I can't understand why a trial needs to occur in any DEFINITELY guilty cases? Like Josef Fritzl?

Fair or not, we KNOW some people are guilty and that means they shouldn't have any defense. I don't understand why truth is not important in some cases but it's rather how well evidence is presented. It's not a freaken game!I can't understand why a trial needs to occur in any DEFINITELY guilty cases? Like Josef Fritzl?
He could avoid a trial by pleading guilty of all charges. Then it would be up to a judge to impose his sentence.


But that sort of thing usually comes from some kind of plea bargaining for a reduced sentence, and no prosecutor is going to want that. A trial would guarantee that once done, he is going to get the maximum penalty allowed for his terrible crimes.I can't understand why a trial needs to occur in any DEFINITELY guilty cases? Like Josef Fritzl?
We need to uncover the truth about what happened.Knowing that he is guilty is not enough. We need to see the evidence so that we can see exactly what he has done, even though the defense may try and twist the facts to get him off - that's their job.


The other side of the coin is that sometimes we 'know' someone is guilty because they fit the profile, and are not a very nice person anyway and may even have done similar crimes, but in a particular case might be innocent. If we just convict without trial there would be many more miscarriages of justice than there are with the jury system. Also who are we going to appoint to decide? The present system is flawed, but it's probably the best of a bad lot. There's no perfect solution, I'm afraid.
he may be definetley guilty, but that's not really the point. It is up to the judge and a jury to make that decision, after hearing all the evidence, and assessing WHY this took place. Only this way can justice be served. After all, given what we know, he'd just get time for rape and imprisonment...more could come out in a trial, extending his sentance, or causing him to be booked in for mental treatment... We base our judgements on the media, whish isn't really an unbiased view, is it. No it's not a game, but this is how justice works in a democracy...innocent until proven guilty...
Didn't you know that we are supposed to be modern upstanding people?


We couldn't go back to the bad old days!


We are an advanced people with morals and ideals.


This is our world.


Justice is in the mind of the beholder.


We can only do what can't be seen.


Ask your president what that means.
Can you base your judgement of his guilt on media stories?


From what I have seen or read he seems to be guilty of rape and imprisonment but I'm not a judge or on a potential jury.


If YOU were accused of something wouldn't YOU want a chance to defend yourself?
I say that you are his accomplice.





If enough people agree with me, you'll SCREAM for a fair trial.





If he's guilty, IF. . .then he'll get convicted.





If he isn't convicted, you should go to jail for inciting to riot.
In this case wouldn't it be nice to lock him in that dungeon %26amp; throw down food until he dies? But it would make us as bad as him. I guess the same could be said for having a fair trial.
as i've said before to a whole lot of these posts the hype needs to be directed in the right direction. firstly what i want to know is why time and time again are authorities giving perpertrators rights over victims. This man raped a women before his daughter, was only given 18 months for it, got to adopt kids the same gender as the women he raped which i think is really sick, has his criminal record removed after only five years, since his daughter ran away twice b4 the dungeon episode was returned to her family by the police ( if his criminal record had been available) maybe this wouldnt have happened. and is allowed to build a dungeon like cellar if a rapist told me he wanted to build a sound proof room underground i certainly wouldn't think his intentions were good. didn't have his privacy invaded. since clearly rapists have a right to privacy too must be what the austrian authorities think. yeah right privacy to hurt and torture people. sadly this is another case of authorities being to lenient with people. i mean if one was austrian and raped somone at 20 the most one would get is 15 years (yes its completely shocking that the maximum sentence in austria is 15 years for sex crimes) this person would be out at 35 at most by which time they would have learnt that the next time they must do it so that they do not get caught. i think people all over the world should start protesting about these ';enabling laws'; that enable perpertrators of these crimes to get away with their deeds until they do something really horrific. i mean its happening everywhere all over the world time and time again you here some peadophile has done something really awful killed, raped or tortured children and then you hear but wait this guy had a previous conviction for a similar crime before he did this terrible thing and was given a light slap on the wrist the first time. if any good is to come out of this the authorities and law makers of the world will start waking up and realising if they jail these people the first time for lengthy periods in order for justice to the original victims as well as preventing future victims. why are laws being made for pedophiles. i mean its like the average pedophile gets to hurt at least two or three kids before he actually gets a tough sentence. and as for the daughter she was raped from the age of 11, ran away twice and was returned home to her parents by the police, was drugged, made to give birth without any medical care or attention. the poor women was probably mentally and physically exhausted, that she managed to last that long without dying is a tribute to her survival instinct. it has to do with perpertrators not being jailed so that they cannot hurt multiple women and children. since it happens in south africa (which is where i live) too. and the perpertrators in most cases have previous records. whats going on is that laws help the perpertrators all over the world. and this line of thinking is archaic and needs to be changed since clearly its not working if one jailed perpertrators for lengthy periods they wouldnt be able to hurt all their victims and recreate the cycle of abuse. i mean in most cases these people have prior records and the victims many of them don't receive help i mean this guy fritzl was on the loose for 30 years who knows which other women he raped and killed??? besides going to thailand where he probably abused kids and women there as well and those people will never receive help for it. i really think a petition should be started in order to demand perpertrators be jailed for long times. its like a war against women and chilldren the UN should get involved instead of milling around worrying abt issues that are not as important and an international law should be passed that states that pedophiles be jailed for 50 years mininum for the 1st offence. thats what would be the best tribute to elisabeth changing laws that would help prevent anybody else from going through the trauma she did. i'm sure if one asked her now what she would have wanted, would have been the police not returning her to a rapist, her dad's criminal record to have been known regular visits from social workers while she was still young letting the kids know abt thier dads previous conviction and looking at the kids welfare just to check if he wasn't doing the same thing again. also maybe she would have wanted this record clearing thing to be removed since if it had been known when she was reported as a missing person interpol would have had access to it and questioned her father and maybe inspected their home and seen the cellar. what the austrian authorities did and many authorities all over the world was in effect inhibiting the progress of the case by removing the record. time and time again the authorities could have saved her if laws hadn't been in place protecting the father. i have to agree with the above person in south africa babies are raped, a nine month old kid, every thiry seconds a women is raped as i said before this is the official statistic, this one guy who was in court recently raped 100 women. this one guy hacked a kids head off and he had prior convictions for chopping a girl's finger off. The heinous crime is the laws which enable these people to be out on the streets and protected from people finding out and exposing their innocent children, who are defenseless to these kinds of people. so i think that people should start waking up i mean go research a lot of these cases and in most of them the first time the guy was caught for something he was given an easy ride. i think that the laws need to be changed to start protecting people who are victims and not pedophiles instead of the other way around. i think the reason the authorities don't want to tell the world rosmarie knew or investigate the possibility is that they are concerned abt elisabeth's mental health. i mean while she is still recovering imagine the mental shock and blow to her it would be if they confirm her mother knew that would be like absolute betrayal and possibly put her into a guilt mode since most child abuse victims feel and are encouraged by the abuser to feel that it is their fault. so i think they want her to recover a little bit even if she relies on the witch of her mother to get her out of the dark place shes in now. cos i mean if they remove her mother from the scenario theres no one really elisabeth can open up to and trust besides the doctors. i think they letting her (elizabeth ) think this that her mother is innocent in order to let her cope with the mental and physical devastation reaked on her by her father first. i really don't think she'll recover( or have a hard time recovering) at this present stage if they reveal her mother knew. i mean its obvious to anyone with a brain that the mother knew or suspected at least that their was something fishy abt the cellar. also why did she keep the fact away from her kids that he was a rapist maybe they had it planned all along that the only way he would stay with her is if he got to abuse the kids. i mean human curosity dictates that at least once especially when he way away in thailand that she would go and check whats going on in this mysterious cellar i mean her husband wasn't around to ban her then. i mean if it were me i can understand the talk of her being afraid of him and blah blah blah. but i mean for four weeks she doesn't check the cellar while hes away. i think she knew. also why didn't she ever suspect anything i mean he disappears to the cellar and babies appear i mean surely he would have needed to go down to the cellar get the babies first and then put the kids where they could be found (how did he manage this three times unless she was helping) what i think happened is that he would probably drug elisabeth on those days so that she wasn't aware of anything have the mom come down with him and take the kids and then voila to the outside world they claim their daughter left a grandchild. also she seemed not to be worried and not actively searching for elisabeth most mothers of kids who disappear never give up searching. also it says that he phoned her pretending to be elisabeth how could she be fooled surely she knew what he daughter sounded like. i think it was an elaborate plot so that she could hold on to her no good husband they probably even made a pact that if he was discovered he wouldn't tell anyone she was involved in exchange for helping him. i mean in the year and a half that he was away for rape why didn't she divorce him???i think they need to give him life and also in order to make sure that they learnt from the past and protect future children stop making the laws so damn good for perpertrators and charge the mom with failure to act or inform i mean she could have at least let it slip to interpol when they reported the msiing persons case that oh by the way josef has two convictions for sex crimes, and informed her daughters that way when elisabeth was abused she would have known not to be ashamed and could have gotten help at eleven i mean apparently it says that b4 elisabeth was kidnapped her father was always taking her out alone on forest trips and stuff (raping her) then the very same daughter disappears and she doesn't question anything when the three babies also appear and the cellar thing she should be charged once elisabeth recovers as well. the laws must be changed i mean this guy also got to travel i mean a rapist getting to go to thailand where there are tons of unsuspecting poor women and children who must have been easy bait for this man. also i mean the mom even if lets say she didn't know and im being generous here what sort of a mother lets her unsuspecting daughters live with a rapist?? thats a crime in itself and also i'm sure if anything happened to elizabeth he was probably planning to abuse the other daug