What do you think of these court rulings in Australia?

I presume that these offenders were sentenced to what is known as "The Rising of the Court", i.e., their sentence was 'back-dated' to the date of their arrest and the period of time served whilst on remand is deducted from the 'non-parole period' of the overall sentence. Given that a first time felon would be eligible for 1/3 remission (1/4 for a recidivist) for good behaviour from the non-parole (custodial) period of the 'head' sentence, a sentence of 10 years with a non-parole period of 4 years back dated for 2 1/2 years (the average time spent on remand) the inmate, or appellant, would be remanded to the custody of the Clerk of the Court, and then discharged back into society when the court next adjourned. Strange, I know, but that is how it works.

Then too there is another reason for the obvious disparity in sentencing: the Judge's 'clemency'. There have been occasions where the courts have found a man guilty of 'technically' committing the act of rape but have not believed that it was his intention to do so. Example being that of two drunken people having "consensual sexual intercourse" and in the morning one party cannot remember having agreed to participate in any form of 'relations' with the other person.

There is a famous case in New Zealand where a man was sentenced to 10(?) years imprisonment because he did not with draw, prior to achieving orgasm, from his partner during coitus when requested by his partner to do so.

Look up Section 4 of the Crimes (Sexual Assault) Amendment Act, or either Article 297, or S. 47/1 of the Crimes Act for additional information and definitions.

Hmmm - I'd have to say two things.

Firstly, the courts, while making a finding of 'guilty', must be taking into account the severity of the offence or whatever. If, for instance, some of these are cases of 'regret rape' or 'I sort of didn't want to but I went along with in anyway just for the hell of it', or whatever, the court might be obligated under law to find guilt, but mitigate the finding by the penalty imposed relating to the severity of the offence. Got that?

Secondly, with the rather vague and artificially promoted 'definition' of rape these days, combined with the pressure on judges etc you can observe in the Courier Mail article to not upset the women's lobby by making a finding that would be construed as 'against' the woman making the complaint, courts often find men 'guilty' even when they know that, legally, they are not.

This second is a very dangerous thing in our society and under our law, and is an extremely destructive influence on civilised and democratic society. Courts are supposed to be impartial, to rule according to law, and to not be swayed or pressured by anyone - that's the theory, anyway.

With all that said - I sincerely doubt that any man found guilty of a genuine and violent rape ever got off in a court of law - to me this whole thing smells of the courts knowing that guilt is not there under law, but taking a coward's way out, under pressure from self-interested community groups and from the incumbent Socialist government.

Still think this is not dangerous? Stick around!! We're watching the destruction of our way of life - at a time in history when governments should be upgrading our legal values and such - we are watching them being dragged into the dirt.

I have a law degree. The job of a defence lawyer is to get their client acquitted if they plead not guilty, and to get as slight a sentence as they can if they plead guilty or are convicted despite pleading not guilty.

Laws are passed by politicians under public pressure. The precise wording of those laws is examined in court. Sometimes, it may be that, technically, the accused person is guilty of breaching the letter of the law, but the judge may be persuaded that the breach was a technical breach only, and there were circumstances which suggest that a slight, or non-custodial sentence is appropriate.

You could imagine all sorts of issues that could come up here, including the age of the accused, the behaviour of the victim, the attitude of the accused in court, the psychological condition of the accused, etc. etc..

Sounds like Australians can't put a lot of violent criminals in jail. I wonder what the stats are for other countries.

They really need to figure out why these people are not seeing jail time. These aren't petty crimes we're talking about.

The Doc Love- This isn't talking about low conviction rates, it's talking about people who were actually convicted of the crime.

one reason for the lack of convictions could be:

"Many women who are sexually assaulted by their partners view the assault as a private issue and see police involvement as inappropriate (Lievore 2003). The criminal justice system responds least effectively to sexual offences committed against women by their male partners (Radford and Stanko 1996; Cook 1999; Heenan 2004a). Recent Victorian research shows that while specialist police dealing with sexual assaults are less likely to accept myths about rape, a substantial proportion of non-specialist police officers believe that a high proportion of rape allegations are false, and that victim-complainants often withdraw complaints of rape against intimate partners because they are false (VLRC 2004)."

The article is super vague,

Is it any surprise...? When you employ companies like SERCO to operate prison's a private corporation that relies upon prison labour to make $$$ they would let rapists out the same they would do with violent murderers not accept them or make sure they get the lowest sentences possible to save up space for non violent offenders like peaceful joe the marijuana smoker because in a private prison who would you rather have peaceful joe or evildoer joe who has murdered/raped?

There isn't any indication that the conviction rates for rape are much better of worse than those of other crimes and all the hype we hear about it is just that, hype and misinformation.

There is strong evidence to say that half of all accusations are false, whats more, female rapists and female child rapists go under the radar almost altogether. Also, its debatable whether soft and grey area rapists should serve time in prison at all. Its also worth mentioning that going on the register is a sentence that lasts a lifetime.

The article is calling for special treatment women.

Here is a good source in how the public is mislead on rape - http://www.straightstatistics.org/article/how-pani...

interesting excerpt here

" The experience of New Zealand, which at one point ceased paying compensation to rape victims, is instructive. After a corresponding fall in claims the re-introduction of compensation for rape was followed by a recovery in the number of reported rapes."

http://www.straightstatistics.org/article/how-pani...

It's nothing out of the ordinary really. Criminals often don't pay for their crimes,I don't see why rape would be any different. Maybe I'm just desensitized because I'm an American,and criminals roam free here.

Do I hear Ned Kelly?

Aussies love outlaws!