7 ms·

presumption of innocence is on the individual, not on whether there was a crime or not e.g. murder, there is no doubt that somebody is guilty, but but all susp

by rusk 7y ago

presumption of innocence is on the individual, not on whether there was a crime or not e.g. murder, there is no doubt that somebody is guilty, but but all suspects benefit from presumption of innocence.

dustinmoris 7y ago
Precisely what I meant! In my comment I did not accuse any individuals specifically. I said "someone" must have committed a crime here and that this is clear from the case and therefore we cannot presume innocence, just need to focus who are the offenders, but not if there was a criminal offense in the first place.
- lagadu 7y ago
  Yes, a criminal offense took place but we don't even know whether any of the accused are guilty. Knowing that a crime took place is pointless if you can't figure out who is to blame.
  - tremon 7y ago
    That's not entirely true, because even if we don't know who, we can know about the how and why, and try to limit such crimes in the future. In this specific case, knowing that the crime took place has already led to different and more varied emissions testing.
pushpop 7y ago
No, I’m cases of murder it has to be proven that a murder (ie it wasn’t accidental, suicide, etc). There’s also different degrees of murder depending on the circumstances (ranging from self defence through to pre-meditation and even crimes more horrific than that). It’s not just about proving the perpetrator, it’s about proving the circumstance because there will be different sentencing - and sometimes even different laws - depending on the circumstance.
- 9876ghkjh 7y ago
  What can appear to be a suicide can still be murder if the suicide victim had been exploited and sees no way out. Until someone has been in that position, its easy to believe the world is not run by criminals. The UK's NHS don't involve the Police when people attempt suicide, in fact in my experience GP's will give the suicidal person advice on ways to make the suicide work in a painless way. It will never get to court because of patient confidentiality and a GP will almost always be believed over the patient. Its a no win situation for the suicidal individual.
dexen 7y ago
>presumption of innocence is on the individual, not on whether there was a crime or not This is still wrong. A crime is an act of a person, which fulfills rather strict criteria. Both the legal theory and typical legislation [1] requires, among other, mens rea - guilty mind. Without a specific person convicted, you can't say with certainty there was a guilty mind. Thus indeed, before conviction we can't tell with certainty that there was a crime committed. In your example of "murder", all we can say with certainty is that a person is dead. Evidence may establish a 3rd party was involved, which would indicate killing (as opposed to accident, natural causes, or self harm). There still remain three distinct possibilities: criminal murder, or the lower culpability of homicide (for example, a negligent homicide), or justified killing (for example, act of self defense). Those possibilities span the whole gamut from culpability to innocence, and warrant much different end results for the alleged perpetrator. In case of the DieselGate here, investigating & prosecuting is the correct & practical option. We all suspect there was a crime, but there's a reason justice is dispensed via a deliberative process, rather than via mob rule. Moreover, white collar crimes like the DieselGate usually don't have evidence as clear cut as an official memo saying, "I, hereby undersigned, order my underlings to break the law by doing X, Y, and Z.". A more realistic scenario is a series of emails & phone calls saying, "make the new engine meet the target parameters by this quarter's end", coupled with tacitly ignoring a footnote in an engineer's memo saying, "However we recommend against leaving the high performance mode enabled for production vehicles", along with a nod to a mid level manager who asks, "should we match the high performance mode to that of our competitors' car models X, Y, and Z?". In which case establishing responsibility & culpability will take some thorough work. -- [1] aside of the small set of strict liability crimes where the event/fact alone constitutes a crime

by rusk 7y ago

dustinmoris 7y ago

Precisely what I meant! In my comment I did not accuse any individuals specifically. I said "someone" must have committed a crime here and that this is clear from the case and therefore we cannot presume innocence, just need to focus who are the offenders, but not if there was a criminal offense in the first place.

lagadu 7y ago
Yes, a criminal offense took place but we don't even know whether any of the accused are guilty. Knowing that a crime took place is pointless if you can't figure out who is to blame.
- tremon 7y ago
  That's not entirely true, because even if we don't know who, we can know about the how and why, and try to limit such crimes in the future. In this specific case, knowing that the crime took place has already led to different and more varied emissions testing.

pushpop 7y ago

No, I’m cases of murder it has to be proven that a murder (ie it wasn’t accidental, suicide, etc). There’s also different degrees of murder depending on the circumstances (ranging from self defence through to pre-meditation and even crimes more horrific than that). It’s not just about proving the perpetrator, it’s about proving the circumstance because there will be different sentencing - and sometimes even different laws - depending on the circumstance.

9876ghkjh 7y ago
What can appear to be a suicide can still be murder if the suicide victim had been exploited and sees no way out. Until someone has been in that position, its easy to believe the world is not run by criminals. The UK's NHS don't involve the Police when people attempt suicide, in fact in my experience GP's will give the suicidal person advice on ways to make the suicide work in a painless way. It will never get to court because of patient confidentiality and a GP will almost always be believed over the patient. Its a no win situation for the suicidal individual.

dexen 7y ago

>presumption of innocence is on the individual, not on whether there was a crime or not This is still wrong. A crime is an act of a person, which fulfills rather strict criteria. Both the legal theory and typical legislation [1] requires, among other, mens rea - guilty mind. Without a specific person convicted, you can't say with certainty there was a guilty mind. Thus indeed, before conviction we can't tell with certainty that there was a crime committed. In your example of "murder", all we can say with certainty is that a person is dead. Evidence may establish a 3rd party was involved, which would indicate killing (as opposed to accident, natural causes, or self harm). There still remain three distinct possibilities: criminal murder, or the lower culpability of homicide (for example, a negligent homicide), or justified killing (for example, act of self defense). Those possibilities span the whole gamut from culpability to innocence, and warrant much different end results for the alleged perpetrator. In case of the DieselGate here, investigating & prosecuting is the correct & practical option. We all suspect there was a crime, but there's a reason justice is dispensed via a deliberative process, rather than via mob rule. Moreover, white collar crimes like the DieselGate usually don't have evidence as clear cut as an official memo saying, "I, hereby undersigned, order my underlings to break the law by doing X, Y, and Z.". A more realistic scenario is a series of emails & phone calls saying, "make the new engine meet the target parameters by this quarter's end", coupled with tacitly ignoring a footnote in an engineer's memo saying, "However we recommend against leaving the high performance mode enabled for production vehicles", along with a nod to a mid level manager who asks, "should we match the high performance mode to that of our competitors' car models X, Y, and Z?". In which case establishing responsibility & culpability will take some thorough work. -- [1] aside of the small set of strict liability crimes where the event/fact alone constitutes a crime