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[Wyatt Earp]

God Almighty.

[Wyatt Earp]

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A less barking source.

Could still be a distorted story though, I guess.

[Guest]

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If the facts are as reported, then that's three pretty dismal failures by the police, the CPS, and the court in turn.

[Guest]

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I should also point out that the five-year minimum term is not binding; judges can waive it in exceptional circumstances.

[Bruno]

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Wow, that's so fucked up it makes me want to run and give the Second Amendment a big sloppy kiss.

What if he'd phoned the police and said there's a gun in my garden, could you please come retrieve it?

[Spearmint Rhino]

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Unbefuckinglievable.

I mean, there are probably two things that most normal people would do if they found a gun. One is to phone the police and tell them to come and pick it up, mindful that they might want to comb the area for other evidence and dab the gun and the binbag for fingerprints and DNA or whatever. The other is to do what this bloke did and hand it in (having phoned them in advance to let them know he was on his way). The second is slightly less sensible than the first, but it's forgivable.

Actually, the third thing is keep it. I might have kept it, I dunno. I definitely would have kept it if I was 11 years old, cos that's what you do. But this guy did one of the two decent things, and is staring down the, pardon the pun, barrel of a custodial sentence.

[DCI Harry Batt]

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Does it say he told them he was bringing in a gun? Sure I've read (elsewhere maybe) that he didn't.

[Ginger Yellow]

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This American Life had a similar story recently about a couple who reported what they thought was an abandoned or stolen car outside their flat to the police, who brushed them off, then eventually broke into it to find some ID of the owner. The police arrested them and they were convicted. The kicker - it was a bait car.

[EIM]

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Apparently he phoned up the police to say he was coming in for a chat, and didn't mention the gun at all. Which is a bit odd.

[Guest]

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As is the fact that he apparently rang not the local police station, but the Chief Superintendent 'and asked if I could pop in and see him'.

[Bruno]

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One hopes this sort of caviling doesn't come within light years of excusing how justice was served, though.

[DCI Harry Batt]

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Perhaps we should wait for the full facts to emerge.

[Janik]

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TonTon, agreed. Given the facts as reported so far wouldn't lead anyone sitting on a jury to convict him, let alone deciding in only twenty minutes, I strongly suspect there is stuff being left out of these reports.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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I don't think we have to wait for any more facts unless we're more bothered about him as a cause celebre than the point of law. Someone doing that as reported would be guilty. It's what you get with toughtalk laws. As Rasko says there's some room for mitigation with the sentencing.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Actually, the third thing is keep it. I might have kept it, I dunno. I definitely would have kept it if I was 11 years old, cos that's what you do. But this guy did one of the two decent things, and is staring down the, pardon the pun, barrel of a custodial sentence.

Really? Some kids certainly would (and the law needs to consider that as a possibility) but would you? I would have shat myself.

[Spearmint Rhino]

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Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Actually, the third thing is keep it. I might have kept it, I dunno. I definitely would have kept it if I was 11 years old, cos that's what you do. But this guy did one of the two decent things, and is staring down the, pardon the pun, barrel of a custodial sentence.

Really? Some kids certainly would (and the law needs to consider that as a possibility) but would you? I would have shat myself.

I remember me and a bunch of other kids found a load of live ammunition buried in the school grounds. Of course we kept it. What kind of nerd wouldn't?

[Tubby Isaacs]

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That 70s-80s South Wales gun culture.

I found a slow worm and I handed that in.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Janik wrote:

TonTon, agreed. Given the facts as reported so far wouldn't lead anyone sitting on a jury to convict him, let alone deciding in only twenty minutes, I strongly suspect there is stuff being left out of these reports.

Not necessarily. If the law says "no exceptions" and he admitted he had the gun, wouldn't it be rather quick? Probably not Judge Jeffries speed as reported, but quite quick?

[Spearmint Rhino]

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Tubby Isaacs wrote:

That 70s-80s South Wales gun culture.

I found a slow worm and I handed that in.

(Rural Sussex gun culture, actually.)

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Ah that's more understandable.

[Bruno]

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TonTon wrote:

Perhaps we should wait for the full facts to emerge.

Well okay, if it turns out the 'full facts' render the story as reported completely untrue as to the salient details. If it wasn't his gun and he was peaceably turning it into the authorities, then it would have to be a pretty big fucking undisclosed fact for this to have justified a five year prison sentence.

[Guest]

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He hasn't got a five year prison sentence...

[Femme Folle]

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My gut reaction to the verdict is that it might be the right one, because jurors would probably have a tendency to think 'what would I have done' and some of them might have concluded that they would have turned it in too. So the fact that they found him guilty so quickly makes me assume that there were extenuating circumstances that made the jury feel that the case warranted a guilty verdict. I think any reasonable jury member would have tried to argue for the defendant and the deliberations, while possibly not having a different outcome, would have taken longer than twenty minutes.

[Janik]

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If the law says "no exceptions" and he admitted he had the gun, wouldn't it be rather quick? Probably not Judge Jeffries speed as reported, but quite quick?

But isn't one of the points of a jury system that it acts as a check against silly laws? It doesn't matter if the judge says the defendant has no defence under law, if the jury thinks his behaviour wasn't criminal they can declare this by finding him not guilty.

Interesting thought. If this man had been stopped on the street on his way to the cop shop, the story would have been reported somewhat differently, wouldn't it? Despite his intentions being exactly the same...

[Bruno]

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Raskolnikov wrote:

He hasn't got a five year prison sentence...

Yeah I realize that, I meant to speak in the conditional. Tempting to respond to your cute little ellipsis but I'll resist.