Right; it did seem like a weird and rather tricky thing. Glad to hear they got out, although the whole things does seem like a cop-out, considering they are deemed to be 'innocent' by most people following (or that's how it looks. I personally have no opinion because I don't know enough about the case).
My comment was really about how lax our judicial system seems in comparison to the USA. In NZ, a person can get a 'life sentence' and be out in 17 years. Foolishly, we don't seem to have anything in place to keep convicted murderers in for true 'life' (like the 80 years you mention), no matter how disgusting the crime. In fact, the only thing that keeps people in beyond what seems like a fairly minimal period (ie 20 years or less) here is if on application for parole they are deemed to still be a menace to society - which doesn't happen nearly enough, IMO. I know it's not quite what you are talking about here, but I just wanted to point out how opposing our systems seem to be, whereby innocent people can end up in jail or on death row there for crimes they didn't commit (which isn't to say it hasn't happened here, apart from the death row thing, as we don't have it), as compared to very dangerous criminals in NZ being released to commit more crimes because their 'life' sentence is seen to be over, never mind that the victims and family of the crime have much truer 'life' sentences arbitrarily imposed upon them. 'Life' as far as I see it should be life, i.e. the life of the person committing the crime, not a standard figure.
As far as innocent people being convicted and then the conviction being overturned is concerned, we have systems in place regarding that, and certainly there are famous cases here where exonerated people have won substantial amounts of money for wrongful imprisonment after many years behind bars. It doesn't give them their life back, but it must go some way to helping them.
no subject
My comment was really about how lax our judicial system seems in comparison to the USA. In NZ, a person can get a 'life sentence' and be out in 17 years. Foolishly, we don't seem to have anything in place to keep convicted murderers in for true 'life' (like the 80 years you mention), no matter how disgusting the crime. In fact, the only thing that keeps people in beyond what seems like a fairly minimal period (ie 20 years or less) here is if on application for parole they are deemed to still be a menace to society - which doesn't happen nearly enough, IMO. I know it's not quite what you are talking about here, but I just wanted to point out how opposing our systems seem to be, whereby innocent people can end up in jail or on death row there for crimes they didn't commit (which isn't to say it hasn't happened here, apart from the death row thing, as we don't have it), as compared to very dangerous criminals in NZ being released to commit more crimes because their 'life' sentence is seen to be over, never mind that the victims and family of the crime have much truer 'life' sentences arbitrarily imposed upon them. 'Life' as far as I see it should be life, i.e. the life of the person committing the crime, not a standard figure.
As far as innocent people being convicted and then the conviction being overturned is concerned, we have systems in place regarding that, and certainly there are famous cases here where exonerated people have won substantial amounts of money for wrongful imprisonment after many years behind bars. It doesn't give them their life back, but it must go some way to helping them.
/rant