Petersen headed for death row

[jinx]

Originally Posted by lookout123

By your reasoning that 9 year old that got pregnant last year should have been able to walk into the clinic and have an abortion without her parents knowing about it.

A couple hundred years ago, the kid would have quietly been given some pennyroyal tea or some other herbal abortificent by the local midwife and no one else would have been the wiser. Yay progress.

[lookout123]

believe me i do understand that jinx. but consider your own daughter. (just hypothetically - don't throw anything at me) if she was 15 and got pregnant, would you rather that she be able to just walk into a clinic and "take care of it" or would you prefer that she come to you and jim, face the music and you, as a family, can explore your options. she may still end up at the clinic, but at least it is with the support of the family. yes, you and jim would be upset, hurt, and angry, but your number one concern would be for her safety.

[lookout123]

don't believe in fair trials at all

in a way you are right HM. i don't believe that fair trials exist. our justice system has very little justice in it. when criminals can get off because of technicalities, i don't see that as being fair to the victims - and i have more concern for them than the criminal.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by lookout123

in a way you are right HM. i don't believe that fair trials exist. our justice system has very little justice in it. when criminals can get off because of technicalities, i don't see that as being fair to the victims - and i have more concern for them than the criminal.

Trials aren't for the victim. They are for society. It isn't the job of the court to make the victim feel better, but to make sure that laws are followed and the correct penalty is given, and in that endeavor the victim is nothing more than a primary witness.

A fundamental basis of the US legal system is that it is better for a hundred guilty people to go free than for one innocent person to be imprisoned, and that is why the laws governing prosecutions are so strict. If a law can be broken so an "obviously guilty" person gets a few more years, then it can also be broken so a "probably guilty" person seems "obviously guilty". If it becomes more important to find guilt than to determine guilt, that is a much larger injustice than a victim being disappointed that someone got life instead of death.

[xoxoxoBruce]

The woman is not going to get off due to a technicality, she is going to get a new trial that will be more fair as well as exposing the public to more of the truth about the government that they still trust for some reason.

Also exposing the public to the cost. In some cases in the millions.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Also exposing the public to the cost. In some cases in the millions.

unfortunately, it was the "public" (prosecutor's witness) that created the freakin' problem by confusing a Law And Order episode with an old news reel of Susan Smith.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by lookout123

believe me i do understand that jinx. but consider your own daughter. (just hypothetically - don't throw anything at me) if she was 15 and got pregnant, would you rather that she be able to just walk into a clinic and "take care of it" or would you prefer that she come to you and jim, face the music and you, as a family, can explore your options. she may still end up at the clinic, but at least it is with the support of the family. yes, you and jim would be upset, hurt, and angry, but your number one concern would be for her safety.

If I don't have the kind of relationship with my daughter that would make her want to come to me in that situation, I wouldn't want a law in place that forced her to, absolutely not.

[Troubleshooter]

I just love multi-threaded threads...

In they eyes of the law there is no distinction between a child and an adolescent when it comes to responsibility of the parents, so it makes no sense to make it ok for the child to put the parents into the position of being responsible for the outcome of a risky medical procedure if they aren't responsible for the procedure in the first place.

Ultimately the letter of the law should govern because without some sort of framework to work within things would become too subjective. Ideally, when a law doesn't match the intent of its framers then it should be revamped to be more just. The woman is not going to get off due to a technicality, she is going to get a new trial that will be more fair as well as exposing the public to more of the truth about the government that they still trust for some reason.