Clearly I need a Hobby

So very bored at my job dealing with crime, I decided to look up other people's crime problems.

http://www.thelocal.se/13508/20080805/

Lovely story of some lunatic in Sweden killing the two (very young) children of her ex-lover. Fantastic stuff. Glad to see that there are nut jobs everywhere. Clearly, this woman is batshit crazy. However, as I was reading through the articles about this crime, I was appalled to find when the woman took the stand the following exchange took place.

When prosecutor Johan Fahlander then took over questioning, he immediately inquired about the letter Schürrer sent to Hellberg explaining that she had given birth to his child and given it up for adoption.Specifically, he asked her when the child was born, to which Schürrer responded, “Why do you want to know that? That’s not an important detail, in my opinion.”Although Fahlander pressed her, Schürrer continued to avoid the question, as is her right under the rules of Swedish criminal proceedings.

This little interplay floored me. I am a prosecutor (not a particularly zealous or good one but still) this is the stuff I get paid the big bucks to do. Though I have yet to have the pleasure of questioning a murder suspect on the stand. That this woman can get on the stand and REFUSE to answer the prosecutor's question boggled the imagination. Then to say that is not an "important detail". The prosecutors I know (myself included) would have went ape shit on this woman. You will answer the fucking question, you will answer it right fucking now, and you will do it with a song in your heart, and a smile on your face. Telling me what is an important detail is a clear attempt at suicide. If I ever do go around the twist and climb a watchtower I am going to do it in Sweden. You can get on the stand, and decide what to answer. Fantastic. You can pretty much tell the prosecutor to "piss off." How liberating would that be? I clearly could not do my job in Sweden, the first time someone told me this from the stand I would go bonkers, and have to be restrained. I figure my career there would last about 22 seconds. Then again as far as I can tell the whole damn country probably only needs about 5 prosecutors. The shock and outrage this trial has generated is rather large. These kinds of things (the murders that is) happen about twice a week in the lovely, and peaceful city in which I live.