4 ms·

> except convicted offenders [emph. mine] No. Accusations (and court proceedings) need to default to being public. This is an important check on the power of p

• yorwba 8y ago
  Presumably that check is intended to protect the accused from secret prosecution. But I think in many cases, the potential reputation damage of a false accusation is so bad that the accused would prefer to make the decision about whether it should be published or not.
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Presumably that check is intended to protect the accused from secret prosecution It's as much intended to protect the public from the government pretending to do things about problems that it is not doing; if prosecution is secret, government can more easily claim it is making good faith efforts when it is not then when the public can see what they are presenting at trial.
  • wool_gather 8y ago
    > the accused would prefer to make the decision about whether it should be published or not Interesting idea; that does seem like a reasonable compromise (subject to safeguards against coercion by prosecutors and similar abuse, of course).