“must be” why exactly?
Still not making any kind of sense.
BBC:
Cathal Crotty, 22, attacked 24-year-old Natasha O’Brien, punching her six times, after she asked him to stop shouting homophobic abuse. Ms O’Brien’s injuries included a broken nose and bruising. She told the court she has suffered nightmares and panic attacks.
Crotty was given a three-year suspended sentence on Thursday. The judge described the attack as a “cowardly, vicious, unprovoked” assault. However, he said the defendant “must be given credit” for his guilty plea and told the court he had “no doubt” that if Crotty was jailed his army “career is over”.
Where is the “must” in “must be given credit” for pleading guilty? If it’s a legal “must” that’s one thing, but if it’s supposed to be a moral one – get out of here.
And as for fretting about the end of his army career – are you out of your MIND?
Does it not occur to this nightmare of a judge that armies don’t need or want soldiers who like to beat up random women for a hobby? That war crimes are not the goal? That recreational aggression is not the highway to solidiery excellence?
There’s that, but even more there’s the stomach-turning sympathy for the horrible man who wrecked a woman’s body and life, at the expense of the woman he smashed up.
The Irish Defence Forces, which has begun internal proceedings in relation to Crotty now that the court case is over, said it “unequivocally condemns any actions by serving personnel that are contrary to or do not reflect our values”. It added that “any conviction in a civilian court may have implications for the retention and service of members” of the defence forces.
Yesterday I thought they’d said they were starting the process of booting him out, but apparently not. They’re starting the process of considering what to do about him.
That’s an annoying paradox of the legal system, certainly in the US but apparently elsewhere as well. If you plead not guilty because you know you didn’t do it, but the prosecution manages to convince the jury otherwise (and then you don’t show any remorse because you have no reason to), you could well end up with a harsher sentence than if you were actually guilty, and so pleaded.
It isn’t as bad as that paragraph makes it sound. The internal proceedings referred to will be a court martial, which is a necessary procedure to dismiss a serving member of the military. There is no doubt that Crotty will receive a dishonourable discharge; there is also the possibility that he will be sentenced to serve time in a military prison prior to discharge if the court considers his crime deserves it, regardless of the civilian court’s sentence.
Ah, thanks AoS, good to know.
Yeah, I don’t know about the Irish version, but in the US if you discharge someone dishonorably without a court martial, they could win an appeal of the dishonorable discharge.