George Galloway is doing my act. "Were you shocked by Ghislaine Maxwell's suicide next week?" But she has been apprehended in the United States, so the question of extradition does not present itself.
Among other principles, we ought never to extradite anyone to anywhere that retained the death penalty for anything. That is a very good sign of a barbaric penal system in general. Not the only one. But a very good one.
By the way, for those funny little people who think that there is some connection between having capital punishment and having unarmed Police, which of the countries that currently have capital punishment, including the United States, has ever had unarmed Police? Did they have unarmed Police on the Continent in the days when they had capital punishment?
Don't talk to me about the Common Law. Do you honestly think that you would stand a worse chance of a fair trial in Sweden than in Bangladesh, or in the Netherlands than in Malaysia, or in Scotland than in the Phillipines?
Juries are a good idea in principle. In practice, they are a random assembly of 12 people who, although of working age and not officially ill, have nowhere else to be for an indefinite length of time. Otherwise they would either be exempt, or they would be able to wangle a medical way out of having to take open-ended time off work.
If they have not even tried to do that, then they have a lifelong ambition to hang or flog someone, and they are taking the nearest thing that they will ever have to an opportunity to do that. So they are absolutely bound to convict.
And on any given jury, at least three or four people will think that "the Crown contends" means "the Queen says, so it must be true". Thank goodness that you can take your conviction by these people to review by bodies of the more sophisticated. Some of us are prepared to wait our entire lives for that.
Among other principles, we ought never to extradite anyone to anywhere that retained the death penalty for anything. That is a very good sign of a barbaric penal system in general. Not the only one. But a very good one.
By the way, for those funny little people who think that there is some connection between having capital punishment and having unarmed Police, which of the countries that currently have capital punishment, including the United States, has ever had unarmed Police? Did they have unarmed Police on the Continent in the days when they had capital punishment?
Don't talk to me about the Common Law. Do you honestly think that you would stand a worse chance of a fair trial in Sweden than in Bangladesh, or in the Netherlands than in Malaysia, or in Scotland than in the Phillipines?
Juries are a good idea in principle. In practice, they are a random assembly of 12 people who, although of working age and not officially ill, have nowhere else to be for an indefinite length of time. Otherwise they would either be exempt, or they would be able to wangle a medical way out of having to take open-ended time off work.
If they have not even tried to do that, then they have a lifelong ambition to hang or flog someone, and they are taking the nearest thing that they will ever have to an opportunity to do that. So they are absolutely bound to convict.
And on any given jury, at least three or four people will think that "the Crown contends" means "the Queen says, so it must be true". Thank goodness that you can take your conviction by these people to review by bodies of the more sophisticated. Some of us are prepared to wait our entire lives for that.
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