(August 7, 2022 at 2:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote:(August 6, 2022 at 11:30 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Because the right to a fair trial is guaranteed to anyone charged with a crime. And if an unfair trial results in a capital conviction, how is it that executing that innocent person performs any justice?
Like I said, sometimes we make mistakes. We might give a fair trial, decide that the evidence is heavily in favor of a conviction and meriting a death sentence-- and then discover that we made a mistake. That would be a tragedy. But not more of a tragedy than the many thousands of perfectly innocent souls that are lost each year in the accidents of operations of other aspects of society-- and I'd argue, in most cases probably less.
... until you're the innocent marched to the death chamber, am I right? I doubt you'd be so blithe at that point.
As for the other thousands who die accidentally, again, the guilty are susceptible to civil or criminal suit, while government officials are not. The fact that the justice system must be seen as fair would to me seem to demand that if we adopt your "what the hell, kill a few innocents" approach, we ought at least to open those government officials to civil or criminal liability. In other words, it's still a false equivalence.
As matters stand, they have nothing to fear from making a negligent mistake, or worse, a deliberate choice to frame a suspect in order to clear a case.
