Posts by Edward Siddle
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Noone has really picked up a point earlier made by Graeme about the necessity for judges to impose life without parole sentences for murder when it is the second (or subsequent to second) strike. I'm a bit out of touch with how many murders are committed in NZ every year these days (thirty?), but i'd guess that of those murders, all but maybe one or two would have been committed by people with some kind of previous serious convictions and probably prision time. as graeme said, the 'manifestly unjust to impose a life means life' provision isn't going to be used that often, so this is going to make a major contribution to the prison population in about 15-20 years after the law takes effect.
i know this isn't as intellectually interesting as discussing the purposes of sentencing, and it seems so far in the future, but this stuff is a serious financial timebomb we'd be taking on in terms of imprisonment costs and all associated costs (such as healthcare of ageing prisoners). 30 (or let's say 27) a year might not sound a lot, but give it time and the numbers begin to add up when you're not letting these people out again at whatever point they would currently get out at (non parole is a standard 10, so i'm guessing about 13 years probably gets served by most of these).
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If they're going to put in a thing about 'manifestly unjust' in the new 3 strikes law then it in theory answers most of the issues about odd combinations of crimes resulting in outrageous sentences upon a 3rd strike that people here have raised. Thanks for pointing it out (to those of us who didn't bother actually reading the new Bill!).
All that said, I can imagine a situation with the murder sentence where a judge may well want to give a sentence - say in a battering case where the victim of the battering commits murder - that was not life, but more than 5, to indicate the State's disapproval of murder being used as the solution to the situation (battered women who used to get manslaughter sometimes still received decent custodial sentences iirc). On the other hand, if the new law came in, perhaps that would even more disincline judges to pass sentence of over five years for such offences - so i guess you're right.
In fact, speaking more generally, is there a chance that a 5 year threshold for counting as a strike mean that some offences that would normally have attracted 6 or 7 years might actually get revised down by a sentencing judge, so as not to count as a strike, where the judge didn't think it deserved to?
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Graeme
I think Gareth's example from a bit earlier (3.49pm post) still holds regarding murder as a first offence.Sentencing Act 2002 s102 states:
(1) An offender who is convicted of murder must be sentenced to imprisonment for life unless, given the circumstances of the offence and the offender, a sentence of imprisonment for life would be manifestly unjust.So you could get an 8 year murder sentence, serve it, commit aggravated robbery and get 6 years, then kidnapping and wind up with 25.
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can't be tony woodcock if 'he got caught in a ruck; not his place' is meant to mean that Robert is a back. and if 'not the most famous man on the team' translates onto whoever it's based on then it's not dan carter either.
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hadyn if you think the Stadium looks small you should check out Pukekura Park in New Plymouth sometime. It felt like a basketball hall on one of the two occasions I was there, with Chris Pringle standing fielding down in front of us and a rowdy and drunken terrace baiting him with chants about his alleged criminal activities.
in my view one day cricket is about the only sport that's actually any good at the Stadium - the field is the right shape and size for it. it still grates enormously with me that when they replaced athletic park they put up this awful multipurpose ground which makes the interests of rugby and football uttely subservient to the one day's worth of cricket they play a year at it. empty spaces don't look so empty at the basin reserve, and given that daytime one dayers during the holiday season seem to be back in vogue these days (queenstown for example) i'm not quite sure why they couldn't have just kept such games at the basin along with the tests - and then put up a nice rectangular stadium on the waterfront. iirc they used to get round 10-12K at the basin for one dayers even on working wednesdays (how many were at the Stadium the other day?) and they were great days.
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quote:So we are lacking a word for finding solace in the misfortune of friends. Any suggestions?
Schadenfreudefreunde?
Schaden=injury, damage, disadvantage
freude = joy, delight
Freunde = friendsbut more punningly SchadenfreuNde might work (it might not make much sense to a german tho).
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I was on the Sunshine Coast last week and there was actually a road sign (an official one) in Mooloolaba which said "no hooning". so obviously a well understood and in-current-use word in Oz.
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Rob
You got the counties scores almost right - 11-9 against auckland and 15-15 against canterbury. But you forgot the third in the trio - 20-20 against waikato in 1981.....Old sports books are great. I have Mark Nicholls one of the 1928 tour of south africa where he notes that the Boks' game is based on a big lumbering forwards and a first five who kicks all day. plus ca change.
the older rugby annuals are also good fun. the 1981 annual has a great photo of some auckland schoolboys team featuring grant fox looking very young (but still only a few years from bigtime rugby - he helped auckland beat the lions in '83), and a very freshfaced sean fitzpatrick receiving an award. and of course good old shots of things like the all black alternative strip, plain white with a black backed silver fern...none of this weird grey nonsense that they lost last year's QF in (didn't they know anything about manchester united's problems in a grey alternative strip?).
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Paul mentioning the english football championship playoffs made me think of one of my own hobbyhorses in relation to Hadyn's suggestion of straight semis/finals for the npc. i'd much rather see some kind of 3 week system with either 4 or 5 sides but either way teams who finish 1 and 2 getting an extra life, so it goes 1v2 and 3v4. this is something i'd like to see in the english champ playoffs for much the same reason that paul hates them too: also an ipswich town fan. might give us a better shot. all might have meant that the hurricanes might've gotten through to a few more finals given how we always seem to end up playing the south island scummers in the semis....
it is interesting to extend giovanni's list of npc winners back a bit further, because it adds in three more interesting names:
1980 - manawatu
1979 - counties
1978 - wellington
1977 - canterbury
1976 - bay of plenty -
bart's right about the idea of playing more often, particularly for the NPC. used to be that a team like wellington would go down south and play the likes of canterbury, southland and otago in a week, to keep costs down. which links in to what someone else posted, about maybe regionalising at least some of the npc (it used to be, too). this might of course become an absolute necessity once AirNZ give up on the sponsorship (i'm assuming they help with travel costs).
there are so many good ideas here, and no doubt similar conversations go on in lots of different forums all the time round nz, but is there any channel for this stuff to actually get to the people who make the calls? sometimes i feel like it's all so....ineffectual.