Apparently shaking a baby to death is a lesser crime than opposing government fascism and having a continuing interest in chemistry.
Apparently so, I must say in this particular case I see a cause for an aquittal based on reasonable doubt, but I`m not a juror so I didn`t see all the evidence so my opinion is not really valid. The general principle concerning sentencing length still holds. I don`t know the spin in the US media on the Woodward story, I understand it was sympathetic to the defendant, the UK press has basically done what is usual whenever a high profile case is tried in a foreign court (eg. Deborah Parry and Lucille McLaughlin, the 2 nurses tried in saudi arabia for the murder of Yvonne Guildford, the UK media spin was that the saudi court was a crude inhuman system whereby public beheadings were handed out at the drop of a hat), and most UK papers were ranting about the "inhumanity" of giving a 19 year old a life sentence for murder, hell, if she did it, kill the bitch.
The au pair Louise Woodward will serve less time in jail than Jim Bell will. While Bell languishes in a Washington state jail, awaiting (for almost 7 months!!) his sentence, the convicted babykiller is now free.
Ah yes, but don`t forget Tim that in Amerika (The land of the free, remember?) the life of a child is of less value than the security of the state. It makes a mockery of the judicial system that a judge can overturn a verdict like Zobel has done in the Woodward case, sure, allow her to appeal, but giving an appointed official the power to decide a verdict makes me sick, and a sentence of 279 days for manslaughter is a joke. Datacomms Technologies data security Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"