My first brother just called from overseas! At last! I have not heard from him in months, as everytime he called (or my parents called him), I would be either on the phone or out, thus I seldom have the chance to talk to him lately. It is good to hear from him. He is one person I know who has one of the best senses of humour, and is the only one in the family who is effectively bilingual.
That is why he is majoring in Media Communications, first in English at the University of New South Wales in Perth, and now in Chinese at the Shanghai International University as he hopes to be a broadcast journalist. No wonder he is taking such a long time to graduate. Perhaps he can join the likes of Cheryl Fox and Jamie Yeo. Incidentally, did I ever mention that Cheryl Fox was my senior in secondary school?
My youngest brother just told me he flunked his General Paper examination. What a disappointment! After all the essays I helped him with, he still flunked! Maybe that is saying a lot about me as a teacher. :-p He claimed he is not linguistically-inclined, that is why he chose subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Economics, but still, one does not get to be chosen for a Scrabble competition if one's English is not up to the mark, especially for a student in an English-speaking mission school like himself.
I always enjoyed talking to my first brother, as he shares my interest in criminology and mystery. I got him started on Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, and he got me started on Kindaichi. We started discussing the series of murders that have been taking place recently. Topmost on my mind is the murder of the poor China lady, who, unfortunately, the police still could not find some parts of her body. The supervisor who was accused of murdering her is still under police custody, yet there was still no concrete evidence.
The other case is the murder of the poor little China girl. Her rapist-cum-murderer is now standing trial. Despite changing his statements and running away from the police, he still had his father defending him. I think he should just be hanged for his crimes, as he clearly shows no remorse over the whole thing.
Now the question is, is it right to hang a guy for murder? Should you take away someone's life just because he took away another person's life? In Britain and most American states, capital punishement has been abolished. The worse punishment is life imprisonment, and in certain countries, a "life" imprisonment constitutes only ten years or so. In Singapore, before 1997, the maximum term for a life imprisonment was twenty-five years. After 1997, the law was changed so life imprisonment now literally means life imprisonment.
But why are some murderers sent to life imprisonment in the first place since Singapore still has capital punishement? It depends on the type of murder and the situation. If there is an intention, ie the murder was premeditated, and it was proven without doubt that the murderer had every intention to kill and still show no remorse, then he would be sentenced to death with no appeals.
However, if there was no intention and the person was killed accidentally in a brawl, then normally, it would be classified as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and the murderer (?) would then be sentenced to a minimal jail term. But if it was culpable homicide amounting to murder, ie the murder was unintentional but after knowing the person was already dead the murderer still tried strangling or stabbing or chopping, then he would be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Someone asked me this a few days ago : If a person commits murder by poisoning someone and if a person commits murder by killing someone and chopping up the body, who will suffer the heavier penalty? The answer : The person who murders by poisoning someone. People can argue : Why? Isn't it more brutal to kill someone and still chops up the body?
Yes, it is more brutal to kill and the chop the body up. But the fact is that if you poison someone, it means you already had the intention of killing the person. So if the person dies after being poisoned, the penalty is death as the intention was there and it was premeditated. However, a person who kills and chops up the body may not have the intention to kill in the first place. He may have accidentally killed the victim, then not knowing how to dispose of the evidence, he just chopped the body into pieces and threw them into the nearest canal or river, hoping for the water to wash away all the evidence.
But if people want to commit murder in the first place (not that I am condoning the actions as I think murdering people is a very cold-blooded thing to do), then they should think of a better way to get rid of the evidence, rather than leaving clues here and there for the police to catch up to them. If I ever commit a murder (not that I ever will), I will make sure I get rid of the body and evidence and no one will ever know it was me who did it.
Like what the late Dame Christie will say (in the words of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple), "If I am to commit a murder, I will make sure it is planned in such a way that no one can ever link me to the murder." But then, law and justice is always fair. A cold-blooded murderer will eventually be caught up and get his just deserts. So I guess even the best-laid plans of mice and men can fail if the law ever catches up to you.
That is why he is majoring in Media Communications, first in English at the University of New South Wales in Perth, and now in Chinese at the Shanghai International University as he hopes to be a broadcast journalist. No wonder he is taking such a long time to graduate. Perhaps he can join the likes of Cheryl Fox and Jamie Yeo. Incidentally, did I ever mention that Cheryl Fox was my senior in secondary school?
My youngest brother just told me he flunked his General Paper examination. What a disappointment! After all the essays I helped him with, he still flunked! Maybe that is saying a lot about me as a teacher. :-p He claimed he is not linguistically-inclined, that is why he chose subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Economics, but still, one does not get to be chosen for a Scrabble competition if one's English is not up to the mark, especially for a student in an English-speaking mission school like himself.
I always enjoyed talking to my first brother, as he shares my interest in criminology and mystery. I got him started on Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie, and he got me started on Kindaichi. We started discussing the series of murders that have been taking place recently. Topmost on my mind is the murder of the poor China lady, who, unfortunately, the police still could not find some parts of her body. The supervisor who was accused of murdering her is still under police custody, yet there was still no concrete evidence.
The other case is the murder of the poor little China girl. Her rapist-cum-murderer is now standing trial. Despite changing his statements and running away from the police, he still had his father defending him. I think he should just be hanged for his crimes, as he clearly shows no remorse over the whole thing.
Now the question is, is it right to hang a guy for murder? Should you take away someone's life just because he took away another person's life? In Britain and most American states, capital punishement has been abolished. The worse punishment is life imprisonment, and in certain countries, a "life" imprisonment constitutes only ten years or so. In Singapore, before 1997, the maximum term for a life imprisonment was twenty-five years. After 1997, the law was changed so life imprisonment now literally means life imprisonment.
But why are some murderers sent to life imprisonment in the first place since Singapore still has capital punishement? It depends on the type of murder and the situation. If there is an intention, ie the murder was premeditated, and it was proven without doubt that the murderer had every intention to kill and still show no remorse, then he would be sentenced to death with no appeals.
However, if there was no intention and the person was killed accidentally in a brawl, then normally, it would be classified as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and the murderer (?) would then be sentenced to a minimal jail term. But if it was culpable homicide amounting to murder, ie the murder was unintentional but after knowing the person was already dead the murderer still tried strangling or stabbing or chopping, then he would be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Someone asked me this a few days ago : If a person commits murder by poisoning someone and if a person commits murder by killing someone and chopping up the body, who will suffer the heavier penalty? The answer : The person who murders by poisoning someone. People can argue : Why? Isn't it more brutal to kill someone and still chops up the body?
Yes, it is more brutal to kill and the chop the body up. But the fact is that if you poison someone, it means you already had the intention of killing the person. So if the person dies after being poisoned, the penalty is death as the intention was there and it was premeditated. However, a person who kills and chops up the body may not have the intention to kill in the first place. He may have accidentally killed the victim, then not knowing how to dispose of the evidence, he just chopped the body into pieces and threw them into the nearest canal or river, hoping for the water to wash away all the evidence.
But if people want to commit murder in the first place (not that I am condoning the actions as I think murdering people is a very cold-blooded thing to do), then they should think of a better way to get rid of the evidence, rather than leaving clues here and there for the police to catch up to them. If I ever commit a murder (not that I ever will), I will make sure I get rid of the body and evidence and no one will ever know it was me who did it.
Like what the late Dame Christie will say (in the words of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple), "If I am to commit a murder, I will make sure it is planned in such a way that no one can ever link me to the murder." But then, law and justice is always fair. A cold-blooded murderer will eventually be caught up and get his just deserts. So I guess even the best-laid plans of mice and men can fail if the law ever catches up to you.
0 comments:
Post a Comment