Text 19977, 98 rader
Skriven 2011-06-17 11:46:44 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
     Kommentar till en text av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Statue of limitation
============================
Hello Robert,

On Wednesday June 15 2011 08:14, you wrote to me:

 MV>> Wrong question. Proper question: Since when in the NO statue of
 MV>> limitation on murder?  Answer: since 2006. It used to be 18 years,
 MV>> in 2006 it was raised to infinite for crimes with a maximum
 MV>> penalty of a life time sentence.

 RB> Must be a special case for the Netherlands, then. Never heard of that
 RB> elsewhere.

Do some resarch and you will find that Germany is - or was - the exception
rather than the rule. Most European countries who's legal system is based on
Roman law have statues of limitation. Belgium  has it. France has it...

 MV>> Of course this does not apply retroactively.

 MV>> The reason for the limitation was that it was believed that no
 MV>> reliable evidence could be produced after such a long time. In the
 MV>> old days, evidence heavily relied on witness statements.

 RB> And nowadays, in Germany, they're convicting ex-Nazis on the basis of
 RB> heresay witness statements ("My grandmother told me that...") 60-70
 RB> years in the past.

Which I find disturbing. And if you are referr into Demjanjuk, I think that
trial was a joke. The evidence against him was infinitisimal.

I am not saying he was not a war criminal, just that after all these years, the
evidence has evaporated.

 MV>> But now that there has been a huge boost in forensic technology,
 MV>> it is different. With new technology forensic evidence can emerge
 MV>> in cold cases.

 RB> And although forensic technology has advanced remarkably over the past
 RB> 10-15 years, the advances have been fairly recent - genetic analyses
 RB> were, to my knowledge, unknown even up to the 1990s.

Yep. And that is one of the reasons why The Netherlands waited till 2006 to
lift the limitation.

 RB>>> I suspect the situation isn't as simple as you make it out to be.

 MV>> It is that simple. The murder took place in 1946. It expired 18
 MV>> years later. Period.

 RB> Nice for the murderers, not so nice for the relatives and friends of
 RB> their victims. And I still think the situation wasn't as simple as all
 RB> that

Bob, why do you argue facts that can esealy be checked. It IS that simple. The
18 year statue of limitation applies. End of story.

 RB>  - 18 years for murder would be much too short, even if you assume
 RB> everyone connected with _every_ case was elderly and would die a few
 RB> years after it occurred,

Too short according to what or whom? You are only looking at it from the
victim's angle. For the victim - or the relatives - it would never be enough.
They are not unbiased, and driven by feelings of revenge. But there is more
than that to consider. I already mentioned the difficulty of collecting
reliable evidence after all that time. There is also the consideration of what
could it would do after all that time. The process of a trial could be too
disruptive for society to offset the gain. I think the Demjanjuk case is a good
example. It created a lot of publicity, but what were the gains? ha justice
been done? Hardly I'say. We have seen a very old man, almost e vegetable.
Assuming he did what he was accused of, will he ever do it again? I'd say no.
Have the victims been brought back to life? What purpose will it serve if this
man spends the rest of the short time he has left in prison?

 RB> leaving no written records or people to whom they told their story.
 RB> Very arbitary period, very short. This is why I find this so strange.

Nevertheless, 18 years it was until 2006. I think it was long eneough.

Different cultures, different laws...

 RB> Could this have something to do with the brutal, confused period
 RB> immediately following WWI, when all sorts of injustices were
 RB> perpetrated and/or overlooked just to get back to normal life again?

No. The law setting the limit to 18 years dates from the 19th century.

 MV>> Note that without a statue of limitation, there may not have been
 MV>> a confession.

 RB> Is there ever, unless the evidence is overwhelming?

In the case I mentioned there was a spontaneus confession. The woman never was
a suspect.


Cheers, Michiel

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