4 ms·

All decisions should be based on comparing outcomes. Cost is important, but obviously that's only one small part of the outcome. Letting the guilty free is an

• Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  Cost cannot be important. Else those who are costlier to go after are weighted as less important to pursue unless drastic measures are taken to balance out the cost. Someone rich enough to hire a team of lawyers who slow down the process in every legal way possible should not be let off just because they have the money to spend to do such. And as to the 'framework of rights', this isn't merely a framework by which one operates a legal system but the very foundation of one. If we drop the notion of rights (and the less mentioned but just as important duties) we end up with no system at all. If we do not have rights (nor duties) then what point is there to a system to is there to ensure my rights are respected (by both the system and by others) and that I perform the duties required of me? We have to start over to ask why we even need a legal system to begin with. It quickly ends up being 'because the guys with guns say so' and any distinction between government and organized crime quickly dissolves. Consider a simple case of theft. I take your money. Why is this wrong? Because you have a right to do with your money? But we have tossed out rights. Now if instead you don't mean to toss out all rights, but to eliminate a few that you consider unproductive to our legal system functioning, it is thus quite a fair question to ask which rights are you in favor of tossing. Such as the right to a fair trial. If you want the prosecutor to be able to cheaply lock up guilty people, you can toss the right to a fair trial and then define guilty based off of being declared such. Ergo everyone convicted is guilty and convictions are quite cheap. Even cheaper if we toss the right to counsel. No innocent people locked up and you can put someone in prison in under an hour. Just go up to the jury and say 'we have proof did X, Y, Z', offer up some fabricated evidence, and then offer the jury a forged signed statement from the defendant saying they did it. No cross examination, no actual defense, no need for honesty because the rights to all that has been tossed. And no innocent people are locked up because they are by definition not innocent. Without the framework of rights, there are cons to balance.
  • shasta 11y ago
    > Consider a simple case of theft... Why is this wrong? Theft is illegal. Wrong is a different topic. > any distinction between government and organized crime quickly dissolves. The difference between organized crime and government has nothing to do with rights. Think about the range of governments that exist. > If you want the prosecutor to be able to cheaply lock up guilty people, ... I haven't spelled it out, but the goal of the legal system is to separate the guilty from the innocent. Percentage of innocent punished, percentage of guilty freed, and cost are all factors for evaluating how well the system works. Rights are a foundation for a legal system in the same way that religion is a foundation for a system of morality. That is, lots of people use them/it as a foundation, but that's neither necessary nor ideal.