10 knife injuries
Salman Rushdie’s “road to recovery has begun” but “will be long” after his stabbing in western New York late last week, the novelist’s agent has said.
“The injuries are severe,” the agent, Andrew Wylie, said Sunday in an email to the Guardian, alluding to stab wounds that the author suffered to his neck, stomach, eye, chest and thigh two days earlier. “But his condition is headed in the right direction.”
So he was actually stabbed in the eye? That’s nightmarish.
The article also quotes Zafar’s tweet but I’ve shown you that already.
Earlier on Saturday, Hadi Matar, the man suspected in Friday’s attack at a literary festival in upstate New York, pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder and assault at a brief court appearance where he was denied bail.
I have to wonder what the point is of pleading not guilty to something you did in front of an auditorium full of witnesses. (But I guess there’s the insanity plea and similar.)
Rushdie had 10 knife injuries: three stab wounds to the right front of his neck, another four to his stomach, one each to his right eye and chest and a cut to his right thigh. He emerged with a damaged liver and severed nerves in an arm and an eye, Wylie said on Friday evening. He was likely to lose the injured eye.
Horrible.
Anders Behring Breivik also pleaded not guilty at his trial, even though he never denied having killed a lot of young people and causing an explosion destroying the main government building of Norway. But he claimed he had just cause, and that this cause superseded the law. There is probably something similar behind Matar pleading not guilty. It’s not going to stand up in court, of course, and if he is not totally stupid, he’ll understand that. But he might think of it as heroic defiance.
Maybe Jolyon can offer him some Transatlantic moral support in the interests of restoring the balance of “relative power.”
I’m not even qualified as a Bush Lawyer, but my guess is a not guilty plea gives a chance to grandstand in Court, to enthuse more to the cause, and ultimately, to be a martyr to the cause.
Everyone has an absolute right to plead not guilty. There may indeed be legal defenses to the crime charged. There may be lesser included offenses to the crime charged that a trier of fact would find more appropriate than the charged offense. It depends on the charging document, the elements of the offense alleged in the charging document, and the evidence available (and actually presented at trial) to establish the required elements beyond a reasonable doubt.
There was a TV Drama in the 80’s called “Lucas Tanner,” a do-gooder high school teacher who really cared about his students. In one episode he was concerned that students were being targeted by a certain cop for speeding tickets, so he borrowed a student’s car and sped 1 mph over the posted limit. He got a ticket. When he was in court, he pleaded “guilty with a purpose,” and the show immediately moved to a trial and he explained the deal and the cop was admonished.
I’m not a lawyer, but what what he should have done is plead “not guilty,” which takes it to a trial. If someone committed the crime, but in service to a higher cause then they can plead not guilty and hope a jury or trial judge agrees that their cause was worthy. Pleading “guilty with a purpose” doesn’t do that in real life.