3 ms·
That has no relevance to my question. What I want to know is if admittance of guilt and sincerity is at all relevant to sentencing, not about whether a particul
by ryanklee 3y ago
That has no relevance to my question. What I want to know is if admittance of guilt and sincerity is at all relevant to sentencing, not about whether a particular mechanism is fit to determine either point.
- ceejayoz 3y agoIf we can't accurately assess it, it should absolutely not be considered in sentencing. It's like giving someone a longer jail sentence for having a blue aura instead of a pink one.
- ryanklee 3y agoI think it's rather unfair to say that we can't accurately judge sincerity unless you talk about levels of precision. Because, for instance, accuracy in judgment of sincerity is a basic requirement of getting through any day for any human. In other words, we can certainly judge it accurately enough for many purposes.
- ceejayoz 3y agoGullible people and great liars abound. People fall for "we're the IRS and we need you to buy some iTunes gift cards" all the time, the entire country is deeply split on what's "fake news" and what isn't; we're clearly not cut out for these assessments. Normal life works reasonably OK, but sentencing isn't a "normal life" scenario; it's the sort of thing that sends people to jail wrongly for decades fairly frequently.
- ryanklee 3y agoYes, all of which sentencing is also based on human judgement of persons character, witness statements, expert statements, presentation of evidence, etc etc Judgement of sincerity is woven into the entirety of court procedures. Why would you exclude this additional relevant data point regarding sincerity of allocution?
- ceejayoz 3y agoA witness who's promised something like immunity should absolutely be treated with skepticism. An expert who's paid $5k/hour to testify should, as well. They're also subject to cross-examination during those processes. "Gee, I'm so sorry I drove drunk, please give me a lower sentence" is so transparently self-interested it should be discarded as evidence.
- ryanklee 3y agoTreating someone with skepticism is a function of judgement of sincerity. Not sure how that is in any way in disagreement with my point. Which is that we should and must exercise judgement of persons' interior properties in court.