4 ms·

The line is the mantra of criminals since time immemorial. It’s not a US invention. But, I would invite you to spend some time in any US court house where crim

by vxNsr 4y ago

The line is the mantra of criminals since time immemorial. It’s not a US invention. But, I would invite you to spend some time in any US court house where criminal proceedings are being held. You will find that 99.999% of convicts are very guilty (with proof anyone in the room can verify and would agree is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt) of the crimes they’ve committed. While I agree that .001% is still too high a percentage when talking about convicting innocents. It’s truly the height of hyperbole to claim there’s a chance it might be true for anyone who says it.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
I’m going to go ahead and disagree with this. The failure rate of the court isn’t whether or not convicts are guilty. It’s whether or not the constitutional rights of the accused have been violated. That rate is significantly high and totally unacceptable. You cannot just detain people without a trial indefinitely just because they’re “probably guilty”. You cannot force false testimony of children because “probably guilty”. You cannot being junk science like bite marks, lie detectors, “I smelled weed”, etc. because “probably guilty”. You cannot force a guilty plea by threatening someone’s life with an intentionally harsher sentence or death because “probably guilty”. This is royally fucked up and a multiple daily occurrence in the courts.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  I appreciate you taking a more conciliatory tone (at least in the beginning), many here are just trying to getting into flame wars. Still, I think you’d be very surprised if you actually spent any time in a court house, those examples you bring are very rare and far from a daily occurrence. Again, I believe even one innocent person behind bars is too many, but we need to weight that against creating a culture of lawlessness and violence (which is where it feels like many large American cities, mine included, are headed).
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I have spent time at a court house. It’s called pleading guilty to a minor traffic violation. A cop lying or straight up making someone’s life hell for fighting is, in fact, something that happened the day I was there. Most everyone I know has either dealt with this or knows someone in their circle that dealt with this.
Volundr 4y ago
The national institute of science conservatively estimates that 4% of those given the death penalty are innocent. 61% of death row inmates who are later exonerated by evidence involve false and coerced confessions. Given how poorly we do when it comes to the death penalty, you'll excuse me if I doubt your 99.999% guilty numbers for other crimes. https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-reports-four-percent-of-death-row-inmates-are-innocent/ https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-re...
- vxNsr 4y ago
  Those are selective stats that don’t contradict mine. How many people are given the death penalty? How many are on death row? How many crimes are actually committed on a daily basis? These are questions that your stats don’t address and are very relevant to the discussion.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    Sure, that'd be a reasonable point, if you had started with that kind of information in your post. Instead you started with a hyperbolic 99.999% number and nothing to back it. Given that one would hope we'd be more careful about wrongful convictions with death penalty cases than a random bar brawl or possession charge I'm going to assert that the information I already provided is sufficient to refute the point.

by vxNsr 4y ago

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago

I’m going to go ahead and disagree with this. The failure rate of the court isn’t whether or not convicts are guilty. It’s whether or not the constitutional rights of the accused have been violated. That rate is significantly high and totally unacceptable. You cannot just detain people without a trial indefinitely just because they’re “probably guilty”. You cannot force false testimony of children because “probably guilty”. You cannot being junk science like bite marks, lie detectors, “I smelled weed”, etc. because “probably guilty”. You cannot force a guilty plea by threatening someone’s life with an intentionally harsher sentence or death because “probably guilty”. This is royally fucked up and a multiple daily occurrence in the courts.

vxNsr 4y ago
I appreciate you taking a more conciliatory tone (at least in the beginning), many here are just trying to getting into flame wars. Still, I think you’d be very surprised if you actually spent any time in a court house, those examples you bring are very rare and far from a daily occurrence. Again, I believe even one innocent person behind bars is too many, but we need to weight that against creating a culture of lawlessness and violence (which is where it feels like many large American cities, mine included, are headed).
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I have spent time at a court house. It’s called pleading guilty to a minor traffic violation. A cop lying or straight up making someone’s life hell for fighting is, in fact, something that happened the day I was there. Most everyone I know has either dealt with this or knows someone in their circle that dealt with this.

Volundr 4y ago

The national institute of science conservatively estimates that 4% of those given the death penalty are innocent. 61% of death row inmates who are later exonerated by evidence involve false and coerced confessions. Given how poorly we do when it comes to the death penalty, you'll excuse me if I doubt your 99.999% guilty numbers for other crimes. https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-reports-four-percent-of-death-row-inmates-are-innocent/ https://innocenceproject.org/national-academy-of-sciences-re...

vxNsr 4y ago
Those are selective stats that don’t contradict mine. How many people are given the death penalty? How many are on death row? How many crimes are actually committed on a daily basis? These are questions that your stats don’t address and are very relevant to the discussion.
- Volundr 4y ago
  Sure, that'd be a reasonable point, if you had started with that kind of information in your post. Instead you started with a hyperbolic 99.999% number and nothing to back it. Given that one would hope we'd be more careful about wrongful convictions with death penalty cases than a random bar brawl or possession charge I'm going to assert that the information I already provided is sufficient to refute the point.