Death penalty ABSOLUTELY, NO QUESTIONS DESERVED

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10566344

Not for the rapist - for the woman.

This wasn't a case of standing next to a fight where there are dozens of people and you'd stand a chance of getting hurt very badly if you intervened.

ALL the woman had to do was say "OK honey, let me drop you off home."

That's IT!. And yet the filthy, evil, selfish bitch couldn't do it. If there is anybody in this country who needs to be made an example of, it is this inhuman piece of trash dressed up as a person.

I cannot even believe the mindset that would not offer a 13 year old girl a lift home

You can't blame the woman for not helping... let alone even suggest murdering her

would you suggest murdering anyone who reflects that we don't live in caring communities

Can't blame the woman for not helping? WHAT THE FUCK?

She didn't have to put herself at risk. All it took was a little bit of human kindness. I'm amazed at you hippies talking like fucking libertarians.

It's not murder. Anybody that inhumane doesn't deserve to live It's just horrific.

All it would have taken is a LIFT.

I've driven people home from town when they've lost their taxi money... it's not a big deal to me but it's a big deal to them (to borrow from Arrested Development)

There are cases where not helping is legitimate e.g. the fight example. But not in this case

I see what you're saying Vads and personally I am more likely to help a person than not but that doesn't suggest for a second that this woman had was under any obligation to offer the girl a lift, other than that would have been the decent thing to do

you can't judge this womans inaction based on hindsight.

Daylight might have made a difference on how the woman acted - she may have offered a ride if it was night

I feel sorry for the woman, for if she is a normal person she'll be feeling terrible (understatement) now, as she now knows what she could have saved this girl from

We do have moral obligations though - as part of our membership of the human collective. She failed that obligation. We legislate for certain obligations, such as bringing up our children, but other obligations still exist.

I think it's "If by our action we can avoid harm coming to another, and there is no countervailing harm to ourselves."

Yeah I'm sure she feels as bad as the child whose innocence has been destroyed. Sure of that.

you'd put to death a woman who may or may not have abandoned her moral obligations?

Why are you not also calling for the service station attendants head? Surely in such a threatening situation they too could have stepped in - or are they innocent of any moral obligation because according to the story they weren't asked for assistence

I think we need more details than the herald article before we condem this woman to death - surely? Or am I being too soft to be a true leftist here? (yawn)

the woman has a moral obligation to help

She failed in that.

If there was any justice in the world, she would be made to pay, just like all those other people should pay for their crimes when they stand idly by while innoccents suffer

This is a sad indication of what our society has become. All that was required was to take her into the petrol station, call her parents and/or police and wait with her till they arrived and this poor girls life wouldnt have been ruined.

Who cares if the woman had no idea what was going to happen, it was a 13 year old girl pleading for help about a dodgy man following her, how more clear cut can you get?

There was no mention of the girl telling him/her.
We can only go on what we've done.

Whether or not the story ends up being accurate is besides the point anyhow... we're dealing with Platonic Forms here of the "Moral Citizen." And the moral citizen doesn't abandon children to predators.

we only have the media reporting of this sotry to go on - and one thing we are assured is the media is not a moral citizen and as such I'll wait for more details before condeming the woman (we only know the medias take on one side of the story)

This. And badly if it is actually the case she was begged to for help.

I know I'll get accused of being racist and all that shit for saying this but fuck it.

Im wondering if the woman was of some other nationality than Kiwi. There are pleanty of contries where helping a stranger can lead to more problems for yourself than what its worth. We do seem to be accepting more and more imigrants from countries where this is the norm so just throwing it out there.

I will be completely disgusted if its revealed that a born and bread Kiwi would walk away from a child in need. Thats not how we roll.

it isn't how we rolled in the 1950's - take a look around... time has moved on and our perception of who and what we are should to, even if the reality of today isn't as nice as the days of old

that is, many kiwis wouldn't help cause that is how we now roll - I wish it wasn't so, but to think european NZ'ers are any different in ragard to helping others, might I suggest that is very niave

NZHerald says: "The 34-year-old drain layer will appear in Auckland District Court tomorrow charged with sexual violation by rape, two charges of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection, abduction for sexual connection, and aggravated wounding by stupefying."

What the hell is aggravated wounding by stupefying, JH? Does that mean he drugged her?

could be choking or punching her till near unconsciousness.

She might have had a moral obligation to help, but she certainly didn't have a legal one. We don't kill people for failures to observe their moral obligations (or legal ones for that matter).

Stupefying suggests using drugs and/or alcohol to render the victim unable to prevent the attack. It doesn't really seem to fit with the scenario of a stranger 'blitz' attack like this. There are in fact quite a few peculiar things about this offence and the way the Herald reports it occurred. Poor reporting at work again, it seems.

There was a bank robbery case where the robber was charged with stupefying / rendering incapable of (consent?) for hitting the bank manager with the butt of a shotgun so hard he was dazed, I assume this could be similar.

I will pick up the blitz as it were and suggest a possible hypothetical involving the victim having met the predator previously... where he plied her with Cody 8%s and possibly marijuana in a local park... she perhaps grew a little uncomfortable with his intentions (him perceiving that she owed him ass for grass)... she left, he followed trying to cash his cheque.

Forced to smoke cannabis apparently - doesn't say at what point in the series of events though.

And police say the woman who drove off didn't realise the seriousness of the situation

The law should reflect our morals. If they don't then there is something wrong with the law.

Er, legislating morality?!

Who gives a fuck if she didnt have a legal obligation under the laws of this country.

She had an obligation under the laws of common human decency. Surely that is the most basic law of all.

This is exactly what is wrong with lawyers and the law for that matter, no humanity.

I dont buy for a second that she didnt understand the seriousness of the situation. She told the girl to stay away from the man. How more obvious could the situation be if she said that? She was probably just running late for her morning latte and couldnt be fucked.

Boy are you lot going to feel stupid with your pitchforks when the facts come out.

what are our morals?

we can't expect legislation to cure every ill of our society nor force us to be decent citizens and humans

yes. why not?


and no, I don't mean right wing nut job morals either

lot of Natural Law advocates on biggie

The woman did nothing wrong here under NZ law.

I agree with neil and vads btw, if the woman did have this young lady beg, she should be tried as an accessory to rape.

As for legislating morality, it happens a lot

and does it work much?

To a certain degree, one only has to look at the Civil Rights movement in the US.

The Nuremberg trials at the end of the second world war.

In Germany (and one other European country), it's illegal to do nothing to save someone's life if they are in danger (ie. you see a baby drowning and don't jump in to save it if you can swim).

Nuremberg trials were, fundamentally, based on customary international law. Crimes against peace, humanity and war crimes existed long before Hitler shat all over them. I would not call the London Charter 'legislating morality', although obviously it has a strong moral component (like any other convention pertaining to international crimes). The Charter was fundamentally based on customary international law, which is positive law.

The law does reflect morality to a great extent, but it is not dictated by it. That is not to say that enacting a duty to rescue might not be a good thing, and in some countries it exists. But the common law has traditionally taken an adverse reaction to it because it's omission based. Trying this woman for aiding and abetting rape would make her criminally culpable for an omission. The common law doesn't like criminalizing omissions expect in certain, specific situations.

You can criticize it for not reflecting the morals of society, sure, but as b_d said 'what are our morals'?

You also have to remember that what you would be suggesting is attaching criminal culpability to a failure to rescue. One could take moral objections to that too.

I do. Why you ask? Because the OP suggested the death penalty for this woman and I sort of figured that if one is going to advocate the death penalty it might be worthwhile pointing out that the woman did nothing to break the law.

BG curious to know what type of law you elected to do in your final years?

my elected papers were advanced crim, evidence, advocacy, insurance law , commercial, company, intellectual property, administrative law, family, healthcare. only regret: should have taken international law instead of healthcare.

llm: criminal justice, civil liberties, public law, international criminal law.

when laws reflect 'morality':

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7997749.stm

Every fucking law is legislating morality

Why is murder illegal? Because people think it's WRONG, which is a moral perspective.

Anything that is "good" or "bad" is a moral decision. Read "The Abolition of Man"

As I said RIGHT at the start, we can only analyse the information we can. And our analysis of this "ideal form" of the lazy selfish bitch is fine.

Yes it does! It is ENTIRELY moral. Every single normative statement - "should" etc is a moral statement. E.g. building codes are MORAL statements.

If I say "i like coffee" I am also making a moral statement (however if you say "you like coffee" you are actually making a descriptive non-moral statement)

We're not trying her for the specific crime, we're eliminating her selfish bitch genes from the gene pool.

Have you seen Watchmen? Rorschach has it right

Read Hart on law and morality.

The law is not only about morality. It would be a lot stricter and in some areas a lot more extensive if it's only purpose was to enforce moral norms. Similarly, mundane rules which form a massive body of law have no moral content whatsoever.

No I haven't. And if you want to have serious debate about this then fine. If you are going to make ridiculous and outrageous claims and refer to blockbuster films as back up, take it to the lounge.

wow... all those years at lawyer school and that's how you construct an argument

You don't quite understand that EVERY normative statement is a moral statement.

Every law is a normative statement.

Therefore they're ALL moral.

Every single law says something is "right" and the inverse is "wrong." That is a moral judgement.

BTW moral norms != morality any more than the speed of a specific car = the laws of physics

The role of the guardians of society is to improve society and keep it safe.
This woman has shown an utter disregard for the safety of others. If she had a mitigating circumstance, such as fear for her own life, we might forgive her. She doesn't.

Sometimes you have to cull the herd of those that don't display the correct behaviours.

BG read this: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition1.htm

You must have missed the

You could also try reading the rest of my posts in the thread for the 'argument'

The Taliban story aside, Sharia law has been incorporated in a number of legitimate legal systems. It is based on religious morality, and in systems where it is used, reflects the social and moral norms of those societies. Yet it has some seriously disturbing rules. And Sharia law is just one example. If you look at differences is what is criminalized in what is not across say European legal systems you will find a plethora of differences, because morality differs across groups.

Morality in law is problematic, it is certainly nowhere near as simple as you suggested in your post.

All laws are moral statements!

Building codes reflect an implicit moral belief that SAFETY is good!

The entire crimes act is based on "right" and "wrong"

Our law of contracts is based on beliefs on "fitting" ways to deal with each other!

And so on and so on!!

The only NON-moral statements in laws are the descriptive pre-ambles :>

That's really not correct vadinho. Criminal law is generally expressed in normative statements, but a lot of other law is not. Ie 'damages may be awarded if conditions a b and c are satisfied' etc

You are ignoring a host of discretionary and power-conferring rules which have no normative character whatsoever.

What does that even mean?

For example, lets say I enter into a contract that is simply a bad bargain. I get completely shafted out of it while the other party gets a windfall. The contract is patently unfair, to me. Yet I can't have the contract declared invalid on the basis that its a bad bargain. I can't even have it declared invalid where I can show an absence of good faith on the part of the other party. How is that contract law upholding moral norms?

If your information is limited then there is nothing fine about it, aside from the fact that your just spouting crap on an internet forum and have no real power over the woman's fate. But as I said, won't you feel a bit stupid for jumping up and down about a situation that doesn't actually exist?

As for the morality argument, bellamysgirl seems to be handling that quite well as expected

Perfect - a character created specifically as a "mirror" to the extremist Rayndian right to show just how nuts their ideas would look in practice is Vad's touchstone for moral legality.

Logic, my dear

All laws are moral
Not all moral norms are upheld by the law

It's pretty simple :>

Remember, ANY normative statement is a moral statement, and laws are normative statements

There's an implicit moral belief there that if conditions a b and c are satisfied, a wrong is done

Morality is simply "right" and "wrong", or "good" and "bad". Every single law is a moral statement.

You have to realise how FEW descriptive statements people make... almost all have an implicit moral element.

If I say "bellamysgirl is a good lawyer", that's not a descriptive statement, it's actually a moral statement (because there are layers of meaning behind the adjective "good" that are moral)

So is morality objective or subjective? If objective, how can there be diametrically opposed laws in various nations, assuming that law is moral?

*shakes head*

Both "murder is good" and "murder is bad" are moral statements, though they are diametrically opposed. We are not talking about the 'correctness' or lack thereof.

Each of your assertions that: 1) all normative statements are moral statements 2) all laws are normative statements and 3) ergo all laws are moral statements, can be challenged. Unless we accept that you can undo what positivists have been saying for decades...

challenge away...

the debate on law and morality is a debate between Hart and Dworkin, and also a debate between positivism and natural law. i'm not rehashing the nightmares of my third year jurisprudence classes all over again. nor do i have a sufficiently high interest in legal theory to spend countless hours arguing the nuances. suffice to say that the notion of law as a system of moral rules, which is what vadinho seems to suggest is beyond question, is highly controversial.

BG is the following a moral statement or not:
"This is a good steak."

Although not addressed to me, I'd suggest the answer to the question is: No, the statement is entirely amoral. Unless the person uttering it is someone who clings desperately to the idea that the word good has only one function and is always synonymous with "morally right". Maybe she is using good here in the same way she would use tasty? Is calling an apple tasty a moral statement? And, if so, in what way? Isn't it entirely descriptive in the sense that she would be describing her physiological/psycholgical response to the transduction of chemical signals occurring on her tongue?

Since you are so fond of suggesting readings to people, I will jump on the bandwagon and suggest you read Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations* where he argues persuasively that words don't correspond to particular meanings as much as they have different functions in different contexts. Language is so, so much more than ostensive definitions, and as Wittgenstein says: "philosophical problems** arise when language goes on holiday"

* easily the most influential piece of philosophy of the last century

** e.g. discerning the relationship between law and morality.

that's not entirely true, if you can show absence of good faith to the point where 'due consideration' is no longer being paid to the seller for their services or goods, then the contract is considered void. In the civil engineering industry the standards governing the assessmen of payment to the contractors is actually quite good in the way it gives people a chance for 'morality' to take precedence over hard and fast rules.

I used "good" deliberately.

Morality is at its heart about likes/dislike, right/wrong, and good/bad.

If I said "this is a green steak" that would be descriptive.

If I said "this is a tasty steak" I am implying a preference for it and it is thus a potentially moral statement because of the underlying layers of meaning. After all, tasty usually means "good to eat"?

Any adjective that refers to our own moral beliefs - anything good or bad - fits the bill. Referring to others, however, is descriptive (and let's not get into the whole do we even have free will argument)

Another example "The government's new motorway policy is bad" - implicit in that is a whole host of moral values.

If we keep asking "why" or "so what", we soon peel back the moral core at the heart of every normative statement.

Now, let's go back to the law.

Every single law says a certain type of behaviour is ALLOWED because it is GOOD, and a certain type of behaviour is NOT ALLOWED because it is BAD.

If it weren't bad, it wouldn't be illegal.

The illegality of murder implies a moral code that murder is wrong.

The illegality of fraud implies a moral code that fraud is wrong.

And even the entire scientific methodology is moral, because it has an implicit core that the most efficient method for discovering new knowledge is the best!

If you can show an absence of consideration then the contract will be void. But showing a mere absence of good faith will not result in the contract being void. Which was the point I was using to illustrate that the moral value which vadinho attributes to all contract law is not actually reflected in some rules.

Ok vadinho, so if all legal rules are moral statements, does that mean that the validity of a legal rule is determined by its moral value? In other words, if I can show that a legal rule is immoral, does that invalidate it?