
House of Lords debates pardon for Alan Turing - scoot
http://bbc.co.uk/democracylive/house-of-lords-23378209
======
pinchyfingers
The bigger issue here is that people look to governments and religions for
pardons, permission and other validation. People that see some kind of meaning
in empty gestures like a posthumous pardon (after shaming and chemically
castrating the man) are grossly mislead.

Buying into the hype of government is what gives governments the power to
commit senseless crimes like what was done to Alan Turing and many, many
crimes that are much worse. The correct answer to "should the UK government
pardon Alan Turing?" is "fuck off".

I view the gay marriage issue in the same light. I have gay friends that care
deeply about marriage equality, but as much as I love them and they are my
friends, I simply cannot sympathize. My answer to them is: "Live your life, do
want you want to do, don't ask the government or anyone else for permission".

If worried about my status as defined by the U.S. government and the fairness
I can expect from U.S. government, I would just kill myself now. Thankfully I
realize that government is just another scam for me to avoid to the best of my
ability.

~~~
jorgeortiz85
This is psychotic. In the literal sense of having lost contact with reality.

As much as you dislike the government, you can't just ignore how incredibly
powerful it is in people's daily lives. The incidents of legally recognized
marriage are very real and very significant. I've met many families separated
(or threatened with separation) by immigration law that didn't recognize same-
sex couples. No amount of saying "fuck off" to the government is going to
change whether you're family members will be allowed to live in the same
country as you.

In the case of Alan Turing, no amount of him saying "fuck off" to the
government could prevent them from criminalizing his relationship and
chemically castrating him. The UK government issuing a pardon is a overdue
recognition that they instituted a campaign on suffering on many people, one
of whom hand a significant part in saving the country from the Nazis.

~~~
commandar
>The incidents of legally recognized marriage are very real and very
significant. I've met many families separated (or threatened with separation)
by immigration law that didn't recognize same-sex couples.

A real-world example of this with a name HN readers will recognize is Glenn
Greenwald.

Greenwald has lived in Brazil for the past several years because his partner
is Brazilian and Brazil recognizes same-sex relationships for immigration
purposes while the United States does not.

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taybin
They should pardon all the people convicted under that law. Not just the
famous, useful ones.

~~~
mindstab
I believe they plan to, and that is what is being debated, they are just using
Alan Turing as the most famous example of an deceased person that should be
pardoned.

~~~
jlgreco
I believe this is the bill they are debating, it seems specific to Alan
Turing:
[http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/alanturingstatut...](http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/alanturingstatutorypardon.html)
(tangent: this is a pretty neat site, does anybody know if there is similar
for US Congress?)

~~~
Caerus
[http://www.govtrack.us/](http://www.govtrack.us/)

For example, the most recent immigration bill:
[http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s744](http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s744)

~~~
jlgreco
Very cool, thanks!

------
MereInterest
If I remember correctly, the last time this came up, they gave a good reason
for not pardoning him. They knew that he was innocent, and that the government
of the time had wronged him. Still, they refused to give a pardon. Not because
they agreed with the actions against Turing, but because they felt that
pardoning him would be an attempt to cover up their mistreatment of him.

They refused to pardon him, because it was their shame to know how wrongly
they had acted, and they would not hide that shame.

~~~
dyno12345
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16919012](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16919012)

The explanation given was that the law was wrong, not that he hadn't broken it
so as to have a pardon, and you can't posthumously commute a sentence

~~~
thejsjunky
> not that he hadn't broken it so as to have a pardon

Reasoning I find confusing. A pardon is by definition something given to
people convicted of breaking the law. It _can_ be and is sometimes used as a
relief for people who have been __-wrongly- __convicted if there is no other
mechanism (or just because it 's easier), but that's not implied or required.

Is this some difference between US and UK law?

~~~
estel
The argument would be that he wasn't wrongly convicted.

By modern standards it's obviously a stupid, unjust and immoral law that he
was convicted under; but if he was correctly found guilty under the laws of
the time, then it was a sound conviction.

~~~
thejsjunky
Pardons are a general tool to forgive (in several senses) a crime. If you look
at the history of pardons in the US for example, you'll find examples ranging
from people who were wrongly convicted, to people who got one as a reward for
cooperating in investigations, to people who simply had powerful friends.

Which is why I find that reasoning confusing - when you pardon someone, you
just do it... and if you care to give a reason you can.

Perhaps it's different in the UK? Is this some limitation on the powers of the
House of Lords?

~~~
dyno12345
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_Kingdom)

Pardons are extraordinarily rare in the UK and normally only granted for
misapplication of the law

~~~
thejsjunky
The article seems to say the opposite:

'It is the standard policy of the Government to only grant pardons to those
who are considered "morally" innocent of the offence, as opposed to those who
may have been wrongly convicted by a misapplication of the law.'

It also mentions that in 1996 there was a pardon given as a "reward for
information".

~~~
dyno12345
It seems to say both that it is and it isn't at different points

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tome
Shouldn't all people punished under criminalization of homosexuality be
retrospectively pardoned?

~~~
DanBC
This is possibly why Turing isn't pardoned - it'll open the doors for all the
(living) homosexuals who were convicted to make compensation claims.

~~~
Recoil42
And they should be able to do exactly that.

~~~
autodidakto
And the fact that haven't means it isn't about justice after all.

------
rmc
If it was wrong to prosecute Alan Turing for being gay, and right to pardon
him, then they should pardon every other gay man convicted of homosexual acts.

~~~
dllthomas
... if the only problem with the acts in question was that they were
homosexual.

~~~
jlgreco
If they were convicted of both 'homosexual acts' and robbing a bank at the
same time, then just pardon them of the 'homosexual acts'. Unrelated crimes
_are unrelated_.

~~~
dllthomas
That's conviction for two separate acts, which is a different thing than, say,
acts which are homosexual and also forcible or pedophillic or something. Note
that I most explicitly don't mean to imply that these attributes are any more
common of homosexual behavior than heterosexual, just that they _can_ be
attributes of the same act, and may even have been punished under the same
statute.

~~~
jlgreco
So you are hypothesizing that they neglected to prosecute child molesters of
child molestation, and instead prosecuted them merely for 'homosexual acts'?

That may be the case, but I find it unlikely. Are there any specific examples?

Frankly though, as plainly unfortunate as those situations may be, those
people should still be pardoned. When the prosecution fucks up, bad people can
be declared not guilty. Same principle here. It is a risk we accept in the
system.

~~~
dllthomas
My understanding (which could totally be wrong) is that the charge is "gross
indecency," not specifically labeled "homosexual acts." If it was the latter,
some attention might still be merited but I agree I'd rather err on the side
of caution (in terms of meting out punishment improperly).

------
awj
Pardoning him explicitly seems ridiculous. Either pardon everyone as a
statement that you find the law abhorrent or don't pardon anyone and allow the
shame to guide further decisions.

Pardoning the popular examples just hides what you did, it doesn't acknowledge
fault or error.

------
ericevans
They shouldn't "pardon". If there were some other form of nullification, that
might be ok, but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him
implies that he did, even if that isn't their intent. And any legal relief a
pardon would give a living person is irrelevant.

Let the conviction stand as a historical marker of shame.

Instead, they should vote on an apology to him and all the other people
wronged by the actions of their predecessors.

~~~
dragonwriter
> but did nothing wrong by modern standards, and "forgiving" him implies that
> he did

One of the purposes of the pardon power is to nullify convictions where a law
was broken but the conviction, justified as it might be by the law, was unjust
in the specific context.

Now, its designed (on the premise that the law is always just in the general
case) to deal with _exceptional_ cases, but it is no less appropriate a
vehicle for the case where the law failed to be just in general and thus _any_
conviction under the law is unjust in its specific context.

------
Eva_Peron
It's about bloody time.

------
anuragramdasan
The 16,000 alive have to apply to get pardoned?

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ansimionescu
WTF?! Debate?! What is there to debate??

This is why I(/we) hate most politicians.

~~~
corin_
Politicians are far from the only people who aren't pro-gay rights, feel free
to hate the specific people for their opinions, but seems a bit pointless to
hate politicians in general for having the same mixture of views as the
general public.

------
eeky
Like the majority of people, I oppose gay marriage. But what the British
government did with chemical castration to Alan Turing and others is
absolutely reprehensible - and they should pardon all of them. Let's not
conflate these issues please.

~~~
rmc
> _Like the majority of people, I oppose gay marriage._

That is factually incorrect. The majority of the population support marriage
equality.

~~~
dllthomas
Majority of which population?

~~~
eeky
Majority of people - so the world population.

~~~
dllthomas
Yeah, I understood that's what you were talking about, from other comments - I
was wondering which rmc was speaking of.

As to world population, I'm not sure you're correct (but also not at all sure
you're incorrect). Yes, Russia and much of Africa and certainly the Middle
East can be assumed to be majority opposed, but I'm not sure about Asian
countries and that's a lot of people. Much of the west is obviously trending
against you.

