cleanfeed and wikipedia

[Ian Batten]

>>
>> The sentencing guidelines are there precisely to allow totting up  
>> of the
>> degree of offence, which is not exclusively at the higher end. It  
>> would
>> be absurd if there wasn't something approaching a "reference  
>> library" to
>> calibrate the exercise against.
>
> I think you are probably right, it would be absurd.  But as many  
> absurd
> things happen, not least in the legal system, I'm hoping for some  
> facts.

Would a jury be asked to consider the `level' for the purposes of  
sentencing?  I suspect not.  In UK law, as I understand it, juries  
don't set sentences, that being strictly the preserve of the judge.   
The `level' is not something which affects the guilt or innocence of  
the accused, but does affect the sentence if they are found guilty, so  
I would assume that the level-setting is done by the judge, if  
anyone.  But presumably there _is_ a defence which is to say ``this  
material doesn't fall under the act in the first place'' (ie ``it's  
level zero''): presumably that _would_ need to be shown to a jury,  
just as the material at issue would be shown to the jury in an Obscene  
Publications Act case (*).  So is it the case that a jury might get to  
decide ``illegal / not illegal'', but wouldn't get to decide the  
various gradations of illegal?

ian

(*) If the test in a OPA case is the tendency to deprave and corrupt,  
how do you ensure that the jury is not depraved and corrupted?  In the  
days of special juries, you could argue that the material at issue  
might corrupt the man in the street, but not the educated men of the  
special jury.  But these days, surely it either corrupts and depraves,  
in which case you are placing the jury in moral danger, or it doesn't,  
in which case everyone can go home...