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What you're essentially advocating for is the abolition of the 6th Amendment, which gives the right to confront one's accusers. Even if we eliminated this requirement, though, it still doesn't solve the problem, as the witness still needs to be present, it's just the judge doing the questioning and not the lawyers. As for your specific evidentiary examples, the video is actually the least persuasive piece of evidence in the scenario, since it probably doesn't show enough to convict. I grabbed the first shoplifting video I could find from YouTube; it's a news report about a theft from a liquor store in Kenya. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErfIL-_UOiA This is actually a better video than I originally pictured — it's in color, has reasonably high resolution, and appears to show most of the store. Now tell me, without looking at the transcript, what items are being stolen and how much do they cost? Would you be confident in being able to identify someone you had never seen before as the person in this video? Would you be okay with someone you've never met before identifying you in this video? Now imagine that the only video we have just shows you removing an item from a shelf, and all you can see is the aisle that you're in. It's good evidence in that it buttresses other testimony, but it's pretty useless on its own.
This is even worse evidence. A police finds an item on you. What basis does he have to determine that it was stolen? How would you feel about the following scenario: A shopkeeper reports that he observed a white male stealing a pair of expensive headphones from an electronics store. The police see you a block away listening to a pair of headphones that match the shopkeeper's description. The shopkeeper does not identify you in court, but you are nonetheless convicted on the cop's testimony that you had the shoplifted merchandise in your possession?
The US has fairly generous citizen’s arrest laws for holding suspected shoplifters until the police arrive.
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Just to steelman this, unless the people guilty of stealing have reason to fear getting punished, the law against stealing is basically dead. There are large portions of most major cities where these kinds of situations exist. The laws against stealing, drug dealing, and murder are not enforced consistently. The results are not freer people unconcerned about crime, in fact it’s the opposite. In those areas, since the cops can’t (often because of government policies) deter crime or reliably enforce the laws, the people who can’t afford to leave take the job of self protection on themselves. Bars go over windows, people carry weapons, and gangs take over to protect criminals from other criminals. It’s basically a post collapse society on display in the middle of downtown Chicago or St. Louis.
Sure an inquisition isn’t a great system for a modern functioning state. It’s not something that’s compatible with civil rights as we know them. But the other side is that the alternative is also terrible for civil rights. You have a right to private property. Sure, but what good is it when the cops for lack of proper paperwork and prosecutorial authority simply shrug as local thugs help themselves to anything not physically impossible to steal? What good is it to be protected from the cops detaining you when you and your family are prisoners in your own homes behind barred windows because your neighborhood is to unsafe to be outside in? What good is it to say “I am safe from the cops shooting me” when you have to worry about getting caught in a drive by shooting? Freedom isn’t just freedom from the state, but the presence of law, order and justice. If you don’t have the ability to come and go as you please without fear of the Cripps, it’s not far off from not being able to come and go for fear of the cops.
I think you misunderstand my point. The police will make arrests for retail theft. District attorneys will prosecute. There's no reluctance whatsoever on the part of those who are tasked with enforcing the law. These are, on paper, some of the easiest cases to prosecute. The problem is that the victims of these crimes are unwilling to make a minimal effort to engage in necessary participation. Police and prosecutors aren't going to waste their time and the taxpayer's money pursing cases where they can't get a conviction because the victim won't participate. I have no interest in upending centuries of well-established constitutional protections because of the apathy of those the laws are designed to protect.
It depends on the jurisdiction. In some places, these shop owners do try to get people prosecuted, do cooperate, and it turns out that the state is much less concerned about putting the guy in jail and thus they see the effort as a waste of time. It’s an odd situation. They’re kind of stuck, not only because of the costs, but the risks that they can count on other people to care about. If they testify and press charges, do the next group of lawless thugs come in and shoot potential witnesses? Are they or their children going to be targeted because snitches get stitches? And if they need the cops are the cops going to bother to show?
See the situation in lawless areas is because of years of neglect and distrust in which the criminals tend to get away with it. The only solution to my mind is to create a system, even if extremely flawed (inquisition is far from ideal) in which you can hope to put enough of the gang members in jail to lower the crime rate and have people willing to participate. If I lived in a place controlled by gangs, I’m not cooperating simply because of the two, the cops are the weak ones, and they can’t or won’t protect me.
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Why not?
Why is this a problem?
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He asks the store clerk (with his bodycam on to record the interview) to describe what happens, and then he watches the video the store has of the shoplifting. Do you have any idea how well-surveilled Walmart is? How many cameras they have everywhere? And how advanced their facial recognition technology is?
You’re acting as though getting falsely accused of shoplifting is something that happens to middle-class white people all the time. How likely do you actually think that scenario is? I’ve gone my entire life without ever being accused of shoplifting. I simply assess the probability of the scenario you’re describing as basically nonexistent.
Also remember that we’re talking about a small segment of society who shoplifts over and over and over. If it’s someone’s first time ever being charged, then sure, let’s have some heightened evidentiary standards. If it’s Charlie the Crackhead, caught shoplifting from the same store he’s already shoplifted from 10 previous times, then there is zero reason to go through the whole song and dance. Who are we kidding?
Is this meant to imply that we should accept low-class nonwhite people being falsely accused, because they're not us?
No, it is not.
However, we’re talking about tradeoffs: on the one hand, reduced standards of evidence and expedition of the trial process is likely to increase false accusations, while also massively reducing the odds that a criminal will avoid prosecution; on the other hand, heightened standards of evidence and the requirement of a full in-person trial process for all accused person is likely to reduce false convictions, while exposing the public to greater levels of crime by allowing criminals to avoid prosecution.
When considering these tradeoffs, it’s important for me to keep in mind which side of that ledger is likely to impact me personally. Am I more likely to be falsely accused of a crime than I am to be the victim of a crime? Almost certainly not. As a matter of fact, I have already been the victim of multiple crimes, whereas I have never been falsely accused of a crime. In fact, I’m not even sure I know anyone who has.
It turns out that the vast majority of people accused of crimes are in fact guilty of those crimes; this is particularly true of crimes like shoplifting which nearly always produce some sort of video record and/or physical evidence. It is generally quite easy for businesses to determine the specific individual responsible for a given act of shoplifting. And if there is the rare instance of mistaken identity, such a thing is unlikely to happen to a person such as myself, who bears little resemblance to any of the demographics responsible for the lion’s share of shoplifting; therefore, I’m extremely unlikely to ever need to avail myself of any of the myriad protections afforded to criminal suspects.
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