Got your gun?
Interesting article here on the Paul Clarke 'Oh hai, here is a gun I found in my garden' case.
A couple of things that people did not initially make clear about it:
-He kept the gun for two days after he claims he first found it, before handing it in to a police station himself rather than waiting for them to attend.
-He has a history of being charged for violent crimes.
-He recieved a jury trial in which he was convicted- he was not convicted by a judge alone. Interestingly, he declined to give evidence at this trial.
Although I pretty much agree with the linked article about fixed penalty sentences for some crimes (they are very inflexible and prone to causing injustice), I am not sure that there was any injustice involved with the Paul Clarke case at all. I admit that I was a bit suspicioous of the initial outrage even after reading ths first reports, when it was reported that he was an ex army employee, a population group with a vastly inflated propensity to violent crimes (http://womenandwar.wordpress.com/2007/05/12/2001-rape-statistics-in-the-us-military-for-men-and-women/ , http://www.refusingtokill.net/rape/domesticviolencein%20themilitary.htm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/2197592.stm) but of course, this is not sufficient to legitimately suspect someone without other evidence*. I'd think, however, that keeping a gun for two days, by your own admission, is pretty much unequivocally 'posession of a firearm'. Legally, at least, there is no question- he might not have done anything with the gun, but he kept it with him for an extended period of time. Morally, I guess it depends on how much you trust reports from either side- pretty difficult to judge when police officers and Tory (see the local paper interview with him, mid-way down linked article) whining ex-army workers are both fairly dodgy candidates...
Honestly, though, even if it is unjust, I find it hard to feel that sympathetic to the man. I don't remember any such public hysteria when hundreds of Ploughshares protestors were charged (and many convicted) with Breach of the Peace for blocking the entrance to Faslane nuclear submarine base, even though the legal definition there is that BoP involves 'alarm and distress' being caused to 'a reasonable person', and even the police officers (arguably reasonable people?) admitted to the judge (none recieved a jury trial) that they had been neither alarmed nor distressed. I guess it's all about not having been Tory ex-army workers, eh? (Or possibly The Cult of the Individual Hero Against the World thought processes, but either way.)
*Though it's always nice for me to have my prejudices confirmed :P
A couple of things that people did not initially make clear about it:
-He kept the gun for two days after he claims he first found it, before handing it in to a police station himself rather than waiting for them to attend.
-He has a history of being charged for violent crimes.
-He recieved a jury trial in which he was convicted- he was not convicted by a judge alone. Interestingly, he declined to give evidence at this trial.
Although I pretty much agree with the linked article about fixed penalty sentences for some crimes (they are very inflexible and prone to causing injustice), I am not sure that there was any injustice involved with the Paul Clarke case at all. I admit that I was a bit suspicioous of the initial outrage even after reading ths first reports, when it was reported that he was an ex army employee, a population group with a vastly inflated propensity to violent crimes (http://womenandwar.wordpress.com/2007/05/12/2001-rape-statistics-in-the-us-military-for-men-and-women/ , http://www.refusingtokill.net/rape/domesticviolencein%20themilitary.htm , http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/2197592.stm) but of course, this is not sufficient to legitimately suspect someone without other evidence*. I'd think, however, that keeping a gun for two days, by your own admission, is pretty much unequivocally 'posession of a firearm'. Legally, at least, there is no question- he might not have done anything with the gun, but he kept it with him for an extended period of time. Morally, I guess it depends on how much you trust reports from either side- pretty difficult to judge when police officers and Tory (see the local paper interview with him, mid-way down linked article) whining ex-army workers are both fairly dodgy candidates...
Honestly, though, even if it is unjust, I find it hard to feel that sympathetic to the man. I don't remember any such public hysteria when hundreds of Ploughshares protestors were charged (and many convicted) with Breach of the Peace for blocking the entrance to Faslane nuclear submarine base, even though the legal definition there is that BoP involves 'alarm and distress' being caused to 'a reasonable person', and even the police officers (arguably reasonable people?) admitted to the judge (none recieved a jury trial) that they had been neither alarmed nor distressed. I guess it's all about not having been Tory ex-army workers, eh? (Or possibly The Cult of the Individual Hero Against the World thought processes, but either way.)
*Though it's always nice for me to have my prejudices confirmed :P