Have you spent any real time in jail? Its not the "resort" some would like to think it is. Prison is not just about punishment, it is also about rehabilitation as well. You don't want the criminal coming out worse then when they went in? The one's you can't help you put away forever.

Jafo, if in reality you care anything about the kids, who are completely innocent in this, then you MUST care about the mother.  Irrespective of what she did, she is their lifeline until they are of age to fend for themselves, and given it was not a capital offense, the punishment should fit the crime, which in this case it does not, therefore punishing and needlessly depriving those children.

While I respect you in various ways, you come across as a gun ho shoot first and ask questions later kind of person, someone with a vigilante frame of mind, and that I cannot respect.  Your brand of justice would see the innocent painted with the same brush as the guilty, and they would also die because there is no room for compassion or mercy.

Okay, I used the names, but your harsh, uncompromising attitude equates to the dictatorial mindset each possessed, so it wasn't hard to make the comparison

Like I said, the more civilised we become (meaning all the laws/attitudes our society supports/you support), the less civilised we become.

Yup, that just about says it.... greed out of control and fuck what's fair/makes sense.

Of course people should be punished when they break a law,  but to some they are still living in a Stone Age mentality and believe that all punishments should be the maximum. We have to strive to be better than that or else all of our lofty ideals are nothing more than a joke and we deserve what happens to us. Hence why a theocracy is the worse form of government there is.

The victim's family did nothing wrong...so why should THEY suffer?

Why should THEIR taxes support the killer?

Let's ignore the victim [the legal system does] ...he/she didn't do anything wrong, either.

No...

Let's all pretend we are noble and right and civilized...and die for the rights of the criminal.

Talk about getting indignation for entirely the wrong cause.

Oh crap it costs more.

Don't be ridiculous.

As for where I am....western world, Ex [ish] British Empire, as was/is most of it [the world, that is].

The point I'm painfully clearly failing to make is it is beyond time that the rights of a criminal took second stage to the rights of their victim/s.

The act of 'criminality' disqualifies them from arguments of equality...unless they have a superior 'right' to kill others that I didn't know about.

Fine...get all protective of human rights...take the smoking gun out of their hands....give them the process of Law [pretend seeing them actually do it does not mean they did it]...then...when found guilty all fair and square and honky-dory THEN bend over backwards and respect the rights of the victim/s and not the victimizer.

Yes, all are equal before the Law [hence no means test for punishment/fine and what this whole bullshit thread is about] but once due process is served there is a defined, determined perpetrator and victim.  THEN side on the rights of the victim....he and HIS family deserves the sympathy of the court and society, not the person who made him/them victims.

And citing Wiki as an authority means instant lose to you, sorry.

You are free to not take me seriously...as is your wont.

However, I see no 'need' for the thread to be closed so it will remain open....

"defeat"?

I almost missed that.

What...I suffered 'defeat' over my declaration of a total disregard for the fate of the woman in the OP?

How?  Did I do a 180 and now beg for her to be free from penalty?

Dang...must be invisible ink again....

You're wasting your time on him. He's nothing more than a flamer and has absolutely no credibility at all..  His kind are why we have a justice system in the first place. To protect us all from that sort of ignorance.

The 'problem' with this is there's no real option in place for a means tested penalty system.

Copyright Law and penalty was traditionally something limited to commercial entities but with the advent of the net and domestic access to mechanisms of infringement the 'little people' get hit too....

It'd be utopian to have in place an un-rort-able system of matching a person's capacity to pay with appropriate penalty...so someone the size of MS was penalized tens of millions whilst an individual might get 1000s for the same offence [and impact].

Doubt it'll ever happen tho.

I'd like to say something about the concept of justice in general.

The biblical line we have in the current bible is 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth'.

In the Qur'an it says 'An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, and the instigator is the guilty party.'

There is an important qualifier in that last condition. It speaks of the relationship between the victim and the offender. The offender is to be punished by the victim in a way that is proportionate to the offense. The victim is the one who has the personal right to retribution. As the instigator is the guilty party, and not the retaliator, the offender cannot seek retribution from the victim after they have taken the punishment, as retaliation is not instigation, and so there is no guilt placed on the victim. This means that by that law, there cannot be back and forth revenge attacks.

That's not to say that back and forth retribution won't occur. Only that it is not Just according to the law.

Some people say that to return in kind makes you just as 'bad' as the original offender, as you are doing the same thing. For example, if a person breaks my arm and I respond by breaking that person's arm, then I would be labeled as being just as guilty with this line of thinking, on the basis that I have committed the same foul act. This is saying something illogical. The error here is in equating instigation with retaliation. In this example, if I had not first had my arm broken, then I would not have broken the offenders arm in turn. And so the first act is one of instigation, while the second act is one of retaliation, meaning that they are not equal, and so no guilt can be placed on the victim. If you were to have a short and general definition of injustice, it would be something along the lines of 'To treat equally that which is not equal.'

The victim is the one who has the personal right to retribution. Meaning, that if someone breaks my arm, unrelated Jason from the neighbouring suburb does not have the right to break the arm of the offender. In general, no unrelated person has the right to enact the punishment. In the case of murder, the next of kin has the right to take the life of the offender, without due cause for counter-retribution by the next of kin of the original offender.

I have heard some people misinterpret the 'eye for an eye' analogy in this case, by saying: 'You killed my brother, and so I kill your brother.' This is obviously wrong, as the punishment targets the offender for reasons of the offense.

The bible also says 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'

Taken in context, what this means is that no imperfect human being has the right to administer biblical justice in any case that does not personally pertain to them. It does not mean that a person is disallowed from taking their rights.

The biggest problem with a person enacting their retributive rights is the justification process. A person must justify the guilt of the alleged offender to themselves without a shadow of a doubt through evidence and eye-witness accounting. Often times people will act on mere suspicions and heresay. If the person cannot soundly make this justification, then retribution is unjust, even if the alleged offender is actually guilty.

Normally this type of investigating requires a combination of highly skilled and expertly equipped people. But even these people and this equipment make plenty of mistakes. Only an omniscient being could possibly always be completely accurate in all judgements and know the exact details of all events ever, as well as all intentions behind all actions.

The point of all this is that the courts cannot administer justice because the entire process of investigating and judging is subject to errors at every step of the way. So, there should be no judicial body called the 'Justice System'. Also, individuals cannot always take their retribution in a Just manner, as they cannot always justify their judgement, even though they are directly involved and as such would be privvy and closer to the events.

Neither can the courts allow personal retribution, as to enforce it and prevent unjust counter-retribution, the courts would first have to justify the original retribution, which they cannot actually do.

I didn't even get into how a person is supposed to accurately calculate the exact and Just punishment for every case. As actions are measured by intention, it basically means that one would have to be a mind reader in order to know what is truly deserved.

Government, police and courts are necessary to keep civilization civil, but they are not nearly about being Just. 'The Justice System' should be renamed to something like 'The Civil Order System'. Don't look to justice from human people, as even the ones who would whole-heartedly adhere to it are not always able to know it and enact it.

So, if you believe in God, and you believe that God is Just, then you must be of the belief that everyone always gets exactly what they deserve, as otherwise God would not be Just. This should be quite a comfort in the face of so many unjust actions by people in the world.

Otherwise, we will never be a Just people as human beings, as long as we ever occupy this world.

Equal in penalty....as in no means-test.  The Roller gets the same parking fine as the rusty VeeDub.  When it comes down to monetary penalty the Law has no favourites, however hardship can be argued for leniency.  That is all.

Cynics claim the rich are advantaged because they are rich...but in truth that is a glass-half-empty argument as there WOULD BE no "effect" of unfairness of comparative impact if 'ability to pay' was positively factored into the penalty imposed.

As I said, more than once.... match the crime's punishment to the person's ability to pay.

If it REALLY hurts this woman [as everyone claims is unjust] then it SHOULD ALSO hurt corporations in commensurate scale and proportion.

If the penalty bankrupts her...then it would be only fair [just] that corporations entities of high commercial value/strength are bankrupted too.

Where the idea of reduced 'responsibility' falls down is with the artifice of drug dealers using the underaged to do their dirty work as they aren't criminally 'responsible'/culpable.  Instead, the 'protection' of the Law is exploited by the narcotics industry to the child's ultimate peril.  Useless protection, that is.

The concept [industry] of torrent/warez distribution is not a lot different....let the 'little people' [often children] do the distributing/facilitation while the 'entities' behind the piracy industry prosper untouched.

I didn't mention anything about Lawyers and their affordability or not.

I am talking about the Law as it pertains to penalty.

I am 56.

Does that clarify it for you?