The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez TRIGGER WARNING Documentary about a real child abuse case.

[50sandFabulous]

Just watching this, and it's truly shocking. An 8 year old boy, who was completely healthy, was transferred into the care of his mother and her boyfriend, and over the next 8 months he was consistently tortured and beaten by them. The things they did to him were so shocking, and I can't list them all here, but they included keeping him locked in a box, burning his hair off, feeding him cat litter, shooting him in the face with a BB gun....the list is endless, and suffice to say, that he eventually died from his injuries.

This documentary shows the court trials that followed. What is it with some do gooders? One jury member tried to only impose a verdict of murder in the 2nd degree, because in the moment that Gabriel died, maybe the man didn't mean (in that moment) for the fatal blow to kill him. Now we have a woman on the stand who used to employ the killer, and she's saying how he was a good employee back then, and there is some good in him, somewhere.

Who fucking cares? He did what he did, and he should be sentenced to death. Why do these lefty dickheads try to always find a nice angle, that maybe didn't make the bad man quite so bad? How do they sleep at night (and the defence lawyer for that matter).

Gives me the absolute RAGE!

How do you know they support left-wing politics?

Soft left wing attitudes is what I meant.

'lefty dickheads'??

I was 100% with you till that point.

@50sandFabulous was this in a place where the death penalty is used? Plenty of people are against state sanctioned executions no matter how heinous the crimes.

But do you know that they support a strong welfare state and increased taxation? Plenty of people across all political stripes will
defend dangerous men so how have you determined these people are left-wing

Yes, California.

Alright forget the word "left" and replace it with "do gooders" or "softies".

The one juror who wanted second degree murder instead of first degree, is now saying "Is he really evil though?" Hmm, I think you'd reckon he was evil if he did that to you!

Gah!

People are stupid. Really really stupid. This crime makes people squeamish and they refuse to look at it straight on and see what you see.

Tell me how you run a fair justice system without defence lawyers, seeing as though you seem to have an issue with them.

Plenty of people will defend really awful crimes if they know the person doing them. It's a deep rooted human psychological thing not a political ideology. At the most extreme wives who stay with their husbands accused of hurting children all the way through to colleagues who don't want to believe Dave from accounts would do that through to people who are more sympathetic to criminals from their class/race/a high status group in their eyes.

I do share your frustration! Not all crimes happen because of poverty or low self esteem
Some crimes are crimes of power and selfishness and that needs to be acknowledged.

Not saying that. I just know that I couldn't try to defend a monster. In my opinion they sell their soul to the devil.

I don’t even see how you have reached that conclusion based on what you have posted.

Wanting to assign a correct verdict and defending somebody you know doesn’t inherently make somebody a “do-gooder”.

I was a police officer and worked alongside many many criminal defence and prosecution solicitors and barristers across crimes ranging from petty teenage shoplifting as a first arrest through to child abuse and murder cases or strings of offences involving career criminals. None of the legal advocates have sold their soul.

Every one of them believes in the best justice there can be and each party has a role to play to hold everyone to account including the police, judge, the various lawyers and the system itself.

I absolutely believe in the need for a robust defence system to protect the innocent which includes both people accused of crimes and victims.

Defence solicitors and barristers will absolutely ensure that their clients get a fair hearing to the best of their ability. As well they should. Because how can we believe in a fair system if no one can show it was done fairly?

Do you know anything about how the justice system works? Even in the US? You think there shouldn’t be a defence lawyer? That’s their actual job - to defend them. It’s what makes a functioning and fair justice system.

That's not what I said.

I'm saying that I don't care if a child killer might have a nice side in there somewhere. What difference does that make!

I think often your version of 'lefty do gooders' are often people who try to understand what causes the person to do what they did. This is important for crime prevention and rehabilitation and treatment. I can understand why you have strong feelings about this awful case. At the same time, it's important to understand the wider context in terms of why defence lawyer do an essential job and why it's important to consider things from all angles including the nature of evil. I suppose I'm a lefty do gooder in that I don't believe in the death penalty. It makes the CJS as bad as killers. Arguably it's a worse sentence to spend the rest of your life in a US jail. You might find it interesting to listen to this Reith lecture OP https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0025l4d

This is the one documentary I wish I didn't watch.
It stayed with me for months. Especially when brushing my childs teeth. I held on pretty well, but then his brother and sister shared their story. It was in the last or second to last episode I believe. The images I then got in my head were sickening and so unbelievably sad.
The picture of him proudly holding his mothers day present.
Please don't watch if you havent yet.
😢

I know, it really was a hard watch. Apparently the mother has been attacked in prison. Good!

So you really don't believe in the proper rule of law or justice?

People shouldn't be getting attacked anywhere - including in prison. It proves a failure of security and safety in the prison management of its population.