Comment by palish

18 years ago

People are routinely convicted of murder (or other substantial crimes) without hard evidence? Because I was referring to high crimes, not petty thefts or speeding tickets.

It's 25 years of a smart man's life. Let's at least be 100% positive about his guilt.

12 comments

palish

Reply
tptacek  18 years ago

What is "hard" evidence? This is a term you've invented. "100% positive"? When are we ever 100% positive? "Smart man's life"? You really think we should have different standards for programmers?

People are routinely convicted of murder on indirect evidence. Evidence is evidence. It's up to the jury to decide how compelling the evidence is. I'm surprised they came back with murder 1, but would have been shocked if they had acquitted: there was a lot of circumstancial evidence.

  • palish  18 years ago

    What is "hard" evidence?

    Evidence is hard if we are 100% positive about its accuracy.

    When are we ever 100% positive?

    When our decision is based on current technology that we've used to rigorously prove something.

    "Smart man's life"? You really think we should have different standards for programmers?

    Those are your words, not mine. It would be silly to have different standards based on an artificial rating of a person.

    But we should have different standards that reflect the possibility that we're wrong. For example, by limiting prison terms to an absolute maximum of ten years unless we are 100% positive (as defined above) that the person is guilty.

    • mechanical_fish  18 years ago

      limiting prison terms to an absolute maximum of ten years...

      At the risk of repeating myself: Yes, you'd be right to complain if Reiser were being sentenced to death, but he isn't. And it would be sad if Reiser spent 25 or 30 years in prison even though he was innocent... but that might not happen, because at any moment Nina could turn up, dead or alive, and exonerate him.

      [EDIT: removed bogus argument I made based on misreading the original article. I promise to get more sleep before my next post. :]

ssharp  18 years ago

Why does it matter if the guy is "smart" or not? The justice system doesn't play favorites for people with high IQs - especially when they're accused of murder.

  • mmmurf  18 years ago

    it doesn't? The average prisoner has an IQ that is one standard deviation below the mean. People whose IQ is one or two standard deviations above the mean rarely go to prison.