Posted on 04/29/2010 5:34:25 PM PDT by naturalman1975
A teacher who bludgeoned a disruptive pupil with a dumbbell walked free yesterday when a 'common sense' jury acquitted him in minutes.
Peter Harvey was cleared of trying to kill a 14-year-old boy who told him to '**** off'.
His trial heard how he was targeted by teenagers who knew he had been off work with depression and stress.
The 'fundamentally decent' man snapped when the science class set out to upset him, with a girl - described as the pupils' ringleader - using a camcorder to film the incident so she could distribute it round the school.
Mr Harvey dragged the boy - a persistent troublemaker - into a cupboard and hit him about the head with a 3kg dumbbell shouting 'die, die, die'.
The attack fractured the teenager's skull.
But yesterday a jury swiftly acquitted him of attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm with intent.
Judge Michael Stokes QC told the court 'common sense had prevailed'.
Mr Harvey, 50, had already admitted the lesser count of grievous bodily harm but the judge said he would not be sent to prison.
It was revealed that the judge had already said that the trial should never have been brought because of the teacher's 'previous good character' and his state of mind when he attacked the boy.
Astonishingly, the father-of-two had spent eight months on remand before the trial - despite his own mental state, his wife suffering severe depression and their daughter having Asperger's syndrome.
The judge told him at Nottingham Crown Court: 'You have already effectively served a sentence that is more than the appropriate sentence.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
In 1958 in my biology class I recall a student being DRAGGED across the dissecting table by the teacher for simply groaning over the homework assignment being given. The class had previously been warned NOT to make a sound unless contributing to the discussion.
The student, after being dragged across the table by his shirt and arms was ushered out in the hallway. We then heard 3 loud bangs in rapid succession. This was, as we all knew, the student being slammed up against the lockers which lined the side of the hall. Moments later the student and the teacher came back into the class, the student red faced and very subdued and the teacher calm.
The class carried on and nothing ever became of the incident. It was a totally different world then and students were held accountable for ALL their actions. The school was supported by the parents and when a student was sent home for behavioral problems he was punished again by the parents whose attitude was if the teacher says you did it, then you did it, case closed.
Had this little bastard acted similarly in my school towards a male teacher he would have been literally knocked on his ass by the teacher and suspended for probably 3 days to boot. The reason the little turds do what they do is because they are allowed to get away with it.
We raised 2 kids in the late sixties into the mid 80’s and never once did we have to put up with this sort of crap. We raised them in the same way we were raised. They were taught from the very beginning they must behave or they would be punished, and we followed through every time. Soon enough they came to learn that when mom or dad says “sh*t, Their response was to be “where and how much”. Draconian? Maybe compared to today but we never had a problem with either of them nor are they having any problems with their own children. My daughter gets into it with her husband occasionally because he read the Benjamin Spock book on how to raise your child (screw them up is more like it). She always prevails because she tells him to back off or he will raise them full time.
Assault is committed by a loon screaming “die die die” while fracturing a kids skull with a blunt object.
Notice the difference?
The teacher should bring charges against the students for bullying that drove him to it. Instead of killing himself over it he beat the POS who was doing the bullying.
Can't argue with nonsense like that.
Nonsense? It's not nonsense at all.
We regularly berate judges on FR for judicial activism -- ignoring the written law in favor of their personal views of "justice". How is this any different, except that his and the jury's view of "justice" happens to coincide with yours?
Judicial activism and jury activism are precisely the same. They are both hostile to the rule of law and should be loathesome to anyone who claims to be a conservative.
Both strip the authority of government from the duly elected representatives of the people and vest it in one or twelve (usually) unelected, unaccountable individuals. It is a monumentally absurd and dangerous assumption that such individuals will have a better grasp on "common law" or "justice" than those who were elected to create law in the first place.
Don't recent elections give us a powerful clue to both the morality and wisdom of our current public? If you don't think they make very good choices in the voting booth, why do you believe they would become magically wise and fair in the jury box?
I strongly prefer judges and juries who recognize the rule of law and have the humility to let the people, via their elected representatives, do the enacting, amending and repealing of it.
I always find it refreshing when a jury exercises its right to nullification.
Do you find it similarly refreshing when the judge does so?
I stopped right here. You have the attention span of a fly as I never expressed an opinion. I would never want a pinhead like you on a jury and damn sure not as a judge.
The rest of your screed is therefore irrelevant.
How can a judge exercise jury nullification?
Easy way out, huh?
You argue like a liberal.
Do you agree with judicial activism or not?
If not, how is it fundamentally different from the jury activism you support?
Is there some magic pixie dust in the jury box which makes their off-the-cuff legislation better than that coming from behind the bench?
You're being disingenuous.
Judicial activism is no different from jury nullification. It just comes from a different section of the courtroom.
Why is judicial activism wrong, yet jury nullification is right?
I’ll look forward to reading about you in the paper when someone pushes you over the limit.
Hey, this is the UK, where folks who dare to defend themselves against criminals can go to jail.
I’m glad to see that this idiocy allowed a teach to abuse the little scumbags disrupting his classroom. At least one good think came of it.
I try to be - sometimes I do fail. I am human, after all. ;-)
The first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay, told jurors: “You have a right to take upon yourselves to judge both the facts and law.”
You didn't answer my question.
Then he’d get ridiculed for “calling the cops on a kid.”
At least on this forum.
Personally, I’m kind of glad the brat got his skull cracked. Now if only somebody could do something about his parents...
Best to say that the whole thing, kids, school, teachers, it completely FUBAR and give up. The inmates are running the asylum.
If I live to be 100, I will never understand people who believe that the use of this type of violence is the answer to dealing with a problem like this. So, I guess one who would swear at you should expect to get their skull cracked open with a dumbell. Pretty thin skinned IMHO.
That's because your question is based on a false premise. You said:
Judicial activism is no different from jury nullification.
Yes it is.
That's an understatement.
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