Horrifying. The entire legal system is supposed to be based on the concept that it is better to let the guilty walk than destroy an innocent person. Instead of evidence they used federal agents as expert witnesses providing evidence free accusation. It is almost like prosecutors pursue cases based on the likelihood of winning instead of actual evidence.
> The entire legal system is supposed to be based on the concept that it is better to let the guilty walk than destroy an innocent person.
This is true if you believe that there is a final justice. However, in a secularizing society that doesn’t believe in God or final judgement, if you want justice it has to be here and now since it will not come any other way.
How can you call that justice when innocents are imprisoned for crimes that did not commit while the criminals go free ?
That concept comes from the belief that it is worse to punish an innocent than to let a culpable go free. Call that utilitarian if you will but it has nothing to do with a hypothetical final judgment.
True. Too many people accept the evil of false convictions because they believe in life eternal, that unjust suffering during life will be rewarded afterwards. I'd rather get things right now than roll those dice.
I get the logic here. But in many religions god is the source of justice. Got no idea if OP is a Christian or not but there are plenty of judicial proceedings in portions of the Bible that lots of Christians overlook, particularly about the requirement for at the least two or three witnesses (which doesn't necessitate eyewitness but at least two credible witnesses) before a conviction takes place. There is also plenty of case law in the Hebrew scriptures about not imprisoning or punishing someone if there is no evidence (e.g. establishment of sanctuary cities for accused persons to go to while a just trial is pending).
If you haven't read The New Yorker story about Cameron Todd Willingham, a man (almost certainly innocent) who was executed in Texas based on junk arson science, you should rectify that as soon as possible: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire
What processes need to fall in place to systematically reevaluate all the old arson cases? This seems like a data problem that needs indexing and reevaluating. I know it's not that simple, but there has to be a way to undo bad decisions.
It won't happen. If we reevaluate arson cases, people will push for a wide reevaluation of other convictions based on types of evidence that have been shown to be flawed. This includes hair analysis, fingerprint analysis, bite mark analysis, bullet analysis, and eyewitness accounts. Too much added work and a truth too painful to acknowledge.
Also, the criminal Justice system is notoriously confident and resilient to self examination. It's amazing what it can take to get even one person a new trial.
I think a lot of the "confidence" is taken essentially philosophically too. A lot of people who are willing to work on the prosecution side firmly believe in some type of "procedural justice", the notion that a verdict reached by properly following all legal processes, even if factually incorrect, is a just verdict. There's a big "assuming the process is fair" part of that belief, but those people don't go in thinking the process is unfair, and then also contributing to the process being unfair.
It still isn't perfect, and the certainty of a match has been over sold to get convictions too. It's rare, and requires intentionally misleading people, while my other examples could be wrong with everybody trying to be honest.
Amazing book. It's shocking how much of the forensic "science" that the media has conditioned us to see as infallible is actually mostly junk. Even fingerprint analysis has less than stellar experimental track record: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerprint#Criticism.
Apart from the particular injustice of this and other cases, it would behoove everyone to be a little more circumspect and humble about what we believe we know.
The problem is there's a harsh disincentive for admitting that in any criminal 'science' because doing anything other than pretending the science is perfect and infallible would undermine the criminal case.
And this immunity was created out of nothing, backed by nothing. One of the front runners for president in 2020 literally argued in an appeals court that her prosecutors should have been allowed to fabricate and withhold evidence during prosecutions. Instead of being a pariah and banished from public life, there's a decent chance she'll bring this same mentality to the presidency.
"Incredibly, the State of California, via Attorney General Kamala Harris, decided to appeal the case. The state's key argument: That putting a fake confession in the transcript wasn't "outrageous" because it didn't involve physical brutality, like chaining someone to a radiator and beating him with a hose."
You have a link that's not an opinion piece? I've searched for this court case and anytime Kamala Harris is mentioned, the articles are blogs or very suspect reporting websites. Also they all have identical content, looking as if each website copy and pasted the content between themselves.
I'm indifferent to her in any regard but it would be interesting to see if this gets more attention as we get closer to 2020. Seems fairly straight-forward that she was defending the right of a prosecutor to get away with fabricating evidence.
>In essence the defendant shouldn't be rewarded for the prosecutorial misconduct.
no, that's not what was being argued. The decision uses the established precedent that defendant is to be "rewarded" in case of "outrageous or conscience shocking" prosecutorial misconduct. Kamala didn't argue against that. What, in the words of the judges listening to her, she argued is:
" On appeal, however, the People dispute that
Murray’s misconduct was outrageous or conscience shocking in a constitutional sense, as
it was not physically brutal.
...
According to the People, this language stands for the proposition that misconduct must be
“brutal” in order to shock the conscience and support a sanction of dismissal.
"
May be you think that the judges misunderstood the arguments presented by the "People" ? :)
I agree with your position after reading the findings. Basically Kamala Harris was, acting on behalf of the state, attempting to set a precedent for physical violence being present before a client's case could be dismissed regardless of other prosecutorial misconduct.
That's not what that wikipedia article says. Do you have a source backing up your claim?
The article says that they have immunity from civil prosecution for claims arising from procedural abuses in initiating a prosecution and in stating the state's case. That doesn't sound at all the same as "complete legal immunity". By my read of that sentence, if they commit a crime, they are still liable to criminal prosecution - you just couldn't initiate a civil prosecution against them.
This is just nuts. Prosecutors have been given enormous trust and power by the people so they also should have enormous responsibility and be held to the highest standards.
State sanctioned violence in the form of imprisonment being enforced by individuals whose egos can't accept that methods change. I find it unsettling to say the least. But then I guess actors like agent Cooper need to hide behind fortresses of self assurance or else they'd never be able to testify against anyone. How else do you take life away from someone? You need the utmost assurance in your methods.
