Text 11531, 67 rader
Skriven 2005-04-15 01:15:50 av Ed Connell (1:379/1.6)
  Kommentar till text 11487 av John Hull (1:379/1.99)
Ärende: Re: Bo Gritz
====================
Hey, John.

 EC>>>> And if she did change her mind without telling anyone?

 JH>>> Come on, Ed.  Have to agree with Earl here.  Formality has nothing
 JH>>> to do with it.  If you had expressed your opinion on a subject (or
 JH>>> your wishes concerning something) on numerous occasions to a number
 JH>>> of different people, any reasonable person would conclude that
 JH>>> your opinion was pretty well set (or that your wish was firm).

 EC>> Legal events are formal.  That is why those who testify must
 EC>> promise to tell the truth.  That is why certain issues are allowed and
 EC>> others not.  Form and law go hand in hand.  If a law is not formal
 EC>> enough it will be thrown out as too vague.  Pretty well set doesn't
 EC>> get it for me when it comes to killing someone.

 JH> Telling the truth is a given in ANY court, regardless of the subject
 JH> matter, civil or criminal.

In all the courts with which I am familiar, a person giving testimony first 
promises to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth.

 JH>  It doesn't change the reality of what someone says or does as I
 JH> outlined above.

I'm not sure what you are saying.  Rather, I have no clue.

 JH>>>   *I* would certainly take it that way.  Now, many of us have also
 JH>>> written our wishes down as a backup, just in case.  But that in no
 JH>>> way lessens the validity of what we said verbally on many
 JH>>> occasions, and I would expect the courts to honor that,
 JH>>> particularly if there were several first hand witnesses to attest
 JH>>> to that fact.

What if I say, "I'd rather die than eat spinach"?  Now I like spinach, so 
I'm okay, but, just suppose I said that.

 EC>> I'm sorry, but I just don't approve of killing anyone on the basis
 EC>> of such informal conversation.

 JH> What's informal about it?

By definition, it was not formal.

 JH> You have to remember here that most people don't know that they should
 JH> write certain things down and in some cases even have then notarized.
 JH> You can't get any more formal than that to use your definition of
 JH> formal, yet sometimes even that is not enough.

I cannot see that someone's ignoring formal declarations is an argument for 
accepting less formal speech.

 JH> Sorry, but someone's word should carry as much or more weight than some
 JH> document, especially if there are witnesses who verify that word.  It
 JH> used to be that way.  An agreement was sealed with a handshake, and
 JH> both parties kept their word because it was not only the right thing to
 JH> do, it was the moral thing to do.

The handshake is a formality.  It formalizes the agreement.

 JH> I fully agree that Schiavo may not have realized that her wishes would
 JH> entail starving, but that isn't the point here.

When is it the point, because that is exactly what happened to her?

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 * Origin: Procrastinate NOW, don't put it off for tomorro (1:379/1.6)