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Originally Posted by alansmithee
You aren't differentiating between an individual and the gov't. I trust the gov't to make a proper decision far more than just a random person. The current thresholds for evidence are greatly in favor of the defendant (unless you're black, but that's a different issue). There are some times when it is best for someone to be kept locked away, even when evidence might not merit it from a legal standpoint. This is one case. I'm sure there will be more in the future, and I'm glad that the gov't now has the ability to do so.
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First of all, one individual -- the US president -- has, under this ruling, the irreversable, unchallengeable, evidence-free authority to lock someone up and throw away the key. On a whim.
Secondly, it was you who said "odds are if you are accused, you are guilty". I just took you at face value. Apparently you meant "if the government accuses you, then you are guilty". Very well.
So now you place your trust in the government. That, given the power to accuse people and throw away the key, will hold themselves to a high standard and only accuse people who are guilty.
Anything that reduces the rights of people leads towards safety for all.
You said that. Do you mean it?
DA's don't get elected by putting guilty people behind bars, and letting innocent people go. They get elected by putting someone behind bars for every crime, and not losing any case which they start to prosecute.
"It's a results-oriented process today; fairness be damned. The philosophy of the past 10 to 15 years [is] that whatever works is what's right." -- Robert
Merkle (via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
This is with the "deck stacked against the state".
http://www.injusticebusters.com/2003..._interview.htm
Would 25% false-conviction rates be too high for your ethics? If 1/4 people
convicted of murder did not do the crime, would that be acceptable to you?
The lovely thing about DNA testing is that it has allowed retroactive analysis of convictions, and actual beyond-a-reasonable-doubt overturning of cases. If 1/4 cases from pre-DNA days in which DNA evidence was still availiable where overturned because the DNA proved the conviction wrong -- wouldn't that sort of indicate that your trust is misplaced?
The government is just people. When these people are constrained, chained, and held back by checks and balances, you may be justified in having some faith in them.
This does not mean that anything good will happen when you remove the constraints. An attack dog on a leash will not kill children in the street. This tells you nothing about what happens when you remove the leash.
The president is occasionally given powers which are best executed by one man (a committee cannot be the top of a chain of command), require quick decision making, or is given the right to
hinder other aspects of government. Giving the executive branch the
unquestionable power to detain, when there is plenty of time to evaluate the detention, is idiocy.