Commentary: Nine-year sentence for triple murder is a cynical mockery of justice

The town of Hurbanovo in Slovakia underwent a
Greek tragedy of sorts in June 2012. Milan Juhász, a 51-year-old municipal
police officer, shot dead three Romani people and injured another two, all from
the same family. Juhász murdered Gabriel L. († 45), his son Mário L. († 19) and
his son-in-law Július († 22) and injured another of Gabriel’s sons, Kristián
(26) and Kristián’s wife Žaneta L. (26). Juhász shot Žaneta in the thigh and
Kristián in the chest. Both eventually survived the attack, although Kristián
was in critical condition after the bullet passed through his lungs.

The triple murderer then sat down near the scene
of the crime with a pistol aimed at his own head, threatening to commit
suicide. Riot police officers and a police negotiator arrived at the scene,
convincing him to give himself up and not take his own life. Juhász was
sentenced to nine years in prison and to psychiatric treatment for having
committed three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. The
verdict has taken effect, as neither the defense nor the prosecution sought to
appeal. 

"White" victims would have meant
life in prison

I am convinced that if Juhász had murdered three
"whites", he would have correctly been sentenced to life in prison.
If the victims had not been Romani, his psychiatric evaluation would not have
been given the weight that the court gave it. This verdict is in line with a
sharply deteriorating societal atmosphere in which displays of antigypsyism are
considered normal and even desirable by people who do not consider themselves
racist.

In Hungary, in Slovakia, and sometimes even in
the Czech Republic, an atmosphere of fear predominates which, through
systematic generalizations and targeted marches, turns Romani people not just
into second-class citizens, but into animals to be hunted. We are witnessing
racist murders, many of which police are not investigating, but are sweeping
under the carpet; hundreds of cases of violent assault; many demonstrations in
front of buildings where Romani people live, sometimes along with attempted
pogroms; and the constant repetition of propagandistic catchphrases,
fabrications, and lies about Romani people and their way of life.

In Central Europe today, we can literally sense
at every step the rancid stench of the Czechoslovak Second Republic or the
Hungarian and Slovak Fascist states. This odor has soaked into the skin of
everyone who does not reflect much, or who only reflects superficially, or
whose heart is not in the right place. Proof of this is the fact that the
psychiatric evaluation of Juhász claiming his mental capacity was reduced at
the time of his crime (but not that he underwent a total loss of capacity) has
led to a sentence which I do not hesitate to call one of the most cynical
mockeries of the survivors and of justice in general to have been handed down
on the territory of the former Czechoslovakia since November 1989.  

The psychiatric evaluation and the commentary on
it came to the court "as if made to order". The prosecutor, who from
the start had insisted that Juhász planned the murder and that it had not been
an impulsive action, had a 180-degree shift in perspective after reading a
vaguely formulated psychiatric evaluation and proposed a low sentence, to which
the judge gave his assent. For his part, the defense demanded a total
acquittal, claiming his client had suddenly become deranged "like a bolt from
the blue".

Course of the crime

We can deduce that Juhász undoubtedly committed
this crime intentionally from these facts:

• He went to commit the murder when he was
off-duty. When he was on-duty, his shift included the place where the family
whom he attacked resides, which would have made him one of the first suspects.

• He committed the murder with an illegally obtained
weapon, since an unregistered pistol would not lead anyone to him.

• He set out to murder specific people whom he
kept an eye out for in advance. His shooting was not that of a deranged person
shooting at anyone who showed up, as confirmed by the several people he
encountered as he walked away from the crime scene.

The fact that Juhász later wanted to shoot
himself was a result of the overall situation. It is one thing to plan to
murder five people and something else (to a great extent) to carry out such a
plan and live on with that awareness. Wanting to commit suicide under such
circumstances is the natural reaction of a healthy person and by no means
should be considered a symptom of his alleged incompetence.

No motive? He must be nuts!

Juhász stated after the crime that he had wanted
to “solve the problem of inadaptable inhabitants” by shooting them. In
practice, therefore, he just carried out what various primitive people have
been calling for across the internet, namely, addressing their (alleged and
real) problems with Romani people by either driving them away or physically
liquidating them.

Neither the absence of “social intelligence”, nor
a finding of low intelligence, nor a personality disorder is a sign of mental illness.
If they were, many more patients would be seeking treatment today than already
do. Juhász was evidently under the influence of the never-ending internet
massage through which the racists are slowly reshaping society in their own
image.

Four of the five victims, according to the Slovak
media, had committed several misdemeanor offenses against civil coexistence. Given
the quality of the Czech and Slovak media, I must add here that I have not
verified that information separately.

“That was a problematic family. I intervened
there 13 times in less than a year. They burned their garbage, disturbed public
order, shoplifted and committed other misdemeanors,” said Marián Botos, the Chief
of the Hurbanovo Municipal Police. Juhász reportedly assisted with most of
those interventions.

“In the morning I woke up with the notion that I had
to go put them in line,” the perpetrator told the court. Since he chose a
family on which to vent his anger with whom he had (probably) had bad
experiences during his work, that is another piece of convincing evidence that
he very well understood what he was doing. Despite this, the police insisted
they had been unable to find a convincing motive for the crime and requested a
psychiatric evaluation of the perpetrator.

This is very reminiscent of the way in which the
Czech Interior Minister’s Inspectorate handles cases of delinquent police
officers. Instead of undertaking a genuine investigation of their crimes, the
Inspectorate looks for ways to exonerate their colleagues.

During the investigation of the tragedy in Hurbanovo,
on the basis of information released by the detectives, there was speculation
that Juhász might be acquitted because of his alleged insanity. Experts then
told the court that Juhász had had been temporarily insane when he committed
his crime of passion. They reportedly also found neurological damage in his
brain and proposed he be subjected to psychiatric treatment.

However, as a patrolman, Juhász had previously
undergone psychological tests that never found any signs of brain damage – on the
contrary, he was declared fit for duty. Moreover, this sentence is asking us to
believe that neurological damage to the brain can actually be cured through
psychiatric methods.

What do the Slovak Roma say?

A declaration by the Slovak Romani Union (Slovenské
romské unie – SRU) speaks very clearly: "The
Romani Union Party sharply protests the nine-year sentence for the shooter from
Hurbanovo, Milan Juhász, who committed a triple murder and seriously injured
two people. The party cannot agree with the court’s findings and there is no
excuse for this behavior with respect to protecting public order and the residents
of the town. The psychiatrist did not unequivocally testify that Milan Juhász
was incapable of telling right from wrong when he committed this crime. As a
member of the municipal police, he had previously undergone psychological
testing and knew what legal procedures he could have used to settle any dispute
he had with troubled residents. He did not deny that he committed premeditated
murder, and his confession was evidence of the fact that he recalls his actions
very well and therefore knew what he was doing.”

“We disagree with this absurdly low sentence, as
well as with the fact that he will be under protective supervision for three
years only, and we consider this sentence disproportionate to the seriousness
of this crime, which we believe was racially motivated. Experts have even
claimed that they cannot rule out the notion that he might repeat this
behavior, so this person decidedly does not belong at large until the end of
his life," added František Tanko, the SRU chair.

"Any attempt to compare the lengths of
sentences for completely different criminal cases runs the risk of ending very
badly, but there are moments when one cannot help oneself," commentator
Roman Pataja wrote in the daily SME. "In October 2012 a court in Považská
Bystřica sentenced a 19-year-old first-time offender to 12 years in prison for
kicking a policewoman in the knee and attacking two other people while drunk
(the sentence has not yet taken effect). If, purely theoretically, we believe
that sentence was proportionate, what are we to make of the verdict in the trial
of the police officer Milan Juhász?"

“This inadequately low, stupid sentence is an
encouragement to everyone who sets their heart on taking the law into their own
hands and then being declared insane afterward with the help of psychiatrists
and psychologists," said Václav Kappel, chair of the Romani Initiative of
Slovakia (Romská iniciativa Slovenska).

Have we seen this before?

We will just add here that 10 years ago, the
Slovak justice system knew what to do with such cases. In 2002 in the town of Tupá
(Levice district), Štefan Gemer (age 62) got into a dispute with his Romani
neighbors. Gemer sold alcohol to his neighbors and loaned them money at
usurious interest rates. Their disputes resulted in a tragedy: Gemer started shooting his neighbor and then
murdered his neighbor’s wife and infant son in his pram before starting to
shoot at other neighbors, injuring two more people.

Gemer fled to the mountains, but police arrested
him near Banská Štiavnice. He had a crossbow, explosives, a rifle and other
weapons with him. He was sentenced to life in prison, despite the fact that his
case obviously demonstrated more signs of being a “crime of temporary insanity”
than the one committed by Juhász.