From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Jonathan Spencer writes:
"From the limited Court reports I've heard, I think the jury reached the
correct decision ACCORDING TO LAW. The jury is sworn to try the man
according to law, that is, according to how the law *is*, not how it
could be or should be or ought to be. Presently, the law does not allow
the indiscriminate shooting of burglars."
And he goes on:
"I was not at all surprised that he
was convicted: he seemed to me to have a weak defence case, given the
circumstance including (sic) that he fired more than just once."
If the law was a computer program it might be fair to criticise those who
have questioned the way it has worked in the Martin case. But the law is
fallible, enacted as it is by politicians, many of whom we would not trust to
organise drunken revelry in a brewery - which is why we have judges to
interpret it. I think what so many of us are disturbed about is that while
the law relating to self-defence has not changed much, its interpretation, as
directed by the politico-judicial establishment, most certainly has - in
favour of the corporate state and against the interests of the individual.
Perhaps I've missed something, but this is the first time I've heard the word
"indiscriminate" applied to Martin. As far as I can see, he was highly
discriminating: he only shot at those burglars who'd broken into his isolated
house in the dead of night, and at no other burglars at all.
As for the remark that he "fired more than once," I'm reminded of the dire
ways in which "reasonable force" is too often interpreted. The idea rests on
the assumption that ordinary people, untrained in the martial arts and awash
with terror-induced adrenalin, should be capable of applying only controlled
violence - sufficient to deter or temporarily disable, but to cause no
serious harm. This is at best unreasonable, and at worst it's vicious, cruel
and oppressive. Martin might be criticised on tactical grounds, for emptying
his weapon too readily, but surely for no other reason. Not by reasonable
people, anyway, who feel enormous sympathy for someone beset in his home in
the middle of the night by seasoned criminals, and thrown entirely upon his
own resources.
And let's not be snotty & patronising about the great many people who are
seriously alarmed by the legal & political implications of a life sentence
for Martin - a man who, as one CS contributor aptly comments, is now serving
the same sentence as the professional robber & murderer Noye, and the serial
killer Shipman.
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