Azaria Chamberlain taken by dingo

[frigidhell]

So, after 32 years of living a miserable life and that everybody thinks they have murdered their own daughter, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton and her ex-husband Michael Chamberlain were able to clear their names.

A coroner said that Azaria was taken and killed by a dingo. If it were true, then the parents have suffered a lot due to the loss of their daughter and the criticisms they receive from people around them for 32 years.

I just read the news from BigPond website.

[FryzieDelta]

Meanwhile, in the land of things people should be caring about instead of a 32 year old case, an Australian lawyer and 3 other court staff have been detained by the rebels in Libya.

[DarkMellie]

Fryzie, if you follow that logic, why is it so important that they're Australians being held? Surely there are more tragic things in the world today than that?

Azaria Chamberlain's death has been an Australian mystery for almost as long as I've been alive... although I don't find this finding any more final than the last one.

They should seriously just leave the damn case alone, if it can't be proven by now, it just can't be proven.

[Marius]

Meanwhile, in the land of things people should be caring about instead of a 32 year old case, an Australian lawyer and 3 other court staff have been detained by the rebels in Libya.

Given they were jailed for several years as an injustice, no, it's much more significant than a simple hostage situation. Being locked away in your own country for a crime you didn't commit is really bad. They can never get those years back, or their daughter.

[FryzieDelta]

Fryzie, if you follow that logic, why is it so important that they're Australians being held? Surely there are more tragic things in the world today than that?

Only one of them is Australian. It is an immediate situation concerning one of our citizens, as well as the citizens of other countries. That is important to me because I'm Australian. If I was Ethiopian I wouldn't give a damn, but I'm not. This is something that is happening now.

A 32 year old case which is too old to have any trustworthy evidence anymore suddenly being overturned... well yeah, I don't understand it. I understand the significance of the case but I just don't see how a judgement can be made, whether beyond reasonable doubt or on the balance of probability, on something so long after the fact that completely negates the previous verdict. Physical evidence would have deteriorated to the point of near uselessness, and anyone's memories of the event would have varied over that period too.

[Marius]

What's also happening right now is people in Australian jails who have received life sentences for crimes they haven't committed. Sure, it's not a high number, but statistically it's inevitable. Such discoveries are routinely made.

How to spot those cases after 30 years+ is an extremely important issue for our justice system. And it's not good enough to just say "Meh, the evidence has deteriorated, no point reopening the case" when there is a real, innocent person behind bars. So I don't think that's the right approach to take to 30-year old cases.

[Helelix]

Meanwhile, in the land of things people should be caring about instead of a 32 year old case, an Australian lawyer and 3 other court staff have been detained by the rebels in Libya.

I agree with this. The news these days is ****. Ive found that the only decent source of news is either World News Australia on SBS (when I watch tv) or the Internet. Everything else is sub-par with channels 9 and 7 pulling news out of dog **** and then showing 15 mins of sport (during their 6PM broadcasts) instead of actually telling the public the important things that are happening in the world.

/rant

Edit: Replying to Marius' post:

How to spot those cases after 30 years+ is an extremely important issue for our justice system.

Except that's not what the media report on. Instead they just go on and on about family's being broken and emotions and ****. Which is nothing of relevance to anyone. ever.

[Dean]

How to spot those cases after 30 years+ is an extremely important issue for our justice system. And it's not good enough to just say "Meh, the evidence has deteriorated, no point reopening the case" when there is a real, innocent person behind bars. So I don't think that's the right approach to take to 30-year old cases.

But! Evidence does deteriorate, or is disposed of per various Acts and Regs. People's memories fade, media used to record interviews fails. None of this ideal, however it is to be expected after lengthy periods of time.

Holding an inquest after 3 decades srsly flawed.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Meanwhile, in the land of things people should be caring about instead of a 32 year old case, an Australian lawyer and 3 other court staff have been detained by the rebels in Libya.

Dare I say that if it was you in that same position, you'd want your name exonerated and the facts cleared up 32 years after the event.

And just because the Chamberlain case made front page news doesn't mean people necessarily care less about the lawyer in Libya. And was it the rebels in Libya? I was under the impression that the rebels are actually the government now. You know, the ones we backed.

[FryzieDelta]

I'd probably actually just want the thing over and done with. That's provided I didn't do anything to actually deserve being in prison in retaliation for being wrongfully convicted.

Forgive me for the error, the news refered to them as rebels and there is a 6 month gap in my knowleage of current events due to lack of TV signal in my last location and refusal to use my home computer for anything work related.

[Nekosan]

I'm not sure I buy any verdict passed down after this many years, by the time any real police officer hit that crime scene it was probably so contaminated that the entire place was useless.

As far as I'm concerned they're just closing it out so they don't have to put up with it any more, it was too long ago and there was too little evidence to say either way what happened, we aren't talking about using modern techniques on old DNA evidence or anything like that, they just wanted it closed.

Cracks me up in the first place that people are shocked that a dingo could possibly take a child, they might look like dogs but they're the land based apex-predator for this continent, the only amazing thing is that MORE people don't have serious problems with them.