4 ms·

Is that unusual among all the countries of the world? Or is the US unusual for having a statute of limitations?

vkou 3y ago
Most countries have statues of limitations for criminal offenses. It makes sense - imagine trying to defend yourself against an case where the police has been sitting on evidence for 50 years, and anyone you could call in your defense is long-dead.
- ummonk 3y ago
  It’s not clear to me why we should have a hard and fast statute of limitations for that reason instead of simply factoring it in when deciding whether the prosecution has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
  - least 3y ago
    How much doubt must a juror sow into their mind in order for it to be a fair trial?
  - vkou 3y ago
    The same could be said for any bit of courtroom procedure. Why forbid a prosecutor from making an illegal inference, or entering illegal evidence, when you can just instruct the jury after-the-fact to disregard it? The jury doesn't just live in a vaccum. There are rules for what kind of evidence is admissible to them, and we don't just leave it to the jury to yolo it. Sometimes, those rules don't make 100% sense. That's the case with any set of rules (Especially ones surrounding legal procedure!). We set rules, because we think that they are a good idea most of the time. And most of the time, for most crimes, the tradeoff between trying a decades-old case, and of preventing the harassment of an innocent person over a decades-old-case leans towards the latter.
  - rtpg 3y ago
    In adversarial systems, the prosecution's objective isn't to reach a truth, but instead to fight to convict you. This incentivises dirty tricks, misrepresentation of facts, and ultimately the full force of state resources looking at putting you behind bars. And during this whole process you are often locked up anyways for this process, independent of actual guilt. In that model and imbalance of resources, having statue of limitations in place alleviates the need for defendents to, for example, keep records of their actions and reasoning for 30+ years. How would you navigate being charged for tax evasion from 35 years ago, for example? EDIT: to be clear, I don't think this is necessarily a precise defense of statuetes of limitations specifically, just a "well they're not a bad idea" sort of defense
    - qingcharles 3y ago
      Amen, brother. You hit the nail on the head with this one. Going to get all the charges against me dismissed by the prosecutor tomorrow, but took ten years of being in jail, waiting for trial, before they came to that decision. The system is broken :(
    - biggc 3y ago
      Are there any examples of a country with a non-adversarial Justice model?
      - 462436347 3y ago
        Most countries in Europe and Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system
      - rtpg 3y ago
        Inquisitorial systems (more present in civil law systems big also present in some US courts) have the judge act as a fact finder. In that model the judge is basically an active participant in figuring out what happens, instead of just being a referee in between two parties. So the judge (a professional whose job it is to do this) is more of an active participant and a determiner of guilt rather than 12 randos off the street (modulo a bunch of stuff). This leads to things like guilty plea bargains not being as much of a thing if the judge doesn’t believe the confession. Source: I read the Wikipedia article on inquisitorial systems and watch tv. So I don’t know what I’m talking about but it sounds nice (also aligns with what I’ve heard about French court procedure) I think this covers Japan too (anyone who plays phoenix wright might wonder: why is the judge just declaring a result?)
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    Remembering that the most severe crimes usually have no statute of limitations, one strong case for having them is so people can move on from their past without fear a minor, unprosecuted crime will come back to haunt them.
- nitwit005 3y ago
  It also allows the police to throw stuff out. If you want to prosecute, you need the evidence, but keeping evidence forever means litteral warehouses of evidence. It gets expensive quickly.
- avar 3y ago
  One argument for a statute of limitations is fading human memory, but I don't see how that's the case here, from the article: > "Discarded TV film was secretly salvaged from bins and skips by staff and contractors who worked at the BBC between 1967 and 1978, when the corporation had a policy of throwing out old reels. [...] “The collectors involved are ex-employees and so are terrified. The rule was that you didn’t take anything, even if it had been thrown out." I think making this an offense is insane, but I don't see how these cases are any more ambiguous than if the same happened yesterday. The question is whether the owner of property has a right to order its destruction, and whether an employee (or equivalent) is stealing or legitimately salvaging if they "rescue" said property from the trash.
  - benj111 3y ago
    Legal or not, the BBC obviously put a value of zero on these things when they threw them away. So who has lost, what value needs to be recovered? There's no reasonable reason for anyone to pursue legal action, it would just be vexatious and / or a waste of tax payer money.
    - Keloran 3y ago
      You don’t need a loss to occur for there to be a crime “the trump defense” If I break into your house, eat your food, but leave money on the counter for the same value, you didn’t make a loss, but I’m sure you would want me to be arrested
      - benj111 3y ago
        Yes the crime of breaking and entering. If I took a piece of potato peel out of your bin that was on the pavement, that might technically be a crime (I don't know). But are you going to pursue a civil suit? What compensation are you going to get? Are the police or CPS going to prosecute? Is it in the national interest? Or are they wasting resources for no reason. The BBC are in no way being harmed by someone who has permission to be on the premises taking something that the BBC literally believes to be rubbish. There's a legal concept of irrationality. This would seem to be an example of that.
- ChrisRR 3y ago
  On the flip side, imagine someone committed one or more crimes and were only discovered decades later. Does that mean their crimes should go unpunished. I'm not specifically arguing for or against, but I guess it's not so simple.

vkou 3y ago

Most countries have statues of limitations for criminal offenses. It makes sense - imagine trying to defend yourself against an case where the police has been sitting on evidence for 50 years, and anyone you could call in your defense is long-dead.

ummonk 3y ago
It’s not clear to me why we should have a hard and fast statute of limitations for that reason instead of simply factoring it in when deciding whether the prosecution has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
- least 3y ago
  How much doubt must a juror sow into their mind in order for it to be a fair trial?
- vkou 3y ago
  The same could be said for any bit of courtroom procedure. Why forbid a prosecutor from making an illegal inference, or entering illegal evidence, when you can just instruct the jury after-the-fact to disregard it? The jury doesn't just live in a vaccum. There are rules for what kind of evidence is admissible to them, and we don't just leave it to the jury to yolo it. Sometimes, those rules don't make 100% sense. That's the case with any set of rules (Especially ones surrounding legal procedure!). We set rules, because we think that they are a good idea most of the time. And most of the time, for most crimes, the tradeoff between trying a decades-old case, and of preventing the harassment of an innocent person over a decades-old-case leans towards the latter.
- rtpg 3y ago
  In adversarial systems, the prosecution's objective isn't to reach a truth, but instead to fight to convict you. This incentivises dirty tricks, misrepresentation of facts, and ultimately the full force of state resources looking at putting you behind bars. And during this whole process you are often locked up anyways for this process, independent of actual guilt. In that model and imbalance of resources, having statue of limitations in place alleviates the need for defendents to, for example, keep records of their actions and reasoning for 30+ years. How would you navigate being charged for tax evasion from 35 years ago, for example? EDIT: to be clear, I don't think this is necessarily a precise defense of statuetes of limitations specifically, just a "well they're not a bad idea" sort of defense
  - qingcharles 3y ago
    Amen, brother. You hit the nail on the head with this one. Going to get all the charges against me dismissed by the prosecutor tomorrow, but took ten years of being in jail, waiting for trial, before they came to that decision. The system is broken :(
  - biggc 3y ago
    Are there any examples of a country with a non-adversarial Justice model?
    - 462436347 3y ago
      Most countries in Europe and Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system
    - rtpg 3y ago
      Inquisitorial systems (more present in civil law systems big also present in some US courts) have the judge act as a fact finder. In that model the judge is basically an active participant in figuring out what happens, instead of just being a referee in between two parties. So the judge (a professional whose job it is to do this) is more of an active participant and a determiner of guilt rather than 12 randos off the street (modulo a bunch of stuff). This leads to things like guilty plea bargains not being as much of a thing if the judge doesn’t believe the confession. Source: I read the Wikipedia article on inquisitorial systems and watch tv. So I don’t know what I’m talking about but it sounds nice (also aligns with what I’ve heard about French court procedure) I think this covers Japan too (anyone who plays phoenix wright might wonder: why is the judge just declaring a result?)
- dehrmann 3y ago
  Remembering that the most severe crimes usually have no statute of limitations, one strong case for having them is so people can move on from their past without fear a minor, unprosecuted crime will come back to haunt them.
nitwit005 3y ago
It also allows the police to throw stuff out. If you want to prosecute, you need the evidence, but keeping evidence forever means litteral warehouses of evidence. It gets expensive quickly.
avar 3y ago
One argument for a statute of limitations is fading human memory, but I don't see how that's the case here, from the article: > "Discarded TV film was secretly salvaged from bins and skips by staff and contractors who worked at the BBC between 1967 and 1978, when the corporation had a policy of throwing out old reels. [...] “The collectors involved are ex-employees and so are terrified. The rule was that you didn’t take anything, even if it had been thrown out." I think making this an offense is insane, but I don't see how these cases are any more ambiguous than if the same happened yesterday. The question is whether the owner of property has a right to order its destruction, and whether an employee (or equivalent) is stealing or legitimately salvaging if they "rescue" said property from the trash.
- benj111 3y ago
  Legal or not, the BBC obviously put a value of zero on these things when they threw them away. So who has lost, what value needs to be recovered? There's no reasonable reason for anyone to pursue legal action, it would just be vexatious and / or a waste of tax payer money.
  - Keloran 3y ago
    You don’t need a loss to occur for there to be a crime “the trump defense” If I break into your house, eat your food, but leave money on the counter for the same value, you didn’t make a loss, but I’m sure you would want me to be arrested
    - benj111 3y ago
      Yes the crime of breaking and entering. If I took a piece of potato peel out of your bin that was on the pavement, that might technically be a crime (I don't know). But are you going to pursue a civil suit? What compensation are you going to get? Are the police or CPS going to prosecute? Is it in the national interest? Or are they wasting resources for no reason. The BBC are in no way being harmed by someone who has permission to be on the premises taking something that the BBC literally believes to be rubbish. There's a legal concept of irrationality. This would seem to be an example of that.
ChrisRR 3y ago
On the flip side, imagine someone committed one or more crimes and were only discovered decades later. Does that mean their crimes should go unpunished. I'm not specifically arguing for or against, but I guess it's not so simple.