Lawyerly Scruples
The young man was sitting at the back of a public transit bus. En route to visit with his girlfriend. To return her iPod, among other things. But to spend valuable time with her; their deep and abiding feelings for one another cemented in love, with the intention to spend their lives together, to marry, have children. Fate intervened as it has a habit of doing, sometimes serendipitously, occasionally fatally.
His mother, his siblings, his girlfriend will never see him again as he was. They bade their farewells when they buried his mutilated body in September 2006. What 23-year-old, with his life ahead of him, fashioning his future, committed to a mature relationship with a young woman who appreciates everything about him and who shares his hopes and values and aspirations, might imagine that death lay waiting for him, on boarding a bus?
He may have noticed the other young men, a handful of obnoxious roustabouts in their late teens, strutting onto the bus, making of it their personal vehicle of choice and in a spirit of generosity permitting others of the public to share it with them. They chose to sit, in an oppressive group, just where Michael Oatway, the young man with the future, had placed himself.
The media are able to publish the name of the 23-year-old victim, but not that of his murderer, who was 17 at the time he decided to take an innocent person's life, because that person refused to comply with his demands. First it was a request for a cigarette, but Mr. Oatway was not a smoker. Then it was the demand that he hand over the iPod he was listening to.
The companions of the murderer-to-be tried to signal to him to cool down, move away, but he insisted that one of them, sitting beside him, hand him the knife he had in his pocket. Which he used to threaten Mr. Oatway, and then to attack him. The much slighter Mr. Oatway might have known he would be overpowered, but he did his best to protect himself. That was two-and-a-half years ago. The wheels of justice grind slowly.
Few survive a knife thrust directly into their heart, that vital pumping organ of life. Now the young murderer's lawyer is performing in a court of criminal justice, insisting that his client should be treated as a youth, given the sentence of an erring youth, rather than that of an adult. Hauling out that tired old plea that his client hadn't had a decent start in life, as an abandoned, abused child.
And he has appealed to the court that this crime was "not the most serious first-degree murder" and therefore the man who killed Mr. Oatway should be treated as a minor. It wasn't quite the same, urged the lawyer, as the murder of the more vulnerable in society; an elderly individual, a child, or persons with mental of physical incapacitation. This was just a garden-variety murder of an innocent young man.
His grieving mother left the courtroom. She will forever live with the nightmare of the fear and pain she knows her son suffered in his final moments of life.
His mother, his siblings, his girlfriend will never see him again as he was. They bade their farewells when they buried his mutilated body in September 2006. What 23-year-old, with his life ahead of him, fashioning his future, committed to a mature relationship with a young woman who appreciates everything about him and who shares his hopes and values and aspirations, might imagine that death lay waiting for him, on boarding a bus?
He may have noticed the other young men, a handful of obnoxious roustabouts in their late teens, strutting onto the bus, making of it their personal vehicle of choice and in a spirit of generosity permitting others of the public to share it with them. They chose to sit, in an oppressive group, just where Michael Oatway, the young man with the future, had placed himself.
The media are able to publish the name of the 23-year-old victim, but not that of his murderer, who was 17 at the time he decided to take an innocent person's life, because that person refused to comply with his demands. First it was a request for a cigarette, but Mr. Oatway was not a smoker. Then it was the demand that he hand over the iPod he was listening to.
The companions of the murderer-to-be tried to signal to him to cool down, move away, but he insisted that one of them, sitting beside him, hand him the knife he had in his pocket. Which he used to threaten Mr. Oatway, and then to attack him. The much slighter Mr. Oatway might have known he would be overpowered, but he did his best to protect himself. That was two-and-a-half years ago. The wheels of justice grind slowly.
Few survive a knife thrust directly into their heart, that vital pumping organ of life. Now the young murderer's lawyer is performing in a court of criminal justice, insisting that his client should be treated as a youth, given the sentence of an erring youth, rather than that of an adult. Hauling out that tired old plea that his client hadn't had a decent start in life, as an abandoned, abused child.
And he has appealed to the court that this crime was "not the most serious first-degree murder" and therefore the man who killed Mr. Oatway should be treated as a minor. It wasn't quite the same, urged the lawyer, as the murder of the more vulnerable in society; an elderly individual, a child, or persons with mental of physical incapacitation. This was just a garden-variety murder of an innocent young man.
His grieving mother left the courtroom. She will forever live with the nightmare of the fear and pain she knows her son suffered in his final moments of life.
Labels: Human Relations, Realities, societal failures
posted by Pieface @ 6:21 PM
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