It is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to be wrongly convicted

I'm sure we've had this discussion before, but I want to try something a little different; notice the poll is also about capital punishment. I am very curious to see how opinion on these two matters correlates.

Anyway, I am very strongly in favour of the title's statement and very strongly against capital punishment on the grounds that individual liberty should trump all other concerns. I am quite willing to defend this stance.

eta: the fact that there's a poll doesn't mean you don't have to post >:(

I voted for AGREE and OPPOSE.

That said, my feelings for the death penalty are a lot surer than my feelings for the title statement.

With the death penalty, I don't have to think about it too much; killing is bad. No killing. There's always a little bit of the "but if you don't kill him, he could kill again" thing, but all in all, I find it very easy to stand by opposing the death penalty.

Then we come to the title statement. I do agree with it but there is a struggle within me. Locking up ten guilty men at the cost of one innocent. In a purely numbers game, cold logic with no emotion, it's the right way to go. But I'm both a logical and an emotional person.

So I think of ten guilty people being locked up and not being able to harm society and think "that sounds great". But then I tack on the cost of the innocent man; his life ruined, his heart filled with despair.

Or I think of ten guilty people going free and being able to harm society and I know that I shouldn't agree with it. But then I think of the man who has still has his life and the potential to live and die happily.

And then I have to think again, because not all criminals are bad and not all civilians are good. They could be ten criminals of desperation or blackmail, people who literally had no choice. The innocent guy might not have committed a crime but he could be a truly horrible human being.

I am completely opposed to the death penalty and I agree with the title statement, but the latter isn't so easy for me.

I like to turn the statement around: is it better for one guilty person to go free than for ten innocent people to be convicted? I would imagine many more people agreeing with this than with the original, but in principle it is exactly the same. Where do we draw the line? There are so many unknowns - what crimes? under what circumstances? who is the innocent man? what is he convicted of? - that it is utterly impossible to make any sort of ethical judgement. Most people, I've noticed, tend to justify their opposition by inventing scenarios - "if ten murderers are locked away, more lives will be saved than the one life ruined by being imprisoned" - but of course no one has mentioned murderers, and for all we know the one man might be a scientist on the verge of discovering a cure for AIDS.

Of course, I would agree with the statement even if it was about a million murderers against a single innocent, because I think an (innocent) person's right to individual liberty should never be taken away, in much the same way as I think a person's right to life should never be taken away.

...Crap, I voted the wrong option. I meant to say that I AGREE with the title and OPPOSE the death penalty.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Why the hell is she posting in Serious Business.
But I feel I have something to say about it. Whether it makes any sense after I type it is a different problem.

I personally can't bear to think of an innocent man rotting in prison, knowing he's going to die with everyone thinking he was the perpetrator. Life ruined, and the guilty one still free to kill someone he loves again.

I'd rather see a hundred guilty people go free than watch someone suffer that.

Zora of Termina said:

...Crap, I voted the wrong option. I meant to say that I AGREE with the title and OPPOSE the death penalty.

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I changed the results to reflect that, but it'll still list you under the previous option.

Can I ask why the poll results are public at all?

Why not?

Agree with the title, oppose the death penalty. Not going to go into more detail at the moment.

I agree with title but oppose death penalty because even though the person killed someone, your killing them, and are you really being any better for killing them.

Oh yeah, I won't listen to people who flame me and oppose/ tell me I am wrong and they are right, so frick off!

If the title were any more specific it could sway my choice one way or the other; like opal said, people justify their choices by coming up with scenarios. But since there is no scenario here besides "10 criminals found not guilty vs. 1 innocent found guilty", I'd rather the criminals go not guilty.

And I do oppose the death penalty. Instead of killing the criminal, they can be examined and treated so the world is more aware of what circumstances and disorders bring about criminals, and how to better prevent them in the future. Killing a murderer might give you animalistic, instant gratification, but really, what have you helped?

ShiningGlass said:

Why not?

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It could skew the results.

With no other details, I agree with the title. There are a few circumstances under which I'd disagree — generally, if letting the ten go free would very likely and demonstrably infringe on others' freedom more than convicting the innocent would infringe on that innocent person's freedom. If the ten are all well-known mass murderers or something. The point is, freedom is the important thing.

EDIT: I'm assuming here that conviction means imprisonment, not execution. The death penalty is a different issue, I think.

(everything past the first sentence was tacked on after I realized I'd posted without actually responding to the thread, so I don't have anything thought-provoking to say, sorry)

Why not?

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(if you're going to answer my question with a question)

Why does it matter to you who (rather than simply how many people) voted for what? Those that want to discuss their opinion will do so in the thread.

maybe this is something wrong with me, but when i hear on the news something like "it is obvious that a man murdered his wife and yet our flawed criminal justice system has let him run free!", i'm not like... filled with rage or anything, like i imagine some people might be. i usually just think "good for him, i'm glad he can be happy". because i mean, to me it is pretty clear that anyone who commits a crime is hurt in some way too... a person who rapes and murders a girl is pretty clearly fucked up to the point where you have to question who the real victim in the story is - the girl who had a short but enjoyable life, only for it to end in a relatively brief twenty minutes of agony, or the man who had to live his entire existence with a fucked up brain, never able to know any human emotion, and then be put to death? i'm not saying that we shouldn't jail criminals, because if it weren't for the threat of the law then people would just be killing each other all over the place, but... if a couple evildoers slip through the law's fingers... i don't really cry over that. i just hope that they don't do it again, i guess.

and obviously i'm against the death penalty

I disagree with the title, and oppose the death penalty for the same reasons. Allowing an innocent man to be convicted and guilty men to go free is an obvious flaw in our judicial system. Agreeing with the previous posters' statements, the rights people have for being free in a nation where a fair trial is a right and not a privilege is paramount and is far more worthy of attention than a criminal on the loose. However, the system that lets criminals go free is the same one that locks innocents away. We should reform our judicial system and remove corruption to make sure that every trial is fair and holds only the guilty people accountable, and all problems be fixed.

Doctor Jimmy said:

We should reform our judicial system and remove corruption to make sure that every trial is fair and holds only the guilty people accountable, and all problems be fixed.

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That... is... just impossible out of principle. It's not like the judicial system looks at a defendant and goes "Oh he's innocent but we're gonna lock him up anyway hahaha"

Zeta Reticuli said:

maybe this is something wrong with me, but when i hear on the news something like "it is obvious that a man murdered his wife and yet our flawed criminal justice system has let him run free!", i'm not like... filled with rage or anything, like i imagine some people might be. i usually just think "good for him, i'm glad he can be happy". because i mean, to me it is pretty clear that anyone who commits a crime is hurt in some way too... a person who rapes and murders a girl is pretty clearly fucked up to the point where you have to question who the real victim in the story is - the girl who had a short but enjoyable life, only for it to end in a relatively brief twenty minutes of agony, or the man who had to live his entire existence with a fucked up brain, never able to know any human emotion, and then be put to death? i'm not saying that we shouldn't jail criminals, because if it weren't for the threat of the law then people would just be killing each other all over the place, but... if a couple evildoers slip through the law's fingers... i don't really cry over that. i just hope that they don't do it again, i guess.

and obviously i'm against the death penalty

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No no no no. I'm sorry, no. You're wrong. Absolutely wrong. No.

I'm completely against the death pentalty and also very much against the screwing up of people's lives, but if someone is a danger to society, they need to be removed from it.

Everyody has a right to be free from harm, and because someone had that right violated by someone else in their life, perhaps screwing them up, it does absolutely not mean that that person is allowed to go around violating other people's freedom from harm.

In a related vein, nobody deserves to be raped/murdered. If they've had a comfortable, easy life, they don't deserve terrible things to happen to them any more than someone who lives in fear of violence every day. There isn't some kind of "scale of deservingness" of rape, torture or murder, where people who have led immoral lives/never had anything bad happen to them are somehow more deserving than someone who has suffered through no fault of their own.

I also disagree that the law is the reason people don't go around killing each other on a daily basis; people en mass have a pretty decent sense of morality.

The only part of your post I agree with (I'm sorry if I'm sounding harsh, but you touched a nerve a little; it's not personal, I just have issues) is that people don't just randomly commit crimes, and those that are messed-up enough to do terrible things to others clearly haven't had the best time of it, which is why it's much better for them to go to prison, where they can be assessed properly and given help if they need it, rather than just being left to get worse in addition to remaining a danger to society at large.

Dannichu said:

(if you're going to answer my question with a question)

Why does it matter to you who (rather than simply how many people) voted for what? Those that want to discuss their opinion will do so in the thread.

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Fair point. Results are hidden now.

@Dannichu

i'm not saying that people who commit crimes shouldn't be locked up... of course they should. i guess the point that i'm trying to make is that too often people (the type who are for the death penalty, maybe) think our justice system is about REVENGE and making sure people GET WHAT THEY DESERVE when really... it should just be about preventing crimes from occurring.

when really... it should just be about preventing crimes from occurring.

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shouldn't part of that be knowing the consequences of your actions? There are plenty of people who want to do things that are illegal but don't because they'll get punished.

ultraviolet said:

shouldn't part of that be knowing the consequences of your actions? There are plenty of people who want to do things that are illegal but don't because they'll get punished.

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I don't think the idea of a 1% chance of escaping punishment is going to make anyone more likely to commit a crime than a total 0% you-will-be-caught guarantee. Either way the criminal assumes they will be caught. I guess the point here is that, if the occasional criminal does get away uncaught and doesn't commit their horrible crime again, it's not such a big problem.