Rhys,
Sorry for delay there..missed this one
I can fault them for not thoroughly investigating the crimes to begin with and for not fairly trying them.
Investigators investigate a crime until they have all the evidence they need.
Imagine if you will. You bust into a locked room, there is a dead man on the floor. And there is a man standing over him with the gun that shot him in his hand. There is gun shot residue on his hand and some blood spatter on his clothes. Did this man shoot him? He says that he did not. HOw far should an investigator go? This man says he just came in and say the dead guy, picked up the gun and it accidentally went off. Then the police barged in... How long do you keep this guy hanging while you investigate other "possibilities". Remember that the other possibilities are endless...there could have been aliens that came down and shot the guy. Jesus could be passing judgement one person at a time and with a Smith and Wesson.
In most of these cases there was other evidence that would cast doubt upon the verdict, but it was withheld by the prosecution to get a verdict or kept out of court on technicalities. Often the person accused couldn't afford a competent lawyer.
Technicalities. Pesky problem they are. However I tend to believe that if it is not credible witness testimony, or cold hard facts. And I would honestly believe that there were more cases of guilty defendants that were thrown out of court on technicalities than there were wrongfully sentenced people on technicalities.
The judicial system also spends way too much time on trivia and technicalities and seems to have little interest in determining the truth.
Going to love this...technically...the judicial system is not about "determining" truth. It is about determining legalities based on current law. 20-30 years ago there were no laws pertaining to data intrusions. They were legal under the law. So the law had to be altered to include it.
As far as not putting enough money into the penal system, I believe we already have a higher proportion of our population in jail than any other country. Prison should only be for violent crimes, those involving arms, and people who are a danger to society. Others should be made to pay restitution as the Bible states, and/or work at community service - not the pleasant kind but hard manual labor.
While I would agree that is not anything that can be done overnight. We have bread a country of criminals that have no respect for the law at all. So suddenly letting the habitual drunk driver off with just doing some work is like a slap on the hand. And as far as hard labor...we have far to many ACLU wannabees and such out there that would scream bloody murder if a prisoner had to do anything harder than picking up the trash on the side of the road.
As to appeals and the time it takes, I agree - and even a first trial takes way too long to get to. But part of this is that we have way too many laws. We are trying to regulate every aspect of human behavior with laws, and many are passed to please special interest groups. As an old Chinese proverb says: "The more laws there are the more lawbreakers there will be". If we got rid of about 3/4 of our laws the courts would be freed up to try the important ones at a much quicker pace, with much less "plea bargaining".
I actually recently started looking at this. OUr time to trial is actually somewhat short. If I recall my notes average time to trial was 6-9 months. Time to sentence was just a few months past that. Which I was OK with. That was what I would consider quick as far as trials were concerned. It is when they go to appeals that they start to stretch into years between trials.
Courts often aren't fair and appeals are necessary. Don't forget the Apostle Paul used the appeals process of his time.
I feel that in general our courts are fair. And if anything they lean in favor of the defendant. We are the originator of innocent until proven guilty. Most all of the rest of the world the person is guilty until proven innocent. It is there job to prove they did not commit the crime. And I believe that there are more wrongfully accused people in other countries because of that.
Tougher penalties don't necessarily cut crime. Death for drinking and driving is excessive to say the least. When I lived in Nova Scotia years ago they could confiscate your car and sell it for even having an open container. You didn't get the money. There were very few drunk driving accidents.
What does cut crime is a clear and quick relationship between crime and punishment. When years drag by before a sentence is passed, everyone has forgotten about the crime.
Agree completely. When I was in Egypt and a cabbie was drunk and had an accident with some of my ships sailors involved...he was executed the following week. Very quick.
Meantime the person is usually out on the street so it looks like nothing happened to them. Even if convicted they often are soon back out due to prison overcrowding. I agree fully with you that 20 years should be 20 years, and I further believe concurrent sentencing should be done away with. But I still disagree with the death penalty as once a person is dead there is no remedy if the courts made a mistake, which they too often do.
I would say yes and no as far as death penalty. While I agree mistakes can be made. The way I feel things should be is that during first trial you are innocent until proven guilty. But during the appeal the role is reversed, you should have to prove that you are innocent. I feel that you have already been found guilty, so an appeal is for you to try and prove you are innocent...not just get a new trial with different jury to possibly play the other way. You should get one appeal unless new evidence is introduced.
But that is just my two bits.
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