Innocen Until Proven Guilty

[Zephyrus055]

It is a big fat lie that you are "innocent until proven guilty" in the USA. It may apply to the crime itself, but just by being arrested or charged your employment options have just been narrowed. Depending on your crime and/or whether it was expunged may not mean anything to you depending on your employment goals, but the very fact you were arrested or charged, regardless of your innocence, punishes you and is a travesty of justice.

A person charged with just one count that ended up dismissed or ruled not guilty will have it visible on their record. A prospective employer will be able to view that record and deny employment based on that fact alone. That record can also be expunged or sealed, but that requires money and the services of an attorney. Even then, however, a person's records are not completely erased from existence when expunged. The government can still obtain them, and deny employment and/or a security clearance based on those records.

A second way a person's prospective employment can be negatively impacted is just by being arrested and detained without charge for maximum of 48 hours (can be extended to 72). While that rarely happens, it is wrong for that data to be available to the public or for it to have any impact on employment. All a police officer has to do is detain someone for 48 hours and then release them without charge to limit their options for employment. Though some states automatically expunge such records, it is not universal.

A third way someone can be punished without being proven guilty is from pending charges. Just being charged with dubious counts such as harassment or assault can ruin a career or employment prospects.

A fourth way someone can be unfairly punished is if they unjustly served prison time, and were later proven not guilty when the case was revisited.

My opinion is that all records of a person that did not result in a conviction, or a conviction that was overturned by a higher court, should be automatically expunged from their record. I am ambivalent about the government being able to obtain and deny employment or security clearances based on expunged/sealed records, but I think it is something that needs to be visited and improved. Furthermore, people should not be punished based on pending cases. It is understandable if the defendant is deemed a danger to the public and must be denied bail, but the media should be forbidden from releasing a defendant's identity without a conviction.

In short, I think the only criminal records that the public should have access to are standing (not overturned by a higher court) convictions, and employers should only be able to ask a prospective employee if they have a standing conviction, not if they were arrested. Furthermore, there should be anti-discrimination laws that protect a person from denial of employment based on a pending trial, an arrest/charge that did not result in a conviction, or a conviction that was overturned by a higher court.

[Ivy]

What did you get caught doing?

[Zephyrus055]

I was convicted of witchcraft. Does conjuring a fireball count?

[synagogue]

Great editorial. You should send that post out to some newspapers, just the way it is. (Well I guess, put your real name on it.)

[giegs]

Sensible enough. You might also want to consider not allowing employers to see certain classifications of crimes once they pass a given vintage.

[proverbs6:13]

Yeah but the police wouldn't arrest someone unless they knew they did it.
In some, democratic, countries they have a law whereby the police can say they believe you are a criminal and that is enough evidence for the prosecution.

[wote]

I'm pretty much with you on this one. It would indeed make a nice letter to the editor if you added some real life examples for all the sensers. I'd just make sure law enforcement has access to all records in case someone is being/has been proven innocent when they shouldn't have been.


Yeah but the police wouldn't arrest someone unless they knew they did it.
In some, democratic, countries they have a law whereby the police can say they believe you are a criminal and that is enough evidence for the prosecution.
Is this a joke? Police aren't omniscient. And what about the "papers please" law in Arizona? (To which countries are you referring, by the way?)

[attila_the_hunny]

Yeah but the police wouldn't arrest someone unless they knew they did it.

LOL. Funniest thing I have read all day!

[Zephyrus055]

Great editorial. You should send that post out to some newspapers, just the way it is. (Well I guess, put your real name on it.)

Thanks. Not really an editorial though. I am just passionate about the 5th amendment's stipulation on self-incrimination. To me it means more than denying self incrimination, but that it is related to a much larger tenet that guilt must be proven beyond reasonable doubt. By exercising that right, the accused denies the possibility of satisfying the judicial arm of the government's suspicions by narrowing the possibilities of the crime down to implicate them without sufficient proof of guilt to begin with. Effectively, the accused has the option to pressure the government to prove their guilt or release them, rather than answer to their suspicions.

So when I notice that people are unjustly punished for crimes they were not proven to have committed, I naturally become unsettled. Hence why I have made this thread on INTPc today, inspired by the sum of my independent research. I have also had friends unjustly convicted because the judge was biased and unfit to determine reasonable doubt. I think there needs to be better options for removing such judges from the bench, but that is for another thread.

I mostly intended to entertain my ideas with like-minded INTPs here. But taking the step of being an actual advocate is something I am uncomfortable with.


Sensible enough. You might also want to consider not allowing employers to see certain classifications of crimes once they pass a given vintage.

Thanks. That idea sounds fair. People change, and it is unfair to punish them after consistently demonstrating reformed behavior. Someone who committed a DWI in their 20s, for example, and at 40 has not had one conviction afterward is unfair to punish. Although, such a policy might be hard to do without a case by case basis. I think that maybe the current process of having records expunged or sealed case by case is fine. However, the financial burden of doing so needs to be addressed. People shouldn't have to depend on money to defend their constitutional rights.


I'm pretty much with you on this one. It would indeed make a nice letter to the editor if you added some real life examples for all the sensers. I'd just make sure law enforcement has access to all records in case someone is being/has been proven innocent when they shouldn't have been.

Thanks. LOL, I love sensors. "if you are innocent, then you have nothing to hide from the police" ... ...

Fair enough. I don't think that should be a problem. All convictions should be on record, so if it needed to be revisited it could. I would like charges that did not result in a standing conviction erased, but I can see how they might become useful in the future. But at the very least, the public should not have access to them.

[proverbs6:13]

Is this a joke? Police aren't omniscient. And what about the "papers please" law in Arizona? (To which countries are you referring, by the way?)
It's funny, I considered writing "lol <-- this was a joke" at the end of that sentence but then you wouldn't have replied. Isn't papers please about lack of identification? In many European countries you can be arrested if you are not carrying your passport. The particular country I was referring to was Ireland.

[wote]

It's funny, I considered writing "lol <-- this was a joke" at the end of that sentence but then you wouldn't have replied. Isn't papers please about lack of identification? In many European countries you can be arrested if you are not carrying your passport. The particular country I was referring to was Ireland.
Wow, I was really uncertain how to take your post. The same law exists in Japan too (until you get your alien resident card). I understand its purpose but I have seen it used to harrass innocent people. Male friends of mine complained of being stopped in the areas in which they live (one of them repeatedly). In addition I was around to witness a Spanish tourist being asked for his passport on the sidewalk in front of the hostel where he was staying. He hadn't done anything wrong; he was just stopped and questioned randomly by a policeman with time on his hands. I was always told we had the right to refuse to surrender information in those instances, but even if he knew that, I don't think he had the Japanese to say it.

In any case I can't change how foreign countries choose to do things, including the United States. However much of my problem with the AZ law is that it's against the US constitution and it's only being enforced in one state, afaik.

[eyebyte_atWork]

In Texas people do and have gotten convicted only to find out later that they were innocent. This week a man who was imprisoned for 30 years was set free when DNA evidence clearly demonstrated that the man was innocent of the charges of rape. Guilty until proven innocent. In Texas when the DA's office agrees to allow DNA testing to be done, with the possibility of finding someone innocent after a conviction, the prisoner must sign a waiver releasing the state of any future litigation.

[mgb]

Theoretically, you might be right Zephyrus. But I think practically, you probably aren't.

Also, if I recall correctly, in Texas, the wrongly convicted are given something like $80,000 per year they spent in prison. While I can't say that solves everything for them, that guy is getting $2.4 million. The need to litigate just doesn't seem to be there and they'd probably use up the penance fund on litigation pretty quickly, why not give it to prisoners instead of lawyers?

[Chunes]

Pfft. Employment options. Make your own. Then no big deal.

[^_\\]

I have a broader, if less interesting problem with innocent until proven guilty which is that it's a crock of shit. You're innocent, or guilty, then 12 jackasses guess which you are, and the guy with the smoother-talking lawyer wins. It is the law, and is useful, not least because most people's minds default to guilty until proven innocent but people seem to think it's some universal moral law.

Taking innocent until *proven* guilty at face value is a result of taking "proven" at face value. The courts prove nothing.

[synagogue]

I have a broader, if less interesting problem with innocent until proven guilty which is that it's a crock of shit. You're innocent, or guilty, then 12 jackasses guess which you are, and the guy with the smoother-talking lawyer wins. It is the law, and is useful, not least because most people's minds default to guilty until proven innocent but people seem to think it's some universal moral law.

Taking innocent until *proven* guilty at face value is a result of taking "proven" at face value. The courts prove nothing.

Totally agreed. I've been trying to make that point to people since I was a kid; the response is usually something like, "Well it's the best system we have" or sumn.

Also, on the other side, I think that if you commit a crime, and it's captured on videotape (which is proven to be undoctored) - you're guilty. There's no point of a trial at this point. Any system with justice as its highest priority should be able to clearly acknowledge this fact. There should be some sort of special procedural exception installed into the legal system for circumstances like this.

[giegs]

The video wasn't doctored, but I was coerced into committing the crimes it recorded.

Where's the big justice hammer now?

[synagogue]

If that's the argument the defendant makes then the alleged coercion should be investigated separately and dealt with accordingly. In certain circumstances (hostage situation or something) this could possibly relieve the defendant of some or all accountability.

Generally, though, in my mind "coercion" doesn't let them off the hook for committing the crime, unless the alleged coercer is also on video putting a gun to their heads.

[giegs]

I was trying to make the point that "automatic" justice is liable to fail in certain circumstances. Not to say the alternative isn't.

And I'm not sold on the whole "trial by your peers" thing either.

[synagogue]

I was trying to make the point that "automatic" justice is liable to fail in certain circumstances. Not to say the alternative isn't.

And I'm not sold on the whole "trial by your peers" thing either.


And you're absolutely right.

My point though is that video evidence should be placed in a different, higher category than other types. If you're caught on surveillance camera burglarizing a gas station after hours - you did it. Perhaps I went overboard in implying that you should "automatically" be found guilty, but I think cases like this are worth skipping a step or three in the judicial process.

[wote]

My point though is that video evidence should be placed in a different, higher category than other types.
I'm not saying you support this stuff, systemburst, but I've long been sick of how credulous people are when it comes to useless sensational crime stories on nightly news (soon to be detailed in "true crimes" paperbacks), Nancy Grace outrage-fests, or chain e-mails about men drugging women with ether-laced perfume in department store parking lots. I think this kind of stuff has caused a lot of people (including many of the more logically-challenged journalists) to think that crime rates and justice systems are a lot worse than they are.

No doubt there is some truth to claims that our justice systems are too weak, but I see a whole lot of hyperbole on one side of the equation. When I hear people talk like this, I want to see the pattern of cases supporting their claims and get some of the details. So in this case, I'd like to know if there's been some kind of pattern in which compelling, damning video evidence is getting dismissed out of hand by judges or juries. I do believe it's better to let guilty men go free than to punish one innocent. (And though I applaud Texas for at least doing *something* about wrongful imprisonment, simply upping the incarceration rate and paying people off is no solution either. Sadly, how to go about the best solution-- true prevention --is inevitably an ideological powder keg.)

[eyebyte_atWork]

Theoretically, you might be right Zephyrus. But I think practically, you probably aren't.

Also, if I recall correctly, in Texas, the wrongly convicted are given something like $80,000 per year they spent in prison. While I can't say that solves everything for them, that guy is getting $2.4 million. The need to litigate just doesn't seem to be there and they'd probably use up the penance fund on litigation pretty quickly, why not give it to prisoners instead of lawyers?

Yes - Texas leads the way to make things right after the fact - I totally agree. Far better than most other states that completely deny that there may be innocent people in prison. But to the original post - too many people are prosecuted to the point of sentencing even when innocent. The public defenders are so overloaded that they have little choice but to plea as many cases as possible.

The real issue is that the poor get convicted more often than those who can drop $20K on a good defense lawyer. I have experience in this department, along with people I know on boths sides of that monetary line that actually determines innocence or guilt.

[synagogue]

I'm not saying you support this stuff, systemburst, but I've long been sick of how credulous people are when it comes to useless sensational crime stories on nightly news (soon to be detailed in "true crimes" paperbacks), Nancy Grace outrage-fests, or chain e-mails about men drugging women with ether-laced perfume in department store parking lots. I think this kind of stuff has caused a lot of people (including many of the more logically-challenged journalists) to think that crime rates and justice systems are a lot worse than they are.

No doubt there is some truth to claims that our justice systems are too weak, but I see a whole lot of hyperbole on one side of the equation. When I hear people talk like this, I want to see the pattern of cases supporting their claims and get some of the details. So in this case, I'd like to know if there's been some kind of pattern in which compelling, damning video evidence is getting dismissed out of hand by judges or juries. I do believe it's better to let guilty men go free than to punish one innocent. (And though I applaud Texas for at least doing *something* about wrongful imprisonment, simply upping the incarceration rate and paying people off is no solution either. Sadly, how to go about the best solution-- true prevention --is inevitably an ideological powder keg.)


Well first of all, my name is systembust, or Mike if you please. :)

Secondly, if I ever base a post of mine off something I see on Nancy Grace, I'll be sure to mention it... and promptly kill myself as soon as I log off line.

All of that said, you may have a valid point about media-generated hysteria, but that's not what my post was about.

[wote]

Well first of all, my name is systembust, or Mike if you please. :)
:stupid: My apologies for the misread, Mike.


All of that said, you may have a valid point about media-generated hysteria, but that's not what my post was about.
Haha, yes I realise (as I said in my post) that YOU most likely do not support media-amped crime hysteria. However that's not what my post was entirely about either. I'm sorry, as I look back I can see that I was speaking so generally that I wasn't completely clear. In that part of my post I was trying to say that I think our entire (Canadian and American) discourse has been shifting toward an attitude that all crime is escalating and criminals are getting off too easily, and that I think ALL of us are affected by this at least a little. So I'm keeping that in mind, but I'm also always interested in new ideas. I'd just like to see evidence or reasoning to support claims that aspects of these systems are dysfunctional before we start reinventing the wheel. So if you know of a pattern of cases that demonstrate this, systembust, please do share.

[mgb]

Yes - Texas leads the way to make things right after the fact - I totally agree. Far better than most other states that completely deny that there may be innocent people in prison. But to the original post - too many people are prosecuted to the point of sentencing even when innocent. The public defenders are so overloaded that they have little choice but to plea as many cases as possible.

The real issue is that the poor get convicted more often than those who can drop $20K on a good defense lawyer. I have experience in this department, along with people I know on boths sides of that monetary line that actually determines innocence or guilt.

I'd call it an unfortunate by-product of the constitution and its amendments.

In this same thread though you already have people talking about a system that is too soft on crime. I'm not sure a balance can be easily reached between crime and punishment, especially in the States.

Also, $20k sounds low.

[diabolical]

In addition I was around to witness a Spanish tourist being asked for his passport on the sidewalk in front of the hostel where he was staying. He hadn't done anything wrong; he was just stopped and questioned randomly by a policeman with time on his hands. .

The problem is it's not random, it's racial/ethinic profiling


I agree broadly with the original post