How many guilty men would you let go free to keep one innocent man out of prison?

[E4 No More]

You don't punish the innocent for a faulty system. I would rather let several pedophiles run the streets rather than one person spend their life in prison because they were falsely accused. Like it or not, THAT is the burden of a free society. It is on us to fix the system. Simply saying it's ok for innocents to be caged like animals just so that a few bad guys get caught is simply unacceptable. The greater good is such that no innocent person shall be punished for crimes they did not commit regardless of if the guilty go to jail or not.

This^^

[mcurrier]

I would rather 1000 guilty go free than 1 innocent go to jail. Our system is far from perfect, but no innocent person should be punished because of it.

Well...we are already there then. There are tons of criminals roaming the streets for every law abiding citizen. Been that way for a few years. That's why the law-abiding citizens need guns. The criminal population on the loose seems to be increasing. Law abiding citizens need to be armed to even out the odds.

[Smith]

You don't punish the innocent for a faulty system. I would rather let several pedophiles run the streets rather than one person spend their life in prison because they were falsely accused. Like it or not, THAT is the burden of a free society. It is on us to fix the system. Simply saying it's ok for innocents to be caged like animals just so that a few bad guys get caught is simply unacceptable. The greater good is such that no innocent person shall be punished for crimes they did not commit regardless of if the guilty go to jail or not.

Edited to add: I'm not saying I want pedophiles to roam free. I was just using the example given earlier.

Yes, but no one is in jail without being convicted by a jury of their peers beyond a reasonable doubt. So essentially no one is being punished without cause. I know there are innocents convicted but it's still the best system in the world to date - flaws and all.

Really? How about if you were an innocent on death row...would you be willing to die for this principle?

Again the outcome doesn't change the principle. I would rarher be in on death row than have 5 suspected mass murderes free and living next door to my family. Phrase your question the other way and ask it to yourself.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

You don't punish the innocent for a faulty system. I would rather let several pedophiles run the streets rather than one person spend their life in prison because they were falsely accused. Like it or not, THAT is the burden of a free society. It is on us to fix the system. Simply saying it's ok for innocents to be caged like animals just so that a few bad guys get caught is simply unacceptable. The greater good is such that no innocent person shall be punished for crimes they did not commit regardless of if the guilty go to jail or not.

Edited to add: I'm not saying I want pedophiles to roam free. I was just using the example given earlier.

Your example is fine. It can be replaced with any

other crime. The same result should be applied

to them as well.

Interesting comments! I'll always want to err on the

side of an individual's innocence until the state

proves guilt. The other version is tyranny.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Guest WyattEarp]

Some have even said it is better for more innocents to suffer than to let one guilty man go free.

so glad they speak for the one that has to suffer, I hope they never have the experience of being the one to suffer, I'm sure their viewpoint would change drastically.

but I see the flip side of the argument, because by allowing many guilty to go free, how many innocents will have to suffer at the hands of the guilty who were let free, when they decide to resort once again to their criminal ways?

it's always easier to say let the innocent man suffer, so that no guilty would go free, when it's not your ass on the line as the innocent man. tough argument, and even tougher to decide which side to be on.

[Guest pfries]

it's always easier to say let the innocent man suffer, so that no guilty would go free, when it's not your ass on the line as the innocent man. tough argument, and even tougher to decide which side to be on.

If you have been wrongly convicted you don't have to decide which side to be on, the courts have made that decision for you…..

At that point the system has failed you once, work hard and hope it does not do it again during you appeal process.

[Fallguy]

If you try to make eveything perfect it won't happen. Innocents will always be there. Kinda like the poor. I have no problem with that. Those are just realities but it doesn't mean you don't work to right those wrongs. Better for one innocent man in prisonfor for abusing a child then several pedophiles running the street. I try to put myself in that situation and I have to apply it the same. If the righteous won't bear the burden of imperfection you really think the unrighteous will work towards perfection? I think the greater good outweights the reality of the greater evil.

I couldn't disagree more....

[Guest WyattEarp]

If you have been wrongly convicted you don't have to decide which side to be on, the courts have made that decision for you…..

At that point the system has failed you once, work hard and hope it does not do it again during you appeal process.

I was talking about the people who say let the innocent man suffer, and the guilty stay in prison. the ones who are free and haven't done anything wrong.

they are the ones that have the tough decision of which side to be on.

[Garufa]

On a more abstract level the innocent suffer every day due to the actions of the guilty. Every single one of us who have never committed a crime pay the price for those that do. Higher prices to offset losses due to theft, ridiculous and insane laws governing the puchase of cold medicine (an apparently batteries in Kentucky), increased governmental costs and eventual tax increases to enact reactive laws based on the doings of a few, the insane costs of prosecuting and eventually freeing obviously guilty people, etc., etc.

No of us are "free" because of the guilty.

[strickj]

If you try to make eveything perfect it won't happen. Innocents will always be there. Kinda like the poor. I have no problem with that. Those are just realities but it doesn't mean you don't work to right those wrongs. Better for one innocent man in prisonfor for abusing a child then several pedophiles running the street. I try to put myself in that situation and I have to apply it the same. If the righteous won't bear the burden of imperfection you really think the unrighteous will work towards perfection? I think the greater good outweights the reality of the greater evil.

I agree (shocking that Smith and I agree on something, isn't it )

How many innocents have been killed in war for the greater good? It's A-OK for that to happen, so why isn't it OK for an innocent to be jailed to ensure several guilty are put-away?

[Guest bkelm18]

I agree (shocking that Smith and I agree on something, isn't it )

How many innocents have been killed in war for the greater good? It's A-OK for that to happen, so why isn't it OK for an innocent to be jailed to ensure several guilty are put-away?

So you'd spend your life in prison, possibly be executed, so that a felon would also be imprisoned? I don't buy it. I forever stand by my stance that no innocents should be punished for the shortcomings of a faulty justice system. There is no justification for ruining an innocent's life in the name of justice in a civilized, democratic society.

[Guest bkelm18]

I guess I just find it shocking that the very same people who argue for rights and freedoms would strip them seemingly without hesitation from a completely innocent person in some perverse notion of justice. Justice is some guilty going free to prevent the innocent from wrongful conviction. Allowing the innocent to be jailed in the hopes the guilty do as well is not justice. It's tyranny.

[Guest lostpass]

Well...we are already there then. There are tons of criminals roaming the streets for every law abiding citizen. Been that way for a few years. That's why the law-abiding citizens need guns. The criminal population on the loose seems to be increasing. Law abiding citizens need to be armed to even out the odds.

Can that actually be right? Do criminals actually outnumber law abiding citizens? And it has been this way for a few years?

Cause a quick bit of research shows a different trend:

I know it seems like crime is getting worse what with the internet and the amount of information increasing, plus the reporting happens almost instantaneously so it is easier to internalize. That noted the trend is decidedly down.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

That violent crime rate may actually be right, but I'll bet that property crime rate is the opposite.

This may be highly subjective, but do you feel safer nowadays every time you go to a mall, or the

grocery store, or other places out in public than you did 5-10 years ago? I do with my Glock. That's

sad as can be. With this Occupy nonsense and the gang problems, I have to agree with mcurrier on

his statement, because it is one of the reasons to be carrying. The reason has a more pressing

meaning nowadays.

It is all in the eyes of the victim, or the cop who has to put up with this crap, to become more acutely

aware of the problem.

[Guest lostpass]

Yes, but no one is in jail without being convicted by a jury of their peers beyond a reasonable doubt.

I think this is demonstrably false. There are plenty of people in jail who pled out or whatever because that was the best deal they could get. They might not even be guilty but didn't have the dough for a defense attorney and so forth. Or, even if they could afford a defense atty the counsels advice might be "this is a good deal, do a year in stir because if you're convicted you are looking at twenty to life" No the guys innocent but life versus a year or two in jail? What is the smart choice?

So essentially no one is being punished without cause.

Imagine your are accused, and tried for a crime you didn't commit. You hire a defense attorney because you aren't stupid. The bill is forty large ones and you make, say, fifty grand a year. But you don't get convicted. You call it a good trade, 40 grand traded for five years eating baloney sandwiches. In what way were not punished? The dough comes from somewhere, your retirement fund (baloney sandwiches when you're old) the cars you sell, the guns you sell and so forth. You get pretty badly punished even though you are innocent and found not guilty.

I know there are innocents convicted but it's still the best system in the world to date - flaws and all.

Maybe, I don't know much about the legal system in Sweden. I know more about cell phones. Remember the Motorola RAZR? (the old one, 2006) that was the most desirable phone in the world for a time, didn't mean it couldn't get better.

Again the outcome doesn't change the principle. I would rarher be in on death row than have 5 suspected mass murderes free and living next door to my family. Phrase your question the other way and ask it to yourself.

Mass murders don't kill the person next door, those people are psychopaths, they go a few miles to throw off the search. But I get what you're saying. You'd rather be rotting in jail if your incarceration meant your family was safer. It is a trade I would make as well but I doubt the utility of the swap.

You mentioned serial killers before. Imagine you get arrested and convicted of the green river killings. Well they stop looking for the green river killer and he mover to Florida and becomes the butcher of the bayou. Your incarceration and false conviction results in more lives being lost.

[Guest lostpass]

That violent crime rate may actually be right, but I'll bet that property crime rate is the opposite.

This may be highly subjective, but do you feel safer nowadays every time you go to a mall, or the

grocery store, or other places out in public than you did 5-10 years ago? I do with my Glock. That's

sad as can be. With this Occupy nonsense and the gang problems, I have to agree with mcurrier on

his statement, because it is one of the reasons to be carrying. The reason has a more pressing

meaning nowadays.

It is all in the eyes of the victim, or the cop who has to put up with this crap, to become more acutely

aware of the problem.

Well, I'm not sure that the stats are wrong. But I'm sure I'm getting older. The stuff that didn't scare me twenty years ago scares me now. 20 year old me would probably scare the crap out of current me. That you feel more insecure now than ten years ago, when every indication says you're are safer, doesn't mean you aren't actually safer.

I get what you're saying, and on an emotional level I hate to say it but I concur. But my feelings are not indicative of reality. Though they probably should be. Cause I rule and all

Besides, you can't shoot someone for a property crime.

As for the occupy people I don't find them threatening at all. I don't know what they actually want or what solutions they offer or even why they are occupying. I suspect it is the tea party for young people "We're pissed and not sure why and dammit people are going to listen to us" The difference is that the party had guns and got people to run on their platform.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I just threw the occupy fools in there for the heck of it, but they tend to be causing a bit of

crime in the larger cities they are active in and are evolving into threats, so I imagine some are

feeling threatened by them. There may come a time when they become more than a nuisance to

all of us.

And I can place myself in the victim category, so I will say I am biased. I've had three occurrences

of car break-ins in my back yard, and one time a rental house of mine was trashed by gangs.

It puts things in a different perspective.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

It just goes to show that recorded statistics don't necessarily tell the whole story. Someone said

on the radio today, "You have truth, you have lies and then you have statistics", with apologies to

Mark Twain:D

[Guest lostpass]

I just threw the occupy fools in there for the heck of it, but they tend to be causing a bit of

crime in the larger cities they are active in and are evolving into threats, so I imagine some are

feeling threatened by them. There may come a time when they become more than a nuisance to

all of us.

And I can place myself in the victim category, so I will say I am biased. I've had three occurrences

of car break-ins in my back yard, and one time a rental house of mine was trashed by gangs.

It puts things in a different perspective.

I get you. When I drive through my old neighborhood I'm surprised how dumpy it has become. When I was there it was as safe as it could be. I suspect it is still that way but you couldn't tell it by looking. That place has gone to hell.

Nothing against you AR but the old neighborhood wen down when people started renting. Before that we had a block where people owned the houses and it was nice. Once the renters moved in it was over. The houses went to crap. We had blacks, Chinese and hispanics with their own houses. Then we had the hispanics and chinese rent their houses out and everything went south.

I should've rented it out instead of sold it. Apparently there is no real upkeep and it is mostly profit. The more trashed out the better.

Sorry, kinda pissed about what the old neighborhood has become.

[strickj]

So you'd spend your life in prison, possibly be executed, so that a felon would also be imprisoned? I don't buy it. I forever stand by my stance that no innocents should be punished for the shortcomings of a faulty justice system. There is no justification for ruining an innocent's life in the name of justice in a civilized, democratic society.

Anytime there is an investigative system to investigate un-witnessed crimes, you will have innocents incarcerated. This is the way it's been since day one. The only way to remove the possibility of falsely incarcerating an innocent is to rid ourselves of this system.

Do you want to get rid of this system? If your wife, brother, whoever, was murdered, would you want the cops to say "oh well, no one recorded it on video so there's nothing we can do about it. Sorry."?

Or, would you rather the cops investigate the crime, gather evidence, and present it to a judge and jury for them to decide?

Nothing in this world is perfect. Including this system. But it's one of those things that we can not have both of. We can not have a system that's both 100% accurate and also puts away criminals.

I don't know about y'all, but I'll gladly take a system with an almost perfect record of convicting the right people over no system at all.

[Guest lostpass]

I don't know about y'all, but I'll gladly take a system with an almost perfect record of convicting the right people over no system at all.

Yeah, I'd suppose I'd take that as well. I'm just skeptical that is what we actually have.

[E4 No More]

I'll gladly take a system with an almost perfect record of convicting the right people over no system at all.

I'd imagine this is true unless you're the one that's wrongly convicted. I'd bet you'd feel differently about it then.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I get you. When I drive through my old neighborhood I'm surprised how dumpy it has become. When I was there it was as safe as it could be. I suspect it is still that way but you couldn't tell it by looking. That place has gone to hell.

Nothing against you AR but the old neighborhood wen down when people started renting. Before that we had a block where people owned the houses and it was nice. Once the renters moved in it was over. The houses went to crap. We had blacks, Chinese and hispanics with their own houses. Then we had the hispanics and chinese rent their houses out and everything went south.

I should've rented it out instead of sold it. Apparently there is no real upkeep and it is mostly profit. The more trashed out the better.

Sorry, kinda pissed about what the old neighborhood has become.

You and me both. I feel the same way about that. Trouble is civilization marches on, demographics

shift, prices change and land use changes. Some neighborhoods can't help what happens by the

next batch that moves into it. l am the one who normally lives in the past. Glad to have you as a

neighbor:D

People have always rented. It's when the character of people moving into neighborhoods can't

maintain a level of decency previously had there because of their socioeconomic background.

You can see it in every neighborhood in the country.

I wish I had sold mine but tax considerations at the time and the profit creep was looking until

a few years ago.

I actually grew up in a neighborhood that was and still is very stable. I wish I bought that house

from my mother, years ago.

[Mike.357]

Better to ask if you are willing to be innocent and convictedd, to spend time in prison.

If this is the choice then i think it is best no innocent person do time period. How ever many guilty that walk is not important.

[Murgatroy]

Yeah, I kinda had a hard time understanding the question.

The way I read it: "How many convicted, guilty imprisoned men would you free to allow one convicted, not guilty imprisoned man to go free?"

None.

However the way I think the question was meant more as "You have X men in front of you, and one of them is not guilty, but you have no way to prove it reliably as to which one is not guilty." In that instance, I would let them all go. Innocent until proven guilty. If you can't prove which one is innocent and which one is guilty, none of them should be imprisoned.

I think the question was a little to ambiguously worded.

I don't have extreme faith in our judicial system. To many lawyers are out for themselves, to many officials are out for themselves. Statistics are skewed for published numbers to show who is safe, who isn't and who does more. However, I prefer our judicial system over those in other countries. As someone mentioned earlier, it is not perfect, but it does make it a lot more even. While I don't think it is awesome to dump a million dollars to prove your innocence, the possibility exists to be able to do so.