We could pay to have every prosecutor shadowed by an auditor who would be charged with catching any mistakes the prosecutor makes that might have made an acquittal less likely. We could even hire an auditor to check the first auditor! At some point you hit severely diminishing returns, all while making the justice system slower and more complex, which can cause harm to both sides.
Auditors would be a lot cheaper than opening prosecutors to civil liability. The basic problem is that you'd be putting a powerful retaliatory tool in the hands of a group of people (convicts) who are: 1) very likely guilty; 2) have all the time in the world; and 3) can't effectively be sanctioned for filing meritless litigation.
People justify opening prosecutors to civil liability by saying that "they need to be held accountable." But prosecutors are already accountable. Their actions take place on public record. They have to justify themselves to defense counsel, a judge, and possibly a jury and an appellate panel. On top of all that, their immunity does not protect them from suits alleging bad faith.
I wouldn't mind. Peoples' lives are on the line. I'd rather it be 99.99% right than the 90% as it currently is. As it stands the justice system is so overwhelmingly one-sided people are forced to take plea less they run out of money and have their case bounced from one disinterested PD.
Also, I was being reductive because of the tone of your last sentence. Prosecutions are expensive and so are prisons.
I wouldn't mind. Peoples' lives are on the line. I'd rather it be 99.99% right than the 90% as it currently is.
The justice system has two basic functions: to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. False positives means there is a trade-off between how well it can do both functions at the same time. Society makes the decision about the appropriate balance between the two. If courts make it too burdensome to prosecute and punish the guilty, people will respond with harsher laws, longer sentences, etc. You might be okay with setting the burden at 99.99% certainty, but the history of votes on the issue suggest that most Americans want a lower burden than that.
I would assume that the reason you're here goofing around on HN instead of making something so important to you a reality would be... hell, I can only think of "hypocrisy".
As a person of color I would say less hypocrisy and more cynicism. I've experienced the injustice of the US justice system and until the current lawmakers drop dead I don't see how it's going to change when 70% of the population think everything is fine (though that number is decreasing) and the justice system works and works fairly.
What is your definition of hypocrisy? Perhaps it's just me, but I don't see, first of all, how he was being hypocritical. Second of all, you are also "goofing around on HN" so why are you giving this person so much crap? Last time I checked saying something should change and saying you would do it are different things.
Considering how intrusive SOX auditors are for business, why shouldn't the government take some of its own medicine. The amount of paperwork SOX rules give me on a daily basis is pretty silly. Worse it the quarterly visits with auditors to review sample documents.
The minimum we should require would be all death penalty cases and any where prison terms exceed a threshold, say those over five years? We cannot write off justice just because the process is difficult. Considering the power of prosecutors and countless stories of intimidation of both the accused and witnesses it should be a requirement
Comments
So innocent people should be sent to prison because it's cheaper?
If you're going to be absurdly reductive, yes.
We could pay to have every prosecutor shadowed by an auditor who would be charged with catching any mistakes the prosecutor makes that might have made an acquittal less likely. We could even hire an auditor to check the first auditor! At some point you hit severely diminishing returns, all while making the justice system slower and more complex, which can cause harm to both sides.
Auditors would be a lot cheaper than opening prosecutors to civil liability. The basic problem is that you'd be putting a powerful retaliatory tool in the hands of a group of people (convicts) who are: 1) very likely guilty; 2) have all the time in the world; and 3) can't effectively be sanctioned for filing meritless litigation.
People justify opening prosecutors to civil liability by saying that "they need to be held accountable." But prosecutors are already accountable. Their actions take place on public record. They have to justify themselves to defense counsel, a judge, and possibly a jury and an appellate panel. On top of all that, their immunity does not protect them from suits alleging bad faith.
I wouldn't mind. Peoples' lives are on the line. I'd rather it be 99.99% right than the 90% as it currently is. As it stands the justice system is so overwhelmingly one-sided people are forced to take plea less they run out of money and have their case bounced from one disinterested PD.
Also, I was being reductive because of the tone of your last sentence. Prosecutions are expensive and so are prisons.
The justice system has two basic functions: to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. False positives means there is a trade-off between how well it can do both functions at the same time. Society makes the decision about the appropriate balance between the two. If courts make it too burdensome to prosecute and punish the guilty, people will respond with harsher laws, longer sentences, etc. You might be okay with setting the burden at 99.99% certainty, but the history of votes on the issue suggest that most Americans want a lower burden than that.
I wouldn't mind.
I would assume that the reason you're here goofing around on HN instead of making something so important to you a reality would be... hell, I can only think of "hypocrisy".
As a person of color I would say less hypocrisy and more cynicism. I've experienced the injustice of the US justice system and until the current lawmakers drop dead I don't see how it's going to change when 70% of the population think everything is fine (though that number is decreasing) and the justice system works and works fairly.
What is your definition of hypocrisy? Perhaps it's just me, but I don't see, first of all, how he was being hypocritical. Second of all, you are also "goofing around on HN" so why are you giving this person so much crap? Last time I checked saying something should change and saying you would do it are different things.
Considering how intrusive SOX auditors are for business, why shouldn't the government take some of its own medicine. The amount of paperwork SOX rules give me on a daily basis is pretty silly. Worse it the quarterly visits with auditors to review sample documents.
The minimum we should require would be all death penalty cases and any where prison terms exceed a threshold, say those over five years? We cannot write off justice just because the process is difficult. Considering the power of prosecutors and countless stories of intimidation of both the accused and witnesses it should be a requirement