Super-Harsh

Is it that new evidence casts doubt on whether suspect/convict was guilty, or is enough evidence to actually prove innocence?

I think that's an important difference. Proving innocent should carry compensation payment. Doubting guilt should not, IMO.
 
Gilly said:
Is it that new evidence casts doubt on whether suspect/convict was guilty, or is enough evidence to actually prove innocence?

I think that's an important difference. Proving innocent should carry compensation payment. Doubting guilt should not, IMO.
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If you apply the presumption of innocence, there is no such distinction, nor should there be.
 
aln said:
If you apply the presumption of innocence, there is no such distinction, nor should there be.
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indeed, and that is what the new test does, it applies the presumption of innocence to the taxpayer. that in turn creates a balance of rights whereby compensation is not awarded if both sides can be seen as innocent of wrongdoing.
 
Dolph said:
indeed, and that is what the new test does, it applies the presumption of innocence to the taxpayer. that in turn creates a balance of rights whereby compensation is not awarded if both sides can be seen as innocent of wrongdoing.
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But it's not the taxpayer it's the state or if you somehow feel the taxpayers actually have a say in the matter, its the collective of taxpayers against one person. You cannot compare the state to an individual and rules aren't fair if you apply them equally.

If you go to prison and the state has resonably convinced a jury that you were guilty when you were infact innocent, I don't think that them making the right smart choice based on the evidence at the time is going to provide you with any solace. If that evidence is later brought into question resulting in your release, regardless of what people think, you should be presumed innocent once again and you should be awarded damages.

Such damages are unlikely to cause one iota of difference to the life to your average taxpayer, but they'll offer you a great deal more choices on how you'll get live your remaining years. It's the very least we can do when our state has effectively wrecked an innocents life.
 
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aln said:
But it's not the taxpayer it's the state or if you somehow feel the taxpayers actually have a say in the matter, its the collective of taxpayers against one person. You cannot compare the state to an individual and rules aren't fair if you apply them equally.
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When we are talking financial compensation, we can only be talking about taxpayers as the state has no money of it's own. The state can offer an apology, but can only offer compensation if it first takes the money from the public. How is it fair for the state to punish the taxpayer when the state is not guilty of wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt?
 
Dolph said:
When we are talking financial compensation, we can only be talking about taxpayers as the state has no money of it's own. The state can offer an apology, but can only offer compensation if it first takes the money from the public. How is it fair for the state to punish the taxpayer when the state is not guilty of wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt?
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Our nanny state punishes taxpayers every day by ******* money away for special interest groups, I think the least we can do is repair some of the damage we've caused the wrongly convicted*.

If you don't agree with that, then I think it's possible that you don't agree with socialism on any level. I'd be more than happy to offer you an opt-out, but you'd be a fool to take it.

If theres anything I'm for the state spending money on, cleaning up their god damned mess is pretty up there.

* More on point, as I said earlier its a cost of doing business. If you agree with state justice, you should probably agree with justice for those who have been wronged by the state justice as well. Show some empathy mate. We're talking about _wrongly convicted_ here. It could easily be you one day.
 
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aln said:
Our nanny state punishes taxpayers every day by ******* money away for special interest groups, I think the least we can do is repair some of the damage we've caused the wrong convicted.

If you don't agree with that, then I think it's possible that you don't agree with socialism on any level. I'd be more than happy to offer you an opt-out, but you'd be a fool to take it.

If theres anything I'm for the state spending money on, cleaning up their god damned mess is pretty up there.
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I'm much more of the avoiding mess in the first place idea, but this case was a technicality case, not a 'we were wrong' case...

the fact that our state spending is an absolute mess in general isnt relevant to the issue here.
 
Dolph said:
I'm much more of the avoiding mess in the first place idea,
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I couldn't agree more, but thats something that'll require spending money on too. Police and prosecutors are prone to chase stats, until we remove that from the system we're unlikely to ever be close to mess free.

Dolph said:
but this case was a technicality case, not a 'we were wrong' case...
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If it's a technicality they should have gave him a retrail as opposed to releasing him. I'm not going to sit here and argue the merit of the case as I wasn't part of the jury, I'm not privy to the evidence, and being an armchair juror isn't something to be proud of. I'm sure theres a lot messed up with the case, but given he actually gets released, he's innocent until proven guilty, even if we all believe otherwise.

Dolph said:
the fact that our state spending is an absolute mess in general isnt relevant to the issue here.
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It's about as relevant as your point that taxes are theft by the state.
 
aln said:
I couldn't agree more, but thats something that'll require spending money on too. Police and prosecutors are prone to chase stats, until we remove that from the system we're unlikely to ever be close to mess free.



If it's a technicality they should have gave him a retrail as opposed to releasing him. I'm not going to sit here and argue the merit of the case as I wasn't part of the jury, I'm not privy to the evidence, and being an armchair juror isn't something to be proud of. I'm sure theres a lot messed up with the case, but given he actually gets released, he's innocent until proven guilty, even if we all believe otherwise.



It's about as relevant as your point that taxes are theft by the state.
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There was a retrial, with one piece of prosecution evidence (gunshot residue) disallowed, and new witnesses presented by the defence...

I guess the real solution is to bring in a 'not proven' acquittal verdict similar to the scottish system which would help make things clearer in terms of outcomes. the supreme court ruling on miscarriages of justice effectively does just that, but it is not a formal thing.
 
Dolph said:
There was a retrial, with one piece of prosecution evidence (gunshot residue) disallowed, and new witnesses presented by the defence...

I guess the real solution is to bring in a 'not proven' acquittal verdict similar to the scottish system which would help make things clearer in terms of outcomes. the supreme court ruling on miscarriages of justice effectively does just that, but it is not a formal thing.
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I can see where you're coming from but I just don't agree. I'd much rather have de facto innocent rather then stapling not-proven on someone because we're really sure he's a bad guy but we just didn't do enough prove it. The latter seems petty to me.
 
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aln said:
I can see where you're coming from but I just don't agree. I'd much rather have de facto innocent rather then stapling not-proven on someone because we're really sure he's a bad guy but we just didn't do enough prove it. The latter seems petty to me.
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The latter is a good option and works just fine in the Scottish legal system, it allows that the prosecution hasn't made their case sufficiently convincingly but that doubt remains. It allows consideration that sometimes there's not sufficient evidence to convict of the instant charges but that the person isn't necessarily innocent either - if you like it's a recognition that sometimes it's more complicated than a binary choice.
 
semi-pro waster said:
The latter is a good option and works just fine in the Scottish legal system, it allows that the prosecution hasn't made their case sufficiently convincingly but that doubt remains. It allows consideration that sometimes there's not sufficient evidence to convict of the instant charges but that the person isn't necessarily innocent either - if you like it's a recognition that sometimes it's more complicated than a binary choice.
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I don't see how you've proven it's better. In my mind, either you are sufficantly proven guilty or you are not and you should not be branded with stigma in the event that you are not.

Listen, I totally get it. You don't want the guy who is guilty to be treated as an innocent and I don't really like that idea either. In my mind though, it's far better to have one that got away than to tarnish the innocent who you're really sure did it, but you can't prove.

After all, if you can't prove it, you don't really know they did it. If you did, you'd be able to prove it.

Moses said:
In some ways it just feels like letting the state defame someone :\. They can't prove it, but they're allowed to irreparably destroy someone's life, in many instances.
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Exactly. I'm Scottish but that's exactly how I see it.
 
Moses said:
In some ways it just feels like letting the state defame someone :\. They can't prove it, but they're allowed to irreparably destroy someone's life, in many instances.
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It's not a verdict that is used all that often, figures from 2008-09 show it was used in around 1% of a total of 140,600 prosecutions so it's around 1,400 instances in a year. It's also worth noting that it's more prevalent in the most serious of crimes e.g homicide/rape and less so in the more "trivial" of crimes. For comparison purposes in that year 3% were acquitted as not guilty, 7% had the case deserted or the not guilty plea accepted and 89% were convicted of at least one crime. Source.

I haven't done much searching but there is a BBC article here which suggests that in 2010-11 there were 5% of trials ending in acquittals with only 16% of those acquittals being via a not proven verdict.

In an ideal world perhaps there would be no need for a not proven because there would be certainty but it's a less than ideal world and that verdict gives a valuable option to indicate that while the prosecution hasn't managed to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt there is still a doubt that remains. It's a doubt that will most often apply to the more serious crimes.
 
Dolph said:
When we are talking financial compensation, we can only be talking about taxpayers as the state has no money of it's own. The state can offer an apology, but can only offer compensation if it first takes the money from the public. How is it fair for the state to punish the taxpayer when the state is not guilty of wrongdoing beyond reasonable doubt?
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If the state has no money of its own, then it has nothing of its own. Trials cost money. Prisons cost money. If the state has no money, then the state does not carry out trials and the state does not imprison people. So your own argument leads to the conclusion that the taxpayers are to blame if someone is imprisoned when they shouldn't have been.

You're cherry-picking because of your strange view of taxes, in order to have your cake and eat it. You want the state to take the blame and to not take the blame, at the same time. That's unfair. Either the state is responsible or it isn't.
 
Moses said:
When I said in most instances, I meant when it comes to the cases where not proven verdicts are given, rather than saying it's a commonly used tool. 1400 people per year who have their reputation ruined when it can't be proven, beyond all reasonable doubt, that they committed the offence... so, in most of those instances, the defendant's reputation will be irreparably damaged.

I'd say it's worse it's more common in rape/murder... I mean, I'd rather people thought, 'oh, it wasn't proven he's a con artist... but no smoke without fire' than people thought, 'oh, it wasn't proven he's a rapist... but no smoke without fire'!

To me, it massively undermines the idea of innocent until proven guilty.
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aln said:
The fact it isn't often used doesn't add anything to disprove the idelogoy that you should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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Not proven is an acquittal verdict, the stigma that attaches to it is anecdotally relatively little but as for how you'd measure that in any objective sense... It doesn't change the starting presumption of innocence, what it does do is allow that while the state hasn't proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt there may still be less than clear evidence for complete innocence which is what acquitted not guilty would imply. For whatever value you can make of it your responses have prompted me to start reading a debate from 1995 which is captured in Hansard. There are some fascinating arguments in there, Menzies Campbell is perhaps the best placed to comment and the most eloquent of them.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Not proven is an acquittal verdict, the stigma that attaches to it is anecdotally relatively little but as for how you'd measure that in any objective sense... It doesn't change the starting presumption of innocence, what it does do is allow that while the state hasn't proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt there may still be less than clear evidence for complete innocence which is what acquitted not guilty would imply. For whatever value you can make of it your responses have prompted me to start reading a debate from 1995 which is captured in Hansard. There are some fascinating arguments in there, Menzies Campbell is perhaps the best placed to comment and the most eloquent of them.
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I still don't see the positives but I think we'll just have to agree to disagree mate. I read some of what you posted:-

The not proven verdict is a comprehensive cop-out. The accused person may be technically and effectively acquitted. Of course, he cannot be retried for the same offence, but it leaves an indelible smear on the character and record of that acquitted person. That is a thoroughly undesirable departure from the principle that we are all innocent until proven guilty.

On Monday this week, a jury returned a not proven verdict on a lawyer who had been accused of a drugs offence. In theory, he has been acquitted, but it is fair to assume that his reputation is blemished, and that his career is likely to be affected as a consequence of that not proven verdict. He is not guilty but, after that verdict, he is not innocent, either.

I appreciate that the not proven verdict is a welcome bolthole for a guilty person who would otherwise be sentenced but, by the same token, it is an intolerable burden for an innocent person to carry, and all the worse because one cannot appeal against a not proven verdict to clear one's name.
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Better than I could every say it.
 
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