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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   21799 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 23, 2024

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OK, one vote for the Inquisition.

I will note that this murder is NOT such a case. There was no photo/video evidence, nor DNA evidence. There was pretty clear evidence that he stole from the victim, but the murder conviction, while likely justified, was not so obvious.

I don’t disagree; I think a case with this level of ambiguity merited an adversarial jury trial. However, it also happened more than 25 years ago, when video surveillance was far less ubiquitous than it was now, and forensic technology was less advanced. Cases which would have merited a jury trial in 1998 no longer do, because our methods of reliably adjudicating guilt are so much more powerful. The Founding Fathers could not have foreseen the absolutely paradigm-shifting advances in criminology and technology that would exist in the future, and if they had I don’t believe they would have shackled us with this onerously pro-defendant criminal justice system.

If obvious, why would the adversarial system get to a different result?

  1. Because our jurisprudence has established a million little procedural tripwires for a prosecutor to accidentally stumble over, which can lead to a retrial or vacation of judgment.
  2. Because it allows for jury nullification.
  3. Even if it doesn’t reach a different result, it is far more expensive and time-consuming affair, and turns things into a public spectacle/media event.

However, it also happened more than 25 years ago, when video surveillance was far less ubiquitous than it was now, and forensic technology was less advanced.

Video evidence is indeed quite something.

On the other hand, large branches of forensic science have operated for decades and then been revealed to be fraudulent. Bite mark analysis, burn pattern analysis, psychological profiling; @gattsuru has linked to an article about how the justice system's conception of shaken baby syndrome is based largely on fictions. This, combined with the degree to which jurors and the public generally overestimate the reliability of even valid and well-grounded forensic methods does not inspire confidence.

Justice is not, in fact, a solved problem. I'll certainly concede that it's a whole lot more solved than our decaying system can implement, though.

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