A Pardon is Overturned

Going to Jail

There is a case here in Spain that has troubled a number of people for a long time. The outline is as follows:

In 2003, a man finds himself driving the wrong way along the highway, and he does this for five kilometres. We are not given any idea as to why this happened, such as drunkeness or impairment due to drugs or tiredness. He comes to a sudden halt when he runs headfirst into a car driven by a 25 year old young man. The impact kills that young driver.

The wrong-way driver, that we call here a kamikaze, is found guilty and sentenced to a 13 year jail term, but his lawyers manage to keep him out of jail for nine years when they finally ran out of options and he began to serve his sentence.

After serving only ten months the justice department, through the minister grants him a pardon from serving any more time, and he pays a 4,000 euro fine, and he is free. The public and his family were outraged because they saw a number of factors that may have come together to provide him with such favourable treatment. They saw this as corruption and a miscarriage of justice. They appealed the pardon to the Supreme Court which agreed and over-ruled the it.

The man is still free as the government has three months to either decide to accept the ruling as it stands, in which case he goes back to prison to complete his sentence, or they can confirm the pardon under circumstances that eliminate the doubtful environment that existed at the time.

We must bear in mind that the life of a young man was snuffed out through circumstances that were avoidable. That young man is still dead.

Has Justice been served or made a fool of, that is the question?

Copyright (c) 2013  Eugene Carmichael