[265] in libertarians
Re: Death Penalty
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul D. Eccles)
Tue Sep 27 10:47:25 1994
From: "Paul D. Eccles" <pde@sd.inri.com>
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 27 Sep 94 7:44:13 PDT
> I object to the death penalty for the same reason -- that a mistake is
> impossible to correct. There are cases where everyone knows the guy is
> guilty, and I'd love to see him hang, but it's impossible to distinguish
> between those cases and the more common cases where there is some doubt,
> since, in theory, *all* cases are supposed to be "beyond a shadow of a
> doubt."
I believe that is "beyond a reasonable doubt".
> Last night, I heard a news story about a Canadian who was convicted of
> murder and sent to jail. Now, years later, the Crown's main witness has
> recanted, saying she was pressured by cops into lying on the stand. Nine
> months later, he is still in jail.
>
> Then there is the Dawson rape case; a "rape victim" recanted her story years
> after sending some guy to jail. The governor, if I recall correctly, gave
> him an early release, but not a pardon (meaning the conviction was still on
> his record), because he didn't want to admit the state could make a mistake.
> Feminists also openly disputed her recantation, doing so for their own
> ideological reasons (they didn't want to admit that their "no woman would
> ever ever lie about rape" theory was wrong). A few years later, DNA
> testing conclusively proved his innocence.
As long as we have the adversarial system there will be people who go free
who shouldn't and people who are convicted and should be free. This system
of justice is not about finding the truth and putting the wrongdoers in jail.
It's about the prosecuter vs the defense and who wins. In the end society loses
by having some wrongdoers on the street and innocent people in jail.
Paul
