> It's entirely with regard for justice. That's the goal.
Your ends may be laudable but your means are immoral. The ends do not justify the means.
> You're concerned with conviction of something harmful. The harm they committed was in the other crimes. They should evade punishment for that because they managed to hide it well?
You say they're evading punishment "because they managed to hide it well" but the fact remains that you were never able to prove they actually did anything worthy of being punished for in the first place. Don't you see the obvious error in that? The only thing you actually know is that their financial transactions were not documented to your satisfaction. In effect you're demanding that they prove their innocence, whereas in a just system one is innocent until proven guilty.
> Since it's not obvious that Bob has actually committed a crime, shouldn't there be some mechanism to allow the obvious profits of crime to be confiscated without having to convict Bob? A lot of reasonable people think the answer to that is "yes";
No, those people are absolutely not reasonable! Those people want a magic world where we have crystal balls that tell us exactly who's innocent and guilty. That would certainly be nice, but that's not the world we live in.
It's frustrating when the guilty go free because of the rules we have in place to protect the innocent; but those rules didn't come out of nowhere. They are the result of the hard-won experience of thousands of innocent people being punished. If you remove them then innocent people will be punished again.
Who said he shouldn't be punished? I simply stated that since he made restitution prior to charges being brought, perhaps that should factor into sentencing. I don't know who you're arguing against, or what you're really arguing, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I've been talking about.
> Technically, any justice administered by a mob is targetting innocents. At least, it used to be that things like fair trials were a requirement to establish guilt.
No, people have never, as a general rule, been protected from social consequences of actual or perceived wrongdoing until proven guilty in a trial, only (and this mostly recently, historically, and adhering to far-from-universal principals of restraint) from certain (generally not all) government-imposed consequences.
> My position is that people should be punished for breaking the law. And, that saying such punishment (whatever the form) somehow "puts off" innocent people from making claims is wrong.
So long as enforcement does not perfectly avoid false positives even in beginning prosecution (even if no false convictions occur) it increases the expected cost of a true report, and is a rational disincentive.
It may be that the particular punishment regime minimizes this cost and/or has benefits that offset the cost, but it's implausible that any real punishment scheme could avoid it altogether.
>If you accept a trial's outcome that the accused is guilty, it follows logically that they deserve to be punished more for denying it (or at least, more than they would be punished if they confessed.)
Even first world death penalty cases aren't a 100% certain, but we still murder the accused.
A legal justice system often ends up not being justice at all either. As some will point out, it is a legal system more than a justice system.
What then is the difference between a vigilante justice system and a legal system? It seems to me to be an issue of popularity, not of results nor legitimacy.
> I think it's something about remorse. Maintaining innocence when you know you're guilty shows a lack of remorse about what you've done. Admitting what you did and that you did it shows you at least know it's wrong and that you deserve some punishment.
Yeah, but that hinges entirely under the assumption that the accused is guilty.
>>>They're not technically innocent. Nor are they technically guilty. Their status is in question.
They are technically innocent. That is the central assumption in any good justice system.
>>>But your last sentence comes back around to the problem of there not being enough capacity for these people. ASAP could very well be a year and a half.
I don't think anyone would consider that reasonable if they were in custody. Let's say you were charged with something (that you didn't do, let's say) - what would you consider a fair amount of time before a trial?
> And if you somehow prevented that inequality, you'd just drag everyone down to the lowest common denominator, and all the more people would be harmed by unjust prosecution.
Saying it would be an unjust prosecution should include something to back it up; the most logical outcome is that if both lawyers are just as skilled the little edge they may have by actually having a innocent defendant -or a gilty prosecuted- would help get better justice overall, I don't think I could even be persuaded otherwise until I can read about a real world nation where such system was tried and failed.
Correct, but you shouldn't go to jail for immoral behaviour.
> It's perfectly reasonable to see all the facts, many of which aren't permitted to be considered by a jury, and then say, "wow,these laws are messed up, they let the powerful people get away with crimes. We should change that and hold them accountable."
The IRS does this, and it's horrible, but the accountability comes in the form of an increased tax obligation and not jail time.
Going to jail for doing something that was legal, but has become illegal after the fact, isn't something that benefits anyone but the ruling class, and isn't something that I would advocate for.
Which is what I really think the core of the problem is. These people make decisions that can ruin of a whole host of people, but face no accountability for it.
I'm of the opinion that there should always be a remedy available for those wronged, and the ones doing the wronging should hope it's only via the court system.
> While I agree that the institutions can be expected to cover there ass
Should we have that expectation? If a person does it we call it concealing evidence, intimidation, and perverting the course of justice. On the other hand, if they confess right away, we treat them leniently. Why should institutions differ?
> But to presume innocence simply on the basis that they were not convicted is itself part of the problem wereby the procedure and the wording takes precedence over the intent.
Unless the intent is "it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer."
Why do people have to go to jail? One of the fortés of our economic system is its tolerance for failure. Stupidity, while a liability in civil court, is not criminally prosecuted.
Fraud, gross negligence, etc. are. The bar for proving guilt of those offences is high. I do not believe that high standard has been met, at least not yet. The situation deserves criminal investigation, perhaps. But jumping to the conclusion of jailing those involved is rash.
So someone can act unethically, reap the benefits of it, be caught red-handed, and suffer no consequences.
Sounds like a loophole in the justice system to me. More to the point, now that we've seen it happen once what has been done to prevent it from happening again?
> So you think that every case should be tried, even if it's plainly obvious the perpetrator is guilty?
If the perpetrator is willing to plead guilty, there is no need for a trial.
Threatening people with massively larger penalties if they exercise their right to a trial rather than take a plea deal (often time limited before the defense has a chance to see the evidence) is coercive extortion and is morally wrong. There is plenty of evidence of innocent people (especially poor people) taking plea deals due to these prosecutorial tacits of threat and decite.
Your ends may be laudable but your means are immoral. The ends do not justify the means.
> You're concerned with conviction of something harmful. The harm they committed was in the other crimes. They should evade punishment for that because they managed to hide it well?
You say they're evading punishment "because they managed to hide it well" but the fact remains that you were never able to prove they actually did anything worthy of being punished for in the first place. Don't you see the obvious error in that? The only thing you actually know is that their financial transactions were not documented to your satisfaction. In effect you're demanding that they prove their innocence, whereas in a just system one is innocent until proven guilty.
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