UK - Man Finds Gun and gets 5 years in Prison !!

[Alan de Enfield]

Shotgun man faces years in jail - Channel 4 News

Yes - he had the gun in his possesion and did break the law, but why didnt he tell the Police what he had found, and why did it take him four days to take it in ?
There was quite a debate about it on the TV news tonight.

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[Badger]

Interesting article and a sign of our times ...

Valid observations Alan ...

Regards,
Badger

[harry mac]

When is he up for sentencing Alan?
I think that there may be more to this case than meets the eye. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, he ends up with.
Historically though, in instances where there has been no case to answer either the CPS has refused to continue the prosecution as not being in the public interest, or the judge has thrown it out of court. Even if he had no choice but to continue, I think the judge could have instructed the jury to return a not guilty verdict.

[Badger]

I wonder what would have happened if he had left the gun where it was as the police said he should have, then while he was off doing that, some kid picked it up and well..... imagine the rest of the story after that ...

Regards,
Badger

[jon_norstog]

I wish I knew more about the British legal system. My sense is that judges and juries can nullify laws that don't make sense. Any Brits out there want to comment?

Jury nullification is a hot button issue in the US. Judges try to tell juries here, itdoesn't matter wheether th law is unjust, baD OR ridiculous. Juries are only supposed to rule within the lines laid down by the law. But in the old common-law tradition, juries can tell the court that the law doesn't deserve to be enforced.

A famous jury nullification case in the US was the Dred Scott decision. Dred Scott got away but was captured in Illinois by slave-catchers. It went to court and the juries refused to decide in favor of sending him back to his "owner." It was the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned those freemen's jury decision and decided Dred Scott should be returned to his "owner"

But Jury Nullification is still alive. Look it up and learn!

jn

[Riflechair]

Apparently there aren't any more Brits out there that dare have an opinion on such subjects.

[Beerhunter]

I think that there may be more to this case than meets the eye.

I believe that the chap had 'previous'.

[jon_norstog]

Apparently there aren't any more Brits out there that dare have an opinion on such subjects.

Christopher Hitchens!

He's a Brit. He got tossed off the roster at the Nation for his left libertarian views. he and Alexander Cockburn (another Brit) are both strong supporters of jury nullifiction. you can read about it at http://fija.org/

You get on a jury and it's a case where you think the **law** is wrong, you can make that call as a juror.

[Mk VII]

Jury nullification is not unknown here, (see R. v Ponting) but it's extremely unusual.
In his recent (2003) report on the reform of the criminal courts Lord Justice Auld recommended that "it should be declared, by statute law if necessary, that the jury has no power to acquit in defiance of law and of the facts". No action has so far been taken on this.

The man in question has actually drawn a 12-month suspended sentence.

[rhodders]

It is an offense here in the uk for any person to be in possesion of a firearm without proper authority and that is the law.

His correct course of action would have been to inform the police of its existance and await their responce.

His actions ( takeing it to the police station and dumping it on the ispectors desk) did not go down very well.

Rhodders