LOL
"He had to know when he landed the first punch that there was a chance the guy could die"
what do you think we are made of?
Have you seen UFC?
thats nonsense although he obv meant to hurt him the last thing that anyone thinks before they hit someone is this might kill them.
If you don't think there's a chance you could kill someone when you come up behind them and give them a kicking. Then you're watching too much WWF and UFC
il think you will find the human body is fairly resiliant sp.Originally Posted by chuckskull
If you don't think there's a chance you could kill someone when you come up behind them and give them a kicking. Then you're watching too much WWF and UFC
and ufc is a far cry from wwf.
I know it could be dangerous to do it, but i dont think what you said is right at all, that before you hit someone you should be thinking this could kill them.. not the case.
anyway i see your point that its pre meditated and cold, but i think that human body takes a lot *normally* to be killed
Not really; one kick to the head, a bad fall from the first punch, hit the nose at a bad angle, internal bleeding, collapsed larynx, swallowing your tongue, the list goes on. I've even seen a guy almost die after one punch, left him with permanent brain damage, if their hadn't been a bouncer to give him CPR he probably would have been dead.
The difference between UFC and real fighting is both parties are geared up, prepared and extremely healthy, not to mention being checked by a doctor immediately before and after the fight. Also the person hitting them, knows how NOT to kill them during the fight along with knowing how to take a punch. There's only a few inches difference between brain damage and a black eye. You simply can't compare sport with fighting.
i dont agree
I watched ufc the other day and a full elbow to the face is not "knowing how not to kill them at all" they arent look where they are landing just trying to knock him out.
Altohugh it is sport its also fighting and is what people (bar the leg locks ect) would do in real life
I agree it cn happen that peple get hit and are unlucky to get something like your list as that on the hole is rare
Difference being that the people in UFC choose to be there.
Ambushing someone as they walk home is a bit different.
The first point there is to distinguish between what you mean by "serious injury" and what the legal system means. Unfortunately, you can't take common-sense definitions as being what the legal system necessarily means.
For instance, getting a conviction for GBH requires that serious harm be done, and that includes things like broken bones. But, if you get involved in a fight, is it reasonable to expect that inflicting a broken arm will lead to death? No, because while possible, it's unlikely that it would. Death as a result is certainly not what a "reasonable man" would predict to be the result of breaking someone's arm (for instance).
The criteria used for murder isn't "that there was a chance the guy could die" when you throw that punch, but that it is predictable and/or probable, and not whether the defendant actually would have predicted such an outcome, but whether a reasonable man would have, in that situation. That means there's a lot of hypothesizing going on. This is a horribly complex area of legal (and moral) argument, and it's been bounced back and forth in senior courts for years (decades, actually), because there's a number of different ways in which you can look at the social desirability of where to draw the line in liability. But the gist of the situation is that there is no definitive statement of exactly where the line is. The general principle (in English law) is that people are not punished for the consequences of their actions that they did not intend or foresee.
Suppose you overtake another car on a blind corner, cause a crash and kill someone? Is that murder? Did you INTEND to kill someone? Clearly not, because the likelihood of your own death is as likely as the death of someone else. But, if you overtake in such a place, then clearly there's a risk of an accident, and death resulting.
Suppose you drive on bald tyres? That increases the risk of accident, and suppose that such an accident causes a death. Is that murder? Clearly not, yet you must have known that driving on bald tyres increases the chance of an accident, and that death MIGHT result. What about drink driving? Again, driving under the influence increases the risk of a fatal accident, but does that mean you intended to kill?
On that blind corner I mentioned, what impact does the typical traffic level have on the situation? If it’s a very busy read and you overtake round a blind corner, then an accident may be highly predictable, yet if it’s a deserted road with three cars a day, and accident may be a very unlikely and unpredictable outcome. If you know traffic is very light, and that the chances of an accident are therefore correspondingly small, how can it be argued that you “intend” to cause an accident, let alone that you “intend” to kill, yet you must surely have known “that there was a chance the guy could die”, to use your words?
It’s these kinds of questions over where the line should be drawn that have caused many senior court arguments, and that have led to the current situation that you need to “intend” to cause either death or really serious injury for the offence to be murder, because if you intend to cause the kinds of injury referred to, a reasonable man must be able to anticipate that death may well be the result of that serious injury. It isn’t enough for it to be a “chance”.
And finally, my view is that the issue we ought to be taking up here isn’t whether the conviction should have been for murder or manslaughter (and bear in mind the guy was tried for murder and not convicted), but what the sentence was. Bear in mind, the sentence for manslaughter could have been the same as the sentence for murder, that being “life” ….. if the circumstances justified it. Clearly, in the court’s opinion, it didn’t justify it. And as we haven’t seen the evidence, it’s hard to second guess that, based on media reports. It certainly seemswrong,and hugely lenient, but to actually advocate a harsher sentence without seeing the evidence is really little short of lynch mob mentality. We just don’t know the detail of what happened.
Yes, but the ambush is perhaps evidence of intent to dish out a beating, but it isn't necessarily evidence of intent to kill, and that intent is the main difference between murder and manslaughter.
When you ambush someone, presumably the intent is to get them, and not get got yourself. The nature of the attack, however, is indicative of the injuries you intended to inflict. At one end of the spectrum, you have (for example) a slap of the face. Is that evidence of intent to kill? Almost certainly not, yet if it resulted in someone falling, hitting their head on a sharp object and dying, death could result ..... and could even result from a ruptured artery ... as in this case.
On the other hand, if you shoot them in the head several times, it's hard to see how anything other than death could have been expected as the result, so if you do the act, the implication is that your intent was to kill.
And then there's a huge range of severities of attack in-between those two extremes.
So, if you knock someone down and kick them in the head, what are the chances that the kick (or kicks) will kill? Could the reasonable man have predicted that death was likely (reasonably certain) that death would result? How many people have been kicked in the head, and how many died as a result? In this case, how many kicks? Where, exactly, were the kicks?
According to the news reports, the actually cause of death was a ruptured artery. Is that a result that Cowie would have or should have anticipated? Presumably, if he'd stamped and stamped and stamped on this poor bloke's head, that would indicate an intent to kill, or at the least, to inflict very serious injury with a disregard for whether it killed or not. But only the medical evidence would show the exact nature of the injuries, and at least from the reports I've seen, little has been said (in those reports) about exactly what injuries were suffered.
It's a hypothesis on my part, but perhaps that's why the murder prosecution failed.
My opinion is that there's two issues here, and they're getting a bit confused.
Issue 1) Was it murder?
It's a complex field, but having tried the bloke and been unable to get a conviction, the answer is a clear "no", since "murder" is a legal concept that defines unlawful killing with specific criteria. Those critieria, by virtue of the court decision, weren't met. That's how the justice system works.
Issue 2). Was the sentence sufficient given the vicious and apparently unprovoked nature of the attack?
From what I have read, my personal opinion is that it was woefully inadequate BUT ..... the judge has seen the evidence and I haven't.
yeah the laws screwed man theres recently been a rapest of a little girl that got like 3 years .... should get life ? lol
shouldnt have been life.
Rape is not even on the same wavelength as murder hence three years. should have got more and then been sectioned but not life
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