Stoopid Stuff

When doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do

I have very deep concerns about this Scott Petersen trial. The jury is currently deliberating his guilt or innocence. See, here's the problem. Of course he's guilty. We KNOW he's guilty. We don't know it from anything the prosecution said or did, we know it because, well, its obvious. But here's the problem. There is NO EVIDENCE. None. No one can even say with certainty that Laci was murdered. There's no cause of death, no time of death, no murder weapon, no blood, no fibers, no DNA. There's nothing the CSI type guys can do. So the prosecution builds a case based on "who else could have done it?”

So what do you do if you're on the jury? You KNOW the guy's guilty. But the system requires that the prosecution PROVE to you that he did it. And they couldn't even PROVE a murder took place. So you don't want the bastard just to walk. But what does it do to the system if we start sending people to prison, or worse yet killing them, based on gut feelings and "hey, who else could it have been"?

Nope, this is a rare, but intractable problem. The only good answer is to decide that if someone commits a "perfect crime", one where they leave no evidence behind, no matter how clearly it MUST be them, you have to acquit. Because if you don't, you have created a situation where the threshold of proof is simply too low. And then someday you may find yourself facing a jury that believes you to be guilty, and even though you're not, they're going to send you to prison.

Nope. The system cannot survive if juries are to use intuition instead of evidence.

posted by mikey @ 10:38 AM