August 05, 2004

• I hate stories like this, and they're the main reason I oppose the death penalty. You just can't recover or adequately compensate for the loss - whether it's a life or several years in jail. I'd rather see ten guilty men go free than one innocent jailed.
• I'd rather see ten guilty men go free than one innocent jailed. And I feel the exact opposite. Although I'm all for a better judicial system with greater guilty/innocent jailing ratio while at the same time reducing overall crime.
• i wonder how many are related to death cases, and i wonder how many innocents went to the death chamber because of it, and i wonder how many gov. bush allowed to be executed based on flawed "evidence"?
• I'd rather see ten guilty men go free than one innocent jailed. And I feel the exact opposite. Well, everytime a guilty man goes free, the justice system has made one mistake. Every time an innocent person is jailed, the system has made two mistakes - the guilty man is free, and the innocent person is not.
• Exactly - especially if the innocent man is you.
• Well, everytime a guilty man goes free, the justice system has made one mistake. If we go for the maths and take into account the original statement (ten guilty for one innocent) it is still better to jail one innocent for ten criminals. Instead of making ten mistakes the governments is still just making two. and instead of letting free ten criminals they are letting free just one.
• Exactly - especially if the innocent man is you. From the government perspective everyone is equal therefore it must give a shit if I'm the one being being injustly incarcerated. That won't change my point of view. Of couse I would do everything in power to save my own ass, but I won't try to repel a law that does more good to society in general. My sorry ass be damned.
• It bothers me to hear about innocent men wrongly convicted, because I can easily imagine myself in that situation. It would be a horrible thing to go through. On the other hand, when a (seemingly) guilty party such as OJ Simpson is walking around free, I don't care nearly as much, if at all.
• But we aren't talking about law per se, zemat, but the execution of law enforcement. What are the circumstances under which a guilty individual might go free - obviously, principally, lack of evidence, followed by acquisition of evidence by illegitimate means. The situation where it is possible to support jailing individuals on the basis that they are obviously guily, even though there isn't any evidence, or the evidence was obtained under dubious circumstances, doesn't, in my opinion, stand up to the J Edgar Hoover test. That is, given certain law power/s, would you be willing to place them in the hands of an individual such as, say, JEH.
• And we're not talking about repealing any laws, Zemat, just shifting the "reasonable doubt" burden to more often err on the side of the innocent.
• I've seen the guilty wiggle out of jail on technicalities and by sheer money/political power, while innocents that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time rot in some hellish jail. That's why I find Zemat's attitude, if laudable, flawed and naive. So what if they jail innocents, at least the trains are on time? So what if they catch and execute some bystander or scapegoat, at least they're doing their job? The options aren't 'leaving' people in or out; they should be upgrading judicial and investigative standards until there's no doubt of culprits' identity. Tall order, I know...
• And making sure that when mistakes are made, they are corrected as quickly as possible. And where egregious mistakes are made, that the individuals responsible have to answer for them, in court and, potentially, with jail time. If I accidentally kill someone, let's say they are 60 years old, and I've thus deprived them of 20 years of their life (for the sake of argument), I face manslaughter charges and the real possibility of jail time. And yet, do the same thing in a forensics lab and you can, seemingly, get away with it with little or no repercussions.
• Plus jail isn't exactly beer and skittles. The Abu Ghraib obscenities are, it seems, simply mirroring what already regularly occurs in US jails. (from this thread) Though not, presumably, the sodomizing of children. That's an innovation. But apart from that bit.
• I will click preview, I will click preview...
• Zemat: From the government perspective everyone is equal therefore it must give a shit if I'm the one being being injustly incarcerated. That won't change my point of view. Of couse I would do everything in power to save my own ass, but I won't try to repel a law that does more good to society in general. My sorry ass be damned. You're treating society as a superorganism, whose welfare is given higher precedence than that given to its constituents (body vs. cells). In such a case, the only reason to pay heed to society's needs is due to fear of getting crushed if you don't adapt. However, unlike cells (so far as we know), individual humans are sentient and capable of empathy. It's, of course, a combination of empathy and survival instinct that shaped society in the first place. Your stance discards that empathy for the sake of society's survival instinct. If the individual can't be reasonably guaranteed of survival or empathy, why continue such a society?
• Another lovely story about my fair city.
• polychrome: given that pre-age of consent children can be tried and incarcerated as adults, or at the very least risk spending the night in the cells with them, I wouldn't bet on the child sodomy being an innovation.
• We should all be put in prison then let out one at a time and watched to see if we do anything wrong... it's the only way to be sure.
• Dibs on the top bunk by the toilet!
• If we go for the maths and take into account the original statement (ten guilty for one innocent) it is still better to jail one innocent for ten criminals. Instead of making ten mistakes the governments is still just making two. and instead of letting free ten criminals they are letting free just one. Assuming you really believe in the greatest good for the greatest number, there are still problems here. For me at least the cost to society of one jailed innocent is greater than one free criminal. Therefore a one-for-ten cockup ratio is not necessarily acceptable. You are also not considering that the common law standard of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt exists to counter a perceived bias in favour of the authorities. Cases like the one reported above show how accurate that perception is. You can take your continental presumption of guilt and stick it as far as I'm concerned. Lastly, greatest good for the greatest number isn't really a principle most of believe in. Most people believe in some immutable principles that cannot be broken despite any good that might accrue. Those who walk away from Omelas is the classic reductio ad absurdum of your view.
• polychrome: But we aren't talking about law per se, zemat, but the execution of law enforcement. What are the circumstances under which a guilty individual might go free - obviously, principally, lack of evidence, followed by acquisition of evidence by illegitimate means. rocket88: And we're not talking about repealing any laws, Zemat, just shifting the "reasonable doubt" burden to more often err on the side of the innocent. Ok, I can agree with both statements. I was wrong in putting argument in the context of law since it has nothing to do with the article (of course, I didn't read it until now). Flagpole: The options aren't 'leaving' people in or out; they should be upgrading judicial and investigative standards until there's no doubt of culprits' identity. Tall order, I know... I also agree with that. But my point wasn't about accepting a police state if that's what it takes to make things work fine (which is just a delusion at best). My point was that a judicial system that has flaws should not be discarded if there are no better options and the benefits highly outweight the mistakes. Of course, a system that jails one innocent for every ten criminals is terrible and should be supplanted right away by any other system that could do better. But it still better than letting those ten in eleven criminals do more harm to society. That's the way justice mostly worked in the past. People preferred that over outright anarchy. We have come a long way from that and there's still much road ahead before reaching a slightly less than perfect judicial system.
• If I accidentally kill someone... I face manslaughter charges... And yet, do the same thing in a forensics lab and you can, seemingly, get away with it with little or no repercussions. This pretty much deepends on the nature of the accident. Obviously if it can be proven that the accident, or, in this case, the forensics analysis was more the result of flawed instruments and science instead of poor judgement from your part then you can't bear all the responsibility for the death of someone else (of course, the forensic analyst of the article is a clear moron).
• Your stance discards that empathy for the sake of society's survival instinct. If the individual can't be reasonably guaranteed of survival or empathy, why continue such a society? I love this kind of arguments (no sarcasm intended). It's even more complex than that. I could take your argument and spin it as if it came from a libertarian point of view but of course I know that's not what you are refering to. Human beings are both social and individualist animals. And, unlike almost completely social species like bees and ants, individualistic values tend to be more important than social ones for humans (debatable). The societal structures we developed were intended to guarantee the welfare of the individual or a very small group of individuals (families or tribes) rather than the welfare of a colony. Much less the entire species. It's asinine for a human being to argue against it's own nature saying that the survival of a society is more important than the well being of it's individuals. Yet, a democratic government it's not designed to value a society over it's individuals but to value the welfare of a majority of individuals over the minority which can't or won't adjust to the system (those we usually label as criminals). To reach that goal, governments must trascend usual cognitive limitations of individuals (even those in charge) to see what's best for the majority if not all of them. This could give the impression that a government cares only for the superorganism. If a government actually starts giving more importance to a society over it's indivuals, like in autoritarian systems, then fragmentation and decayment is bound to happen since only a decreasing minority could actually benefit from such a system and the rest would eventually revolt against such a system. A government must evolve and be flexible enough to encompass the well being an increasing amount of individuals while at the same time exerting a limited amount of restrictions that would help them get along with each other and maximize the overall happiness of the population.
• You are also not considering that the common law standard of proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt exists to counter a perceived bias in favour of the authorities. Cases like the one reported above show how accurate that perception is. You can take your continental presumption of guilt and stick it as far as I'm concerned. I'm not arguing in favor of pressumtion of guilt until proven innocent. Instead, what I'm saying is that even proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt can fail and at this point is where, if no revision can be made on time, the jailed innocent (guilty beyond reasonable doubt) is the one that will stick it "for the greater good". Most people believe in some immutable principles that cannot be broken despite any good that might accrue. And that kind of belief can too be reduced to absurd (see abortion debates). There's no belief system that can survive logical tests for too long. That doesn't invalidate either view (greater good/inmutable principles). Rather we must take them as paths not meant to be taken to their logical ends. Everyone decides how far is too far.
• By the way, vitalorgnz, thanks for the link!
• Zemat: Yet, a democratic government it's not designed to value a society over it's individuals but to value the welfare of a majority of individuals over the minority which can't or won't adjust to the system (those we usually label as criminals). Those two goals are the same thing. Homeostasis doen't require complete control, just sufficient. The superorganism does not have to be directly or explicitly targetted. If a government actually starts giving more importance to a society over it's indivuals, like in autoritarian systems, then fragmentation and decayment is bound to happen since only a decreasing minority could actually benefit from such a system and the rest would eventually revolt against such a system. Circular argument. You're positing that since pro-superorganism entities would degenerate and get replaced and since democracies remain, they aren't pro-superorganism entities. Your theory of revolution assumes that power is distributed and weighted equivalently among the constituents on both sides of the divide. Only true in a limited sense. Potentially, the disenfranchised could effectively revolt. But only if a critical mass is ignited. Govts. themselves are evolving institutions, with a survival instinct, that have developed abilities to keep such flames in check by sophisticated and subtle means, by selectively pandering or just plain deception. All that matters are the numbers.
• The Faces of Wrongful Conviction
• US leads world in number of prisoners per capita, scroll down to chart. Another article I read recently on the Beeb said there are 726 prisoners per every 100,000 people in the US. HIgher than in Russia or anywhere else. What in hell is going on in the US?
• I made that point to someone somewhere on this 'Filter and they wanted stats to back it up but I couldn't find them. Now there they are and I have no idea who that was or what the thread was. 'sfunny. What in hell is going on in the US? Draconian drug laws are usually cited in this context.
• What does it take to discard or overhaul a system which places 1 in every 140 Americans in prison? And most of them black males.