The Angry Exile: Getting off lightly

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Getting off lightly

Light sentences are not just a UK phenomenon, as a court in Adelaide showed yesterday. I'm not against vigilantism and violence when used to stop an attack but punishment beatings go beyond the pale, especially when it turns out they didn't actually have a reason in the first place.

[John and Brendan Harkin] bashed Dennis Murray in the toilets of a Hungry Jack's restaurant in 2009, wrongly believing he had assaulted John Harkin's wife.
...
John, 45, and Brendan, 21, of Hope Valley, each pleaded guilty to aggravated causing serious harm with intent.
Mr Murray was so severely injured that he required 11 steel plates to piece his skull back together.

And what did they get?

[District Court Judge Michael Boylan] sentenced John to three years jail and Brendan to 27 months, suspended on condition of two-year, $200 good behaviour bonds.

Which has upset a lot of people, especially as their victim was a grandfather who'd served in the RAN, and caused the prosecution to appeal the leniency of the sentence.

Prosecutors today asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to erase John and Brendan Harkin's suspended sentences, and order them to serve immediate jail time.
...
"This mischaracterisation of their perception has led His Honour to treat revenge and retaliation as a matter of mitigation," [prosecutor Ian Press] said.
He said the courts must "send a message" that revenge is intolerable, and could do that by jailing the men.

Now, I can sort of see where the judge was coming from, at least in part, because the Harkins are apparently not a dodgy, violent father / son tag team, and in fact surrendered to police when they realised how badly they'd hurt Dennis Murray and pleaded guilty to the charges. All of which I'd agree has to count for something.

[Judge Boylan] said the duo's lack of criminal history and "perception of a grievious wrong done to your wife and mother" justified the bonds.

And here's where I think people are a bit upset. The first part of that, the lack of criminal history, being a justification for good behaviour bonds is understandable. The second is a bit of a worry. As I said, violence to end violence or even to prevent the imminent use of violence loses me no sleep at all, even though Australia's refusal to allow anyone defensive weapons for their personal protection (senior police officers excepted) means that governments and politicians here don't like the idea at all. But an act of violence that takes place well after the the event that's supposed to justify it ended? Sorry, no, that's not acceptable at all. When there's no urgency and no violence being used against anyone else anymore, that's when you call the cops in. It's what they're for and even though I'm not above criticising the police I have to concede that they are probably the best people to investigate something that you think happened but didn't actually see. Hauling off and braining someone in a Burger King bog is not a reasonable response and has no justification as far as I can see.

The judge is probably right that these two men are not a danger to the public and should be spared jail. They probably have learned their lesson and they probably feel pretty awful about what happened.

Probably.

And also probably this is one of those sad cases that's bloody hard for the judge to find a sentence that pleases everybody, or indeed anybody. You go one way and you're an unduly harsh tyrant in the eyes of the offender's supporters, but you go the other way and the victim's supporters say you're a soft touch. Trying to steer a course down the middle will probably just annoy both of them, but it's still the least problematic. I'm not a lawyer and I'm particularly ignorant about law and sentencing in South Australia, but I'd have thought that the judge had other options for sentences that would have punished the Harkins a bit more severely than suspended sentences and a $200 bond each while still sparing them from prison. It was, let's remind ourselves, a pretty savage attack which had no excuse, real or imagined, and it doesn't feel like the punishment fits the crime here. And the sad thing is that for the Harkins, who as I've agreed probably don't need to be locked up, the risk of jail time is still there if the appeal against the sentencing is successful. Had they been given some heavy community service orders or something there'd have been grumbling - almost inevitable - but perhaps not to the extent that the prosecutors would try to get it changed.

I'm not sure there can ever be any winners in a situation like this, but I think it is possible for everyone to lose to a greater extent than is really necessary.