Island Life: The Guilt of Clayton Weatherston
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Of course, Angus, you've no contempt for the politicians who've let provocation stay on the books?
Craig, that's me you're quoting, not Angus. I'm not sure what your beef is, but I'd have thought that the reference to a "farcical" trial was hardly an endorsement of the legal aberration that enabled it.
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What's the bet the little shit writes a book?
Unquestionably, wouldn't rule out a movie or TV miniseries either. As the media has proven, people can't get enough of this one.
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Craig, that's me you're quoting, not Angus. I'm not sure what your beef is
Let me spell it out -- if you want to piss on Ablett-Kerr for doing her job -- running a legally available defence of an intensely distasteful person accused of murder -- then I think you're missing the appropriate target.
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Craig I agree - he was entirely entitled to run a provocation defence. I would like to be sure that it was all of his own making though, rather than the defence team making it up to suit.
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Second most reviled figure - Judith Ablett-Kerr. For going beyond her brief of providing a defence in this farcical case
I wonder though if they went for the 'weird narcissist losing it and not be in control of his actions' defence because that was literally all they could come up with, he was done bang to rights otherwise. Once they'd made that decision it was important to let him loose on the stand and make as big an arse out of himself as he could to back their position up?
If so, it was pretty nasty for her poor family to have to witness and a strategy that was likely always doomed to fail.
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Second most reviled figure - 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.So. No chance of a retrial on the grounds of an inadequate defence then? I suspect Albert-Kerr, after talking to her client, decided to let him hang himself after "doing her best".
The provocation defence is an odd one, we don't have "insanity" as a defence here but I think maybe we should. As it stands there is no way of "locking someone up and throwing away the key"
. An "insanity defence could work well. If the defendant is clearly uncontrollably homicidal then society needs a way of protecting the public from such people. If, on the other hand, the defendant is deeply troubled then they need treatment and/ or incarceration rather that punitive imprisonment.
As it is, the provocation defence satisfies none of these criteria. -
My point, Craig, is that by the time Ablett-Kerr had called the credibility of Sophie Elliott's mother into question, she'd gone way beyond her duty as a defence lawyer, and was effectively making shit up. If you want to defend that, talk to yourself.
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I wonder though if they went for the 'weird narcissist losing it and not be in control of his actions' defence because that was literally all they could come up with, he was done bang to rights otherwise.
This has echoes of the Hans Reiser "Geek Defense". OK, Reiser was claiming he hadn't in fact murdered anyone (he confessed after conviction), but the premise was similar - "My actions would make perfect sense to you if only you were more like me, which you aren't, so you're just going to have to trust me".
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I appreciate that Clayton has a right to speak in his own defence, but I don't accept that all tv-news needed to broadcast all his ramblings. It was obscene.
It was obscene, and the worst bit is that he would have enjoyed it, because he's exactly that sort of egotistical bastard.
I never quite understood where that defense was supposed to be going - it boiled down to "I'm so special you shouldn't convict me of murder. Also, my victim was a slutty bitch." It made an excellent case for him being locked up forever and ever - because if this made him snap, what else would? - but not much else. Just...weird.
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The key thing is to change the law and remove provocation as a partial defence, so no other lawyer or defendant can put a victim's family through what the Elliotts have endured.
Any provocation can be a matter for the Judge at sentencing, but should not be a way to escape a murder conviction.
DPF, I agree that the partial defence needs to go.
The Law Commission recommended in 2007 just what DPF has suggested. Let it be a matter for mitigation when it comes time to sentence.
The law as it stands is farcical and confusing for judges and lawyers. (I challenge anyone to read section 169(2) and know exactly what it means). Nobody understand it, so how can a jury be expected to get it right?
I don't see a need for degrees of murder. Let's just call it murder and take any provocation into account at the time of sentencing.
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Anyone looking at the case could see he was doomed.
Putting him on the stand was a gamble for a defence team that had nothing to lose.
Even if he'd "got off" I suspect the judge would have flayed him at sentencing time. He may have still got life.
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While I disagree with a lot of the more emotive and grandstanding comments here, believing that the accused has a very tenuous grasp on what the rest of us think of as 'reality' and is borderline insane, he went there with the knife and used it. So guilty is the only acceptable outcome.
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.
He is one sick puppy and guilty, that's for sure -
My point, Craig, is that by the time Ablett-Kerr had called the credibility of Sophie Elliott's mother into question, she'd gone way beyond her duty as a defence lawyer, and was effectively making shit up. If you want to defend that, talk to yourself.
Joe: Grab your Willy Wonka and tie a knot in it, because getting pissy is not helpful. Whether it is agreeable to your delicate sensibilities (or mine), it was exactly Ablett-Kerr's job try and establish reasonable doubt -- including questions about the reliability of prosecution evidence. Its not nice, but then again I've never been accused of murder either.
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Stewart - you'd be right about the weirdness of the worldview but an important point about the inflated self-esteem is that it'd be extremely fragile: what other people think would be hugely important, hence the going of the deep end if they don't play ball.
Personality disorders do tend to perpetuate the situations they're set up to avoid.
As I haven't quite brought myself to say on Kiwiblog; glad for the verdict, but that doesn't mean we should give him some extra sentence specifically for being a complete jerk.
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Of course, Angus, you've no contempt for the politicians who've let provocation stay on the books?
Craig,
Wasn't me, but anyways I like the provocation defence. If a killer is provoked to kill they need to be granted the provocation defence. The reputations of lawyers like Ablett-Kerr notwithstanding, there is no good reason to remove a right to this defence
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Joe: Grab your Willy Wonka and tie a knot in it, because getting pissy is not helpful. Whether it is agreeable to your delicate sensibilities (or mine), it was exactly Ablett-Kerr's job try and establish reasonable doubt -- including questions about the reliability of prosecution evidence. Its not nice, but then again I've never been accused of murder either.
Craig, it may have been legal for her to do so, but that doesn't make it any less vile. It's our right to say so.
As for whether it's a good defense strategy? I imagine that it probably put Weatherston even more offside with the jury.
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I appreciate that Clayton has a right to speak in his own defence, but I don't accept that all tv-news needed to broadcast all his ramblings. It was obscene.
Aye. I was glad to skip all of it by not being near a TV.
The provocation defence is an odd one, we don't have "insanity" as a defence here but I think maybe we should.
I'm not sure how any one can do that to another human being and not be insane.
I don't feel the same happiness/relief that so many people feel at the verdict. Society isn't even the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff in this instance.
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Presumably, Ablett-Kerr used the provocation defense because she thought it offered her client the best chance .
Is it the only defense she could have used? Did she make the correct choice?
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Joe: Grab your Willy Wonka and tie a knot in it, because getting pissy is not helpful.
Neither was that, really.
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I agree with Craig.
Attacking counsel for doing what they're able and required to do is absurd.
But that's not to say that a law creating the possibility of this defence doesn't need examining.
Nor is it to deny the unpleasant irony that not-guilty pleas tend to put victims and/or their families through additional torment. But that does seem to be the system we're stuck with.
Looked at coolly, you've got to admit she did a good job given what she had to work with - and yes, the best way to convince the jury of the personality disorder argument was to expose them ad nauseum to that disorder in action. Thankfully they didn't go for what would amount to the "I'm an inherently evil creep and we sometimes can't help doing this kind of thing" argument, but the fact that I at least was slightly nervous about their decision testifies to a pretty effective job done by Ablett-Kerr.
The defence may have been his idea, but the strategy was hers: that'd be my guess.
(And she's probably, when you think about it, ok about being eyeballed by the irate while doing the shopping - comes with the job.)
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Steve Barnes wrote:
we don't have "insanity" as a defence here but I think maybe we should. As it stands there is no way of "locking someone up and throwing away the key"
Yes we do. If someone doesn't know what they are doing, or doesn't know what they are doing is wrong, then they can be found not guilty by reason of insanity. From memory, and because I can't be bothered finding the right statute, someone so acquitted finds themselves an indefinite guest of our mental health facilities at the pleasure of the Minister of Health. I remember a trial a few years back that had the commentariat baying for a "guilty by reason of insanity" option for some particularly bad but insane killing. Maybe the guy who put someone's head in the dryer.
What we don't have is a diminished responsibility partial defence.
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A couple of great posts by Kyle & steven crawford above.
I agree with steven that a defence of provocation would be tenable and even necessary in the circumstances he outlined (provoked by on-going domestic abuse, for instance).
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Provocation defense, might be used by a victim of ongoing domestic abuse, that retaliation.
Or they could use some other defence that might actually help.
If a killer is provoked to kill they need to be granted the provocation defence.
Take account of it in the sentencing. I don't know of a provocation, that I would consider acceptable excuse for deliberately killing someone, that couldn't be argued under another defence. Mostly I defere to the law commission.
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The Gay Oakes trial (also featuring Judith Ablett-Kerr) tried the domestic abuse = provocation defence, unsuccessfully. It's not what it was designed for, which is really a sudden outburst of righteous, violent rage where a person hardly knows their own strength. If someone has been repeatedly beaten by someone else, they're going to have to get creative to stand a chance against them, not just blow up only to get another hiding. And getting creative (poisoning, sneaking up on someone in their sleep) implies forethought, which negates provocation.
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If someone doesn't know what they are doing, or doesn't know what they are doing is wrong, then they can be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
That's a fairly narrow definition of insanity, and many people over the years have criticised here. In the Weatherston case a lot of people (well, me, anyway) would agree that the defendant is mad as a snake, but the legal defence of insanity was not available (google up M'Naghten rules).
Personally, I would keep provocation as a partial defence but encourage a review of the criteria for insanity.
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