Provocation

The recent high-profile cases involving the defence of provocation have been the subject of much discussion and blogging. I don't intend to comment on the current/recent cases. Instead, I thought I'd briefly discuss the defence of provocation, because it's a complicated defence to get your head around. Clearly, I'm no expert on it (and this is very much an amateur's opinion) but I've been doing a bit of reading.

What's the deal with provocation?
Basically, a death (homicide) that would be murder, may be reduced to manslaughter if the person who caused the death did so under provocation. Provocation does not relate to any other offence - only murder.

Claiming 'provocation' does not alter the nature of the offence (e.g. it doesn't mean the accused is saying they didn't mean to commit murder, or that the killing was accidental). It means the accused acknowledges they did commit a murder, with intent to do so, but claims that they committed the act because they lost self control, due to being seriously provoked. The defence of provocation dates back to at least the 17 century. (The classic case is the crime of passion - like coming home to find your wife in bed with another man, and killing either/both of them.)

New Zealand legislation
In New Zealand - our criminal law is codified in the Crimes Act 1961 (basically, all of the possible crimes, defences etc have been collated in the one Act - this is handy). This is what the Crimes Act says about provocation (in s 169):

(2) Anything done or said may be provocation if—

• (a) in the circumstances of the case it was sufficient to deprive a person having the power of self-control of an ordinary person, but otherwise having the characteristics of the offender, of the power of self-control; and

• (b) it did in fact deprive the offender of the power of self-control and thereby induced him to commit the act of homicide.

Hhhmmm, that s169(2)(a) takes a bit of unpicking. So it's considered 'provocation' if it is sufficient to deprive a person of the power of the self control, and that person:

• has the power of self-control of an ordinary person,
  
• but otherwise has the characteristics of the offender.

The power of self-control of an ordinary person?
So, you start with a hypothetical ordinary New Zealander, with the ordinary power of self control.

But otherwise has the characteristics of the offender
And now you add the characteristics of the offender. Consideration is given to any particular characteristics possessed by the accused which may be relevant to the provocation. What is meant by characteristic? According to my reading, courts have ruled that a characteristic must be something:

'definite and of sufficient significance to make the offender a different person from the ordinary run of mankind, and also have a sufficient degree of permanence to warrant its being regarded as something constituting part of the individual's character or personality"

So, for example, a ready loss of temper, transitory moods of depression, intoxication, and excitability are not enough to be considered a characteristic. Characteristics that have stood up in court include the following (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Battered Woman's Syndrome: In the case of Gaye Oakes the Court of Appeal recognised the reality of the syndrome and its effects, and found that the heightened awareness to threats may be a 'characteristic' which could be taken into account
• Sexual abuse as a child: the lasting effects of which may mean an accused could have had a 'flashback; in which he interprets a male placing their hand on his thigh as a homosexual advance by his childhood abuser
• Post-traumatic stress disorder: where the accused had been subject to prolonged and serious domestic violence and suffered from post-traumatic stress
• Religious beliefs - where, for example, the accused is from a family with traditional religious family values
• Obsessive or narcissistic personality: two cases in NZ have found sufficient evidence for narcissistic personality to be considered a characteristic - including elements of an over-sensitivity to slights, insults or criticisms, and potential to over-react when not accorded respect.
  

If a 'mental peculiarity' is being suggested as a characteristic, then expert advice is necessary to support it.

Putting it together
You take the ordinary person above (with assumed self control) and then you add the special characteristics of the accused and their consequences, and then place him in the circumstances of the crime. Just to be clear - you cannot take into account how his special characteristics affect his self control, because we assume that he has the self-control of an ordinary person.

Whether the characteristic is relevant or not depends on its effect on the gravity of the provocation.

To come in the next post

• questions of law and questions of fact; judges and juries
• cumulative provocation
• onus of proof
• and some brief summaries of NZ cases involving provocation.
  

Puppies in the Window

Aww - wish I was going to be in town tomorrow. Go on - go and hug a puppy for me!

Life-long learning

I'm being a lazy trollop and am still in bed, with a cup of tea, while Morgan has gone off to the market to buy our weekly veggies. I'm listening to National Radio, and the discussion on the funding cuts to Adult and Community Education Classes.

Despite having done a number of courses at Wellington High, including my recent sewing course, I've largely ignored the recent announcement about the budget cuts. But, this radio programme is making me want to do something about it.

What is the problem?

In the May Budget, the National Government announced an 80% cut in the funding provided to schools throughout New Zealand to run night classes or Adult Community Education. In essence, this decision will spell the end to over 100 years of night classes in New Zealand.

“In 2010 all school ACE funding will be replaced with a new approach that reinvests approximately 20% of current school-based ACE funding to re-focussed priority areas, such as literacy and numeracy. It is likely that there will be only a small number of schools receiving ACE funding for 2010 and beyond'. (Budget 2009 Fact Sheet TEC Website)

No Consultation
The Adult and Community Education Sector didn't see this coming - there was no consultation with them.

Argh - what about our communities??? Over 220,000 New Zealanders attend night classes around NZ each year. There is a strong national existing infrastructure of people, resources and buildings. Schools have an infrastructure that encourages community participation - people look to their local school for learning opportunities. Of equal importance are the millions of dollars worth of assets a school has, that are available for community use outside regular school hours.

And what about this - All schools receiving ACE funding are required to give around 10% of their funding to local community groups to run courses, so groups like Citizens Advice Bureaux, Parent Help groups, Youthline, Women's Refuges, Budgeting Services now have to find $1.6M in funding.

The Kicker
Private schools (teaching just 3.5% of New Zealand students) are the biggest winners from National’s 2009 budget with a $35 million boost in funding on top of the $40 million they received under the previous government.

Write a letter

So anyway, I'm off to write a letter to Anne Tolley and John Key and anyone else who's obliged to pretend to read it and reply to me (hope they haven't cut all the bureucrats in TEC who will have to reply to these letters for them). You might like to do the same.

Email:

Anne Tolley - a.tolley@ministers.govt.nz

John Key - j.key@ministers.govt.nz

Or you can write a letter to them (for free - you don't have to pay postage). Just send it to: Name of MP/Minister, Parliament Buildings, Wellington 6160.

Links to other information

stopnightclasscuts.org

PPTA

Stuff

Hansard

Wholemeal bread

Mix these three ingredients together and leave for 5-10 minutes for the yeast to work.

½ cup warm water (quite warm if you’re using dried yeast)

1T sugar, any sort

20 gm fresh yeast, or 2T dried yeast. You can get fresh yeast from Moore Wilsons, in a fridge in the grocery section.

Then add:

½ litre of cold water

1T of salt

1 cup of kibbled wheat (I get this from the bulk bins at New World)

350 gms of white flour

400 gms of wholemeal flour

Mix it roughly and then knead for 10 mins if using a machine or 15 mins if doing it by hand. Whack into a container or bag and then leave it in the fridge of 12-24 hours. Bring it out, squash it, lightly knead it a bit more and then pop it into a loaf tin. Leave to rise for another 1½ - 2 hours.

Bake at 220 for 1 hour and 10 mins. Yummmo.

The recipe is from Jo at Careme Cooking Classes in Martinborough. I've halved it cos we only make and eat one loaf at a time :-)

Baking-yum-mo

A few pics of our latest bakingness. We've been making and eating our own bread for four weeks now. It's a lovely wholemeal bread that keeps really well (and I really should post the recipe sometime).

You mix it up, knead it for a bit, and then stick it in a container like this and whack it in the fridge overnight.


I really like this element of the recipe. It takes maybe 15 minutes to make and knead and then you don't have to spend hours waiting around for it to rise - you basically come back to it at some point in the next 24 hours when it is convenient to you.





Then you pull it out of the fridge, knead it for a few more minutes, and then whack it into a loaf tin and leave to rise for another 1-2 hours. It gets all puffy (and a few times it has grown so much it has overflowed the tin)







Then you bake it for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Your whole house will smell like warm, sweet bread. Cut off the crust while it is still hot, smother in butter and eat. Mmmm.









I find that it makes really good ham and cheese toasted sandwiches.

Mmmm Popcorn

*Frugalness Off*

We just bought tickets for the film fest. We're going to see:

Wendy and Lucy
Samson & Delilah
Balibo
Rachel
Everlasting Moments

So excited!

*Frugalness back on*

Massage Me

One of my greatest friends gave me exactly what I needed for my birthday - a gift voucher for a deluxe massage. I have just come back from a full 60 minutes of massage - and with that perfect level of pressure where it doesn't quite hurt, but it almost nearly does. I think I've really been needing that!

Now I'm so relaxed that I can even be bothered blogging!

A chore for every day

A kabillion years ago households had a fairly standard schedule of chores. A different chore for each day - so the work got done in a logical, orderly fashion as the week went on. The intraweb tells me that it went like this:

Monday: Wash Day
Tuesday: Ironing Day
Wednesday: Sewing Day
Thursday: Market Day
Friday: Cleaning Day
Saturday: Baking Day
Sunday: Day of Rest

We're already trying out the idea of a 'baking day', and it seems to be wrking okay so far. Meanwhile over on the simply savings website, one of the latest tips is to have set laundry days. Someone was trying to save time, rather than $, and used set laundry days as a way to save time. What she discovered was that it not only saved time, but saved money. I think largely as a result of fewer, but fuller, loads of washing. So we're going to give that a try too. However at present our schedule looks like this:

Saturday: Baking day, washing day, cleaning day

Sunday: Vege market day, supermarket day, ironing day.

It's a whole different world of days :)

Bread-o-rama

OMG - I have eaten so many bready-goodnesses today that I don't think I can face bread again for a while. It's unfortunate then (or maybe stoopid) that I have just finished kneading a loaf of wholemeal bread and have left it in the fridge to rise/ferment overnight. Morgue will have to eat it :-)

The hottie and I car-pooled to Carterton, where the Hebie fattened us up with homemade brioche suisse, pizza, wholemeal bread and biscuits. As we were forced to eat tray after tray of carbohydratey goodness, it became increasingly obvious that her intentions were malicious. The hottie and I looked at each other and, using only our eyebrows, concocted a plan to escape before she could fatten us up enough to eat us. I know, we are quite clever.

I made my own batches of carbohydratey goodness last night. Continuing on the theme of frugalness, efforts are being made to reduce the amount of $ spent on empty-calorie type foods and other stuff we can do without. However, the Morgue still needs snacks. So last night, I hotted up the oven and in one baking session manage to pump out:

• banana muffins
• chocolate chip biscuits
• carrot and pineapple cake
• roast veggies for dinner.

Not only was the oven energy put to good (and hopefully, efficient) use, but it heated our apartment for the evening as well. Unfortunately, I wasn't organised enough to have the bread dough ready to whack in it - so that'll have to wait till tomorrow. Anyway, I think it's working out that home baking is cheaper (and better for us?) than store bought - just as long as we do it all in a single session. I can totally see why households used to have a 'baking day'. Perfect cents!

Tightwads of clothes

So, I needed some new clothes for my winter wardrobe - spesh for work. But, you know, I've got that pesky budget thing going on. So, the gals and I trekked out to SaveMart in Waitangirua for some bargains. And if you don't mind the cold, and you have the energy to rummage, then there are definitely bargains to be had. I spent in the realm of $60 for clothes that I probably would have spent in the realm of $300 - $350 new. Not a bad bargain I say. I've worn each of my new items of clothing already this week and am fairly confident that I managed to sidestep dud purchases. This is good. (Especially cos I often make dud purchases, with much regret and slapping of forehead).

Anyway, you might think that spending $60 at Savemart blows my $30 per week budget. But no. Because budgets are like stomachs. You have separate ones for sweet treats.

Having said that, I only have $10 left to last me the rest of the week. It's gonna be a tight one....