Muggins:

But I have to say I have my doubts about a burglar arriving at the Guy farmhouse with the intention of stealing those puppies at the same time as Scott Guy was getting up to check those cows.
And then that same burglar,instead of hightailing it down the road when he saw Scott Guy coming out and getting in his vehicle ,decides to wait at the gate and shoot him twice with a shotgun that he just happened to have in his car.
And that same burglar happened to be wearing a pair of dive boots similar to the pair that Macdonald was known to wear.
I wonder how many burglars wear dive boots.

Yet you still think he deserved a “not guilty”? If the judge and jury had any common sense, then your scenario would be regarded as unreasonable. So there would not have been reasonable doubt to get him off the hook.

David Garrett (3,026) Says:
December 10th, 2012 at 2:29 pm

Your reference to the way MacDonald killed the calves simply reflects what an urban society we have become. Out here in the country, a blow to the head with a ball peen hammer is apparently the standard method of dispatching bobby calves – one of a hundred rural practices that are more than a little distasteful to the urban dweller. Like shooting dogs who have had their day, rather than a long drive to the vet for the needle. The fact that they were someone else’s calves is of course an entirely separate issue.

The reason it is distasteful is because it is unnecessary. These calves did not need to be killed, nor would it have been likely that MacDonald’s intention in attacking them was to take consideration of and minimise their pain. The fact that you find it appropriate to defend him makes me question whether you know when it is and isn’t the right time to be standing up for certain parties. Someone who may have technically used the correct rural farming method of disposing of an animal does not necessarily deserve people giving them a good reference when the killing was carried out for the purposes of revenge.

How many times have I read that qualified pyscholigists havn’t been able to detect sociopathic tendencies in a people who been convicted of murder?

That might be because not all murderers are sociopaths, and not all sociopaths are murderers. The two sets definitely intersect, with a greater overlap of “murderers who are sociopaths” than the reverse, but murder can also be motivated by jealousy, triggered by years of abuse, even supplied on a fee-for-service basis, or any number of other causes.

Which is why many legal systems opt to have degrees of murder, and even of lesser violent crimes such as armed robbery…

But the point I guess you were making is that psychologists haven’t been able to predict, with total accuracy, the likelihood of reoffending and, as a result, some people released have reoffended. That’s true, but statistically they’re right more often than they’re wrong – we just don’t hear about the people who successfully complete their parole. And in any case, even someone labelled a dangerous sociopath by the experts will at some point reach the end of their sentence (other than the handful given life) and be released anyway.

The alternative is to take a risk-averse approach and imprison forever anyone convicted of a violent offence after their first conviction, even if that offence is cruelty to animals (which I personally find abhorrent, David Garrett’s point about urban sensitivities notwithstanding) or was, say, a crime of passion unlikely to ever be repeated.

Psychological assessment, while invariably not 100% accurate – especially as sociopaths and psychopaths by their very natures are exceptionally good at deceit and usually very intelligent – is nonetheless, like the old saying about democracy, the worst system we have except all the others that have been tried.

Your reference to the way MacDonald killed the calves simply reflects what an urban society we have become. Out here in the country, a blow to the head with a ball peen hammer is apparently the standard method of dispatching bobby calves – one of a hundred rural practices that are more than a little distasteful to the urban dweller. Like shooting dogs who have had their day, rather than a long drive to the vet for the needle. The fact that they were someone else’s calves is of course an entirely separate issue.

Socipathic? A person who overreacts to relatively minor slights perhaps…a vindicative rather nasty chap? Probably….none of that necessarily makes him a murderer. Has any read the North & South story which apparently makes a pretty convincing case that it could not have been MacDonald?

the tread left by the murderer’s boots were completely different

A minor detail surely. They were still dive boots.

Boots which McDonald had thrown out a couple of years before the murder and similar in the sense that the tread of the boots that McDonald had and the tread left by the murderer’s boots were completely different? If that is your standard for implying actual guilt, then you shouldn’t be on anyone’s jury.

Macdonald has served a third of his sentence, meaning he is eligible for parole

FFS, nothing much changes…

And when did you get your Phud in Pyschology?

Qualified PShrinks will have been all over him from when pre-sentence reports were prepared for the Court. If they thought he had sociopathic tendencies that would have emerged at sentencing.

Until the Board goes thru the scheduled process (McDonald does not apply for parole. His appearance is simply scheduled by the Board) he has no choice. but to appear before the Board He has no say in the matter. Let it be, David!

[DPF: My totally unscientific opinion is based on his killing of animals in the way he did, and obsession with revenge for minor slights]