It's not idiotic. I think there's a little more nuance. When someone is convicted, they're done. The law has spoken. That, in and of itself is fairly reasonable

It's not idiotic. I think there's a little more nuance. When someone is convicted, they're done. The law has spoken. That, in and of itself is fairly reasonable. Especially before all this fancy technology we have now. But, consider, when DNA evidence appeared as a viable technology, 5% of death row inmates were set free. The most difficult cases, where you want the system to work perfectly - no one wants to execute an innocent person - failed 1 in 20 times. Something like 270 people were set free. Millions are spent on both sides of these cases, with round after round of appeals. So, when you get down to lesser crimes, say assault and battery, I'd bet a good fraction of the people in prison really are innocent. In the best case 5% are innocent. There's no real way to treat the unknown innocents differently than the actual criminals. That's just how the world is. Perhaps we should offer some paths to redemption. Not that i have any specific love for muggers, it's more that a good fraction of "muggers in the eyes of the law" aren't actually muggers. Anyone convicted now days is pretty much fucked. I can think of a few notable exceptions, but unless you're some sort of military officer with national news attention, you are pretty much done. We really only know that at it's absolute best best, death row cases, the legal system's false positive rate is 5%. I find that number terrifying.