tim's experiment

The news that Mrs Kissel is to have a new trial is somehow cheering. Of course we cannot have married ladies doing away with inconvenient husbands who are an impediment to romance with the television repair man, if that is what happened. But after a while anyone caught up in the legal system looks like a victim, whatever they have done. The idea that some people can sentence others to spend a decade or two locked up is terrible. It may also be necessary, but not, surely, as often as you would think if you watched Hong Kong’s legal system in action.
It is interesting to contrast the muted reception to the news that there will be a new trial with the paroxysms of complaints about public waste which have greeted the five by-elections which we must not call a referendum. The Court of Final Appeal has now decided that the judge in the original trial made two important mistakes. In due course they were apparently overlooked by the Court of Appeal. So we have had three legal circuses so far without deciding anything, while Mrs Kissel, who may eventually be found to be innocent, has spent a few years in the bosom of the Correctional Services.
Of course you might see this as having improved her chances, in a way. As I recall the defence in the first trial was that the husband succumbed to homicidal rage on the same day as his wife had put a Mickey in his milkshake, which seems a bit of a coincidence. Nowadays, though, people feel differently about bankers. Before the financial meltdown one felt a bit of instinctive sympathy for Mr Kissel. Times have changed. Many of us, if offered an unsuspecting banker and a heavy ornament, would be happy to reduce the financial population a bit ourselves. I should think the prosecution in the new trial will be struggling to persuade the jury not to recommend a medal.