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A COURT THAT CARES
Special treatment for the violent brother of a heroin smuggler:
Nguyen Tuong Van’s brother, Nguyen Khoa, repeatedly slashed a teenager with a samurai sword, seriously wounding the 17-year-old’s arm, buttock, ankle and left knee.
Khoa was sentenced to three years in jail for the 1998 attack, which resulted in the victim requiring plastic surgery. But County Court judge Meryl Sexton suspended the jail term because Khoa’s “personal situation ... (had) become so traumatic because of (his) brother’s situation”.
Details of Khoa’s conviction can be published today for the first time after Judge Sexton yesterday lifted a publication restriction imposed to avoid jeopardising Van’s plea for clemency ...
Judge Sexton said Van’s arrest resulted in “an increase in (the) level of (Khoa’s) maturity” but that he had relapsed into heroin use in 2003, possibly as a result of his brother’s arrest in Singapore.
Poor kid. Bad things just keep happening to him for some reason.
UPDATE. More here.
The very idea that this punk relapsed because his brother was arrested is preposterous. He relapsed because, as a heroin addict, he is prone to do so. It doesn’t take a traumatic event to cause this. The very fact of addiction is all that is needed. What he needs, for his addiction, is to get into treatment, which he can get in jail. Two birds with one stone. So, send him to jail and make sure he goes to the Narcotics Anonymous meetings they have in jail. How hard is that?
It’s bad luck. There’s a story from Radio Japan of a guy who drove a car into a railroad station, hitting several people, and then jumped out and began stabbing people at random.
Somebody apparently called the police on him.
Police reported that he said under questioning that no matter what he does, it never turns out well.
Gee and i wonder why the courts over there might think we are weak on drugs??
They may have in fact commited one of the worst acts they could have by delaying the brothers trial.
The law is a bit incestuous and i have little doubt the brothers “case pending” would have been learnt about.
Unless of course that was the evil neo-con/hoWARds intention all along ( Its my conspiracy go and find your own)Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 04 at 04:30 AM • permalinkSo this Khoa fellow slashes some guy and puts him in a wheelchair, gets a three year jail term that he doesnt have to serve? pfft.
I hope the evil prick overdoses on heroin and chokes to death on someone
elses vomit.Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 12 04 at 04:46 AM • permalinkThis bullshit line about repaying his brothers drug debt is really pissing me off.
If his brother is a loser junkie he would have got legal aid like all the other loser junkies. The judge sure treated him with the same kid gloves, and as usual the victim hardly rates a mention in the judicial system.
Even if some anamoly occured and he actualy paid his own legal bills, get a job like everyone else you loser!
Actually the antics of the Victorian Supreme Court Judge are exactly why I don’t support the death penalty. I wouldn’t trust most judges to mow my lawn let alone decide who lives and who dies.
But turning the junkie and his drug trafficking brother into victims is getting really old, real fast.
Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2005 12 04 at 04:53 AM • permalinkA question I have which may have some bearing on the behaviour of both Nguyen brothers.
Where is the father?
We hear a lot about their semi-English literate but what about dear old dad?
Anyone know whether he’s about or is the mother a widow?
Perhaps if there had been a stronger male role model the boys might have stayed on the straight and narrow.
Just a thought.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 12 04 at 04:54 AM • permalinkI agree Nora – conspicuous by his absence. There has not even been any mention of him. If he had simply left, or was killed in Vietnam, or never came with them or if the parents had divorced I’m sure they would have mentioned it. It makes you wonder if he was up to something decidedly less savoury.
Posted by Ralph Wiggum on 2005 12 04 at 05:06 AM • permalink#8. I read somewhere that the father is an American. Cant find the source sorry/.
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2005 12 04 at 05:14 AM • permalink#11 Thanks Deo.
I stand by the assertion that Van Nguyen achieved far more by his death than he may have ever done had he got away with his scheme or if his life had been spared.
Perhaps his brother will remain clean this time, perhaps his lawyers will find a threat of humanity, or heaven forbid, find some confort in religion.
We’ve not been guaranteed our ‘three score and ten’ on this planet, we should ensure that our existance counts for something good.
—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 12 04 at 05:29 AM • permalinkI am not too impressed either by judges conducting social experiments with such dangerous individuals.
In that first article linked I found this statement by Van’s lawyer a to be a little ironic:
“And what we want Khoa to do is take inspiration from his brother, not guilt, and move forward and carve out a life for himself in a way that his brother would want him to.”I always wondered about this “importing heroin to pay off his brother’s drug debts”
story. Suppose drug debts $100,000 (just for the sake of argument). How much was the smuggled heroin to fetch? EXACTLY $100,000?
Bit of a coincidence.
Maybe $80,000? Well, illegal enforcers wouldn’t be thrilled to be short-changed $20,000.
So, for the sake of argument, maybe bring in a bundle worth $150,000 just to be on the safe side? And if so, what was to happen to the spare change?# 8 - Nora - the father is dead as far as I recall; I believe there was a not entirely satisfactory step-father for a time, but that ended, after, probably, only a few years. I have not read any family details closely, so this is just for skimming newspapers, and is thus subject to error or correction. For the most part the boys were raised by their mother.
Irrespective of your stance on the death penalty, I believe a lot of the “good boy” stories would be tempered a little if people saw the arms of both brothers absolutely covered in tattoos.
You will notice Khoa was always wearing a long sleeved shirt where everybody (including officials) nearby were wearing short sleeves in the hot Singapore weather. Some things just don’t help perceptions. Like tattoos or sword-wielding slashers…
“He might look calm and serene, but that’s not the real Khoa”
Quite.
#13 “Perhaps his brother will remain clean this time”
Nope. he will die of an overdose, he is a junkie - they don’t get their act together.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2005 12 04 at 06:41 AM • permalinkpercypup - probably a tad irrelevant at this point. All the same, I don’t think there would be too many dealers letting a user run up a $1000 debt, let alone $100 K, so there was undoubtedly something else going on. It’s not as though a dealer ever needs to desperately hold onto their clients by giving them ANY credit - there’s always a long queue of others, with cash in hand. Besides, what kind of idiot dealer would trust a junkie to REPAY $10, let alone $100 K?
Perhaps the ABC will have another minute’s silence for the sword damage.
Posted by Jim Geones on 2005 12 04 at 11:00 AM • permalinkAnd what we want Khoa to do is take inspiration from his brother, not guilt, and move forward and carve out a life for himself in a way that his brother would want him to.
Carve out? Bit of a Freudian slip there.
BTW how is the carved-up victim doing these days, judge?
His father was American? I know there was a way we could pin this on the evil Amerikka!
The only way a drug user ever turns his life around is to hit bottom, where he is forced to face the fact that his life is absolute sh*t, and he has no choice but to kick the habit for good or die. A very important part of hitting bottom is being forced to pay for your crimes and mistakes. That judge did Khoa (and society in general) no favors by letting him go free. Being lenient with people like that is a misguided social policy that has been allowed to prevail for far too long.
Compare this ‘family discount court’ with Phillip Adams’ opinion of a brutal union enoforcer who has served time for murder, as well as being suspected of killing his wife, intent to kill, bodily harm, receiving proceeds of crime etc.
Adams describes this communist union mate Billy ‘The Texan’ Longley as ‘highly ethical; in his own terms, honourable, crtainly courageous. It’s just that he lived in another universe’.So does Phillip, who can’t bring himself to use such endearing terms of the Texan Bush’s or John Howard’s ‘universe’.
The immoralism of the Left is stupefying.How soft is Judge Meryl Sexton? Well when the crims start asking for harsher penalties…
When asked by Judge Meryl Sexton if he agreed to serve a community-based order, Armitage said through his lawyer Paul Duggan that he thought the sentence was not enough. “He feels he deserves more. It’s a bizarre situation.”
Ah, crash, and then you don’t know Judge Judy. True, she’s just a television personality now, and she never handled criminal cases, but hers is the best Bullsh*t Detector on the planet, and she’s not afraid to name bullsh*t when she sees it.
Barrie
read that one. Notice how everyone is his friend? What? is he the most obsequous lickspittle on radio? Is that the qualifications for a career at the ABC.
At least until they cark it when he will “magicaly” find out something which will shock him.
He did the same trick to a fellow who was a vietnam special forces fellow, best mates until he died, then shat on him. Addams is a publicly funded disgrace who should be forced off the public tit.Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2005 12 04 at 09:08 PM • permalinkOh yeah Rebecca H I forgot Judge Judy -but isn’t she the exception?
Philip Adams-star capitalist advertising whizz wunderkind then rejected it (not the money of course).
Star Chairman Mao follower to the extent of wearing the uniform-supposedly rejected it.
Communist party member-supposedly rejected it.Farmer-lives in Paddo..
Star atheist who never stops talking about God and himself being an atheist.
Friend of the friendless—has no friends.Barrie (#25) - it gives you more insight into how the left can support brutal dictators. As long as they are generally on your side then they will trawl and trawl and trawl for some good qualities they can point to as justification for why they should be admired in some way. If you are not on their side it doesn’t matter what you do - you’re a fascist.
As for the Nguyen case generally - do people get the sense that we will find out more and more about what the brothers ( or at least one of them) were into when the funeral is over and people won’t feel compelled to elevate them to tragi-hero status.
Nora, I think it was The Aged that a week before the hanging had a timeline of Van’s life. One of the few occasions this year that I actually coughed up the $1.20 for it.
It mentioned that Kim was separated from the father, and the boys were born in a refugee camp. There is also a bit in the Hun that says the same sort of thing. No mention of nationality (sorry), but I’m convinced that if the father was American then that card would have been played for all its worth.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 12 05 at 07:55 AM • permalink#38 - I’m sure they were born in Cambodian refugee camp; have read that numerous times, but by the time they arrived here it was just the mum & the babies. I kinda gather that “dad” didn’t stick around for long - not sure if he even stayed long enough for them to be born. Under all of these circumstances his nationality is neither here nor there. Can’t say that I understand why it would matter in the least if he were an American or an Alpaca, but perhaps some people would have made something of it…
They were born in a refugee camp in Thailand. dad was a Vietnamese refugee who didn’t stick around with mum and the boys. While they came to Australia, he went to the USA.
Mum later married in Australia, but the stepdad was a real piece of work.
Does this excuse Khoa’s drug habit and violence, and Van’s drug trafficking? Fuck no. Other people with shittier backgrounds pick themselves up by their bootstraps.
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2005 12 06 at 07:00 AM • permalink
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The hoWARd Junta took Khoa’s sword? This is flagrant racism! Swords (and heroin dealing) are part of this poor boy’s cultural experiential/paradigm and is something that ALL of us in Australia should tolerate - this isnt something that we as a community should frown on - in fact it’s something we should celebrate.
Lighten up facists!!