Saturday, August 21, 2010

Is the ';beyond a reasonable doubt'; standard too high a burdon for the government to prove in criminal cases?

I've got a theme going. I asked if police lie in court and all the answer were yes-- then I asked if Judges responded to the lies properly and I got a split in the answers-- one person seemed upset by the second question. From their response I'm thinking maybe the police and judges feel that the level of proof is too high and that dishonesty is necessary-- so I thought I'd ask. What do you think?Is the ';beyond a reasonable doubt'; standard too high a burdon for the government to prove in criminal cases?
No it is not too high for the government to prove such a thing. Due to the fact that it's better to let 10 criminal go then charging a innocent personIs the ';beyond a reasonable doubt'; standard too high a burdon for the government to prove in criminal cases?
It is only because the laws protect the criminals, and often evidence that proves their guilt is ruled as ';inadmissible'; because it is ';unfair to the criminal'; in some way. The problem with ';letting 100 guilty go free'; is that this creates more victims, because those that were guilty usually just go and commit more crimes, but some people just care more about criminals than they do victims.
The only question I have for you is this: would you like to go to prison for something that looked like you did? Beyond a reasonable doubt is essential to avoid convicting innocent people. It somewhat removes the human emotion and somewhat allows objective examination of the facts which is intended to prevent the innocent from being convicted. I am not saying that it always works; however, that is its purpose. By the way, I would be willing to bet that a large percentage of the people who have been in a courtroom, lied while they were there.





Thanks for listening.
no, they just dont care to %26amp; we dont demand it.
We believe in ';beyond a reasonable doubt'; because we want to protect against abuses of the state. Not every legal system has this kind of protection. Here, it is believed that it is better to let an occasional guilty person go rather than to force an innocent person to be incarcerated. Like all systems, this one is flawed in the execution. Way too many innocent people go to jail and way too many guilty people do not.





If anyone lies in court, the trier of fact, whether it is the judge or jury should judge the credibility of the witness and disregard testimony believed to be false, whether from police or anyone else. Good cross-examination by the opposing counsel and good fact investigation is the best way to expose a lying witness, either in a civil case or a criminal case.





People lie. Human beings are hard wired for this. They don't lie all the time but the certainly don't tell the truth all the time either.
would you want to go to court without it i would rather 100 guilty go free than one innocent be convicted no the ';burden'; is not too high
';Beyond A Reasonable Doubt'; is the only equitable standard that can exist. Aside from whether or not guilty people go free or not. For me, the fact that someones life is in the hands of a decision made by a group of strangers demands that there be a high standard. It is a serious event to be placed in jail for life or even given the death penalty. Therefore it is necessary that there be a high standard to determine guilt, otherwise it would be too easy to frame innocent people or to convict them based on circumstances (which life shows us can sometimes give the ';appearance of guilt';). If there is doubt, I don't think you should do it, as a rule of law and for life in general. The fact that the doubt must meet the additional standard of being ';reasonable'; further attempts to ensure that the truly guilty cannot abuse the system (although it happens), but that doesnt change the fact that the standard needs to be there.





Throughout history, governments that operated without the ';reasonable doubt'; rule have been responsible for convicting and killing millions of innocent people. The Spanish Inquisition, Holy Wars, The Salem Witch Trials, the ';Black balling'; of Americans during the McCarthy days, the Gestapo, or any country that uses ';police state'; type tactics. Reasonable doubt would have spared a lot of innocent people from horrible undeserved fates. I think the standard should be there and is necessary for any civilized society.

No comments:

Post a Comment