Island Life: The Guilt of Clayton Weatherston
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There were about five fresh boquets of flowers at Elliot's memorial plaque at Otago University by about 3.30pm today.
I also bumped into Otago's dean of law, Prof. Mark Henagan and had a good yarn to him about the case. He expects Weatherston will get at least 20 years.
He also said that Ablett-Kerr and King shoudn't have conducted the case as they did. Instead, if they'd wanted to run the provocation line, they should've simply stated that case, rather than getting into smearing the victim ,etc. -
Sophie's mother had rushed up and stabbed him in the back. Hell, I could understand a reasonable person losing control in those circumstances. As a juror, I'd prefer to be able to convict her for manslaughter than murder.
And there's the problem, isn't it? Sorry for sounding like a wet liberal pussy here, but either we treat adults like adults who accept responsibility for their actions or don't. But what doesn't sit well with me is pretending that we hold to the value that all human beings have a fundamental right to live, except when we don't like them.
If they'd package the murder-porn into a nice five minute package at the end, we might have more choice in the matter.
Oh. Just, oh. Instead, we fill the hour with disaster porn -- because who gives a shit about the dignity of dead foreigners!
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As we have advisory on T.V. that has been satisfactory for programmes, perhaps a nudge in the direction of complaints/advice to TVNZ or TV3 or some such, could help them to understand advisory could benefit there news items also. I know TV3 tend to deliver unsightly news with a warning, so maybe a letter with any suggestions to them would help.
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For Craig @ 5:54
No, no problem at all. A conviction for manslaughter requires acceptance of responsibility for a death. BUT, if you came home and found an intruder had killed one of your children, dropped their weapon upon seeing you, and you still hit them over the head with the poker - I'd understand (you obviously wouldn't if the situations were reversed - but that's you) -I'd think that you are human, with human emotions, not a machine. I could imagine a reasonable upstanding person losing control in those circumstances.
As I said before -these ideas don't apply to Clayton - he's as guilty as sin.
PS - when you mix people's quotes in the same message it's polite to acknowledge it - you make it look like I said all those things.
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there news items
their...
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Judith Ablett-Kerr. For going beyond her brief of providing a defence in this farcical case and, despite her mealy-mouthed protestations otherwise, putting the victim on trial.
Vile, vile, vile.Of course, Angus, you've no contempt for the politicians who've let provocation stay on the books?
To address the catfight . I think in hindsight that the only real reviling that'll stand the test of time will be that directed at Mr Clayton Weatherston. In hindsight everything else will prove to be water off a duck's back in relation to the trauma already administered, and we can be 99% sure that this guy got the 'fairest' trial money can buy. Our heartiest respect (in the sincerest sense) is best paid by letting this issue sink from the blogosphere and allowing the Weatherston and Elliot families to reconstruct their lives. Provocation plea or not, my guess is he'd have attempted a self-defence plea if provocation weren't admissible and hence....the judgement has been passed by those best qualified. Personally I'm boycotting any further news stories on the topic in the interests of good taste.
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Wasn't the a high achieving psychiatrist also from Otago thats been banged up for murder?
I assume you're refering to the guy that poisoned his wife about five years ago ? His son was also arrested (in South Africa, their home country) for murdering his wife at the same time.
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Personally I'm boycotting any further news stories on the topic in the interests of good taste.
Well at least you've stopped short of actively offering yourself as a role model. Discussion of this case must - and will - be kept alive until the defence of provocation is dropped from the statute books. Never again.
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To address the catfight .
What catfight? I still stand by my suggestion that perhaps we should focus on having provocation as a defence thrown into the dustbin of history, and a little less on trashing Judith Ablett-Kerr. Various other people disagree.
and we can be 99% sure that this guy got the 'fairest' trial money can buy.
Well yes, Mark -- we'd save a lot of money if we shut down the courts and replaced them with telephone polls and a guillotine in the back of a van, but I don't know if I want to live in that country.
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Maybe, Tom, you should take a deep breath before you come across as a patronising, sexist arse.
Given the general level of vitriol from others here being directed at Abblet-Kerr, I am not entirely sure where you got patronising from.
And sexist? What little dark corner did you dredge up that from? Criticising a female is sexist?
What planet do you live on - oh... wait... it IS you Craig.
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Wasn't the a high achieving psychiatrist also from Otago thats been banged up for murder?
Colin Bouwer. This is actually a timely reminder for other reasons. In all the speculation about mental state, intent etc., it's useful to re-consider a man who slowly slyly systematically poisons his wife over the course of months. And who presumably thought he could get away with it.
Uh, also on the lots of Prozac thing, it takes a good month for it to build up to effective levels, and someone was suggesting today that with the kinetics, changing your dose takes perhaps 6 weeks to be realised.
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Well at least you've stopped short of actively offering yourself as a role model.
The angst is fine Joe if that's your want, personally I feel it's misdirected.
Discussion of this case must - and will - be kept alive until the defence of provocation is dropped from the statute books. Never again.
Because the Government cares right? Get Stephen Fry involved and they may change the law. Whether it will save lives is another issue.
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Colin Bouwer. This is actually a timely reminder for other reasons. In all the speculation about mental state, intent etc., it's useful to re-consider a man who slowly slyly systematically poisons his wife over the course of months. And who presumably thought he could get away with it.
A mate of mine works at the National Poisons Centre here in Dunedin and she was a prosecution witness in that case. In short, she testified that he rang the centre several times and asked questions about certain poisons, their effects, etc.
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Whether it will save lives is another issue.
Mark - the idea of removing the defence of provocation is to prevent the obscene farce of the law facilitating a killer attempting further damage to their victim.
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And sexist? What little dark corner did you dredge up that from? Criticising a female is sexist?
No Tom, but you've been getting particularly liverish where the ladies are concerned recently. Perhaps I've been unfair, and you're an equal opportunities jerk.
What planet do you live on - oh... wait... it IS you Craig.
Ouch. You're really not getting the hang of the withering zinger, are you?
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Oh get a room already, you two. The sexual tension is getting unbearable.
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Joe do you really think Weatherston wouldn't have plead self defence? Essentially I'm neither for or against a law change nor surrounding discussion, but I think the case of Ferdinand Ambach pisses all over your Clayton Weatherston claims of farce in terms of relevance to the issue.
What catfight?
O come on bro! Roald Dahl is appalled Craig.
What catfight? I still stand by my suggestion that perhaps we should focus on having provocation as a defence thrown into the dustbin of history, and a little less on trashing Judith Ablett-Kerr. Various other people disagree.
Perhaps you're right, but in relation to the Weatherston case where the criminal has been duly convicted the argument against the provocation plea holds no sway. That's where Joe just seems misguided, it had no bearing on the verdict.
However.. in relation to the banjo case it most certainly does. Something you said a few pages back about everyone having a right to life resonated with me, and while I'm not convinced the Hungarian Banjo killer was aware of the various defences at his disposal before he murdered the (and I quote from numerous media sources) 'elderly gay man' aka Ronald Brown. The judgement on that trial was unfuckingbelieveable.
and we can be 99% sure that this guy got the 'fairest' trial money can buy.
Well yes, Mark -- we'd save a lot of money if we shut down the courts and replaced them with telephone polls and a guillotine in the back of a van, but I don't know if I want to live in that country.
'fairest' In terms of there is no comeback for him after that. He's done his dash, it was appalling, and he can't complain. broadly speaking justice has been done, and hence I'm not convinced citing the Weatherston case over the Ambach best serves the cause.
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and yeah I really should apologize Joe, it does just seem to be Craig and whoever will take him on today.
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Mark - the idea of removing the defence of provocation is to prevent the obscene farce of the law facilitating a killer attempting further damage to their victim.
There is something in that, but after [details supressed] there was very little damage that could be done. The judgement of the court in that case speaks far louder and longer than any missives and lies issued from a murderer's lips.
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The judgement of the court in that case speaks far louder and longer than any missives and lies issued from a murderer's lips.
I hope you're right, though I'm not sure that it fully healed the damage done by the awful drawn-out farce that preceded the verdict.
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To cite that case in the quest to remove the plea could only ever lend creedence, value and weight to the murderer's version. provocation wasn't an issue in the Bain trial and yet we saw worse posthumous damage inflicted on the victims.... and so....Personally I just feel that the courts have spoken and they got it right.
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I hope you're right
So do I Joe. It was a totally fucked up situation. and if anything the case did raise the issue for me as to what constitutes a mutually healthy relationship and when is it best to just walk away.
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Tv in courtrooms?
Yes.
Did I walk away from TV news more often than ever before?
Yes.
Now the public know how such trials are conducted will things change?
Inevitably.
Does this mean many legal taboos are being challenged?
Sure does.Let the light shine in.
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His world-view is so skewed that he clearly doesn't see the world and his place in it the same way that the rest of us do. And for that reason he felt that if he explained it all to us (his intellectual inferiors) we might get a glimpse of why what he did was right.
I think he takes something of a Nietzschean(?) view of the world - Clayton Weatherstone as superman; the rest of us as lower forms of life.
Are you thinking of a Dostoyevskian world view, Stewart? This trial and Weatherston's self-justifications reminded me of Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov on more than one occasion.
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This trial and Weatherston's self-justifications reminded me of Crime and Punishment's Raskolnikov on more than one occasion.
Now that you've brought that up, I'm reminded of that old Dostoyevsky-fancier Howard DeVoto's song, Philadelphia:
I'd've been Raskolnikov
But mother nature ripped me off
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