I think the key thing here is choice. Do we have a reasonable expectation that we should be able to consume news without hearing every gory detail? And do we have the ability to do so? I'd argue that yes to the former, no to the latter.
If they'd package the murder-porn into a nice five minute package at the end, we might have more choice in the matter.
I don't mind seeing or hearing about violence. I love Old Boy for example, and the extreme acts in that don't diminish my enjoyment. But I like to be psychologically ready for it, otherwise I find I'm quite affected. There's no such chance when watching the news, or when someone is raped and murdered in the first 30 seconds of a CSI episode.
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