Better to Convict Ten Innocent People?
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So I was perusing this New York Times article on photographic versus live police line-ups when I came across this scary dictum:
It's bad enough that we have declared pretty much the entire Fourth Amendment, and much of the rest of the Bill of Rights, "optional" (if not "null and void") where the War on Terror is concerned. It's bad enough that some jurists are brazen enough to suggest that omnipresent government data mining is no big deal, because a government computer isn't really "the government." It's bad enough that we have a megalomaniacal President who argues, with a straight face, that he is, as Commander-in-Chief, essentially a dictator during time of war.
No, even all that, apparently, is not enough to win the War on Terror. Now we are, as a society, going to jump the shark by not only wrongfully detaining people but also wrongfully convicting them with little or no reluctance, because "it's worth the risk"?
That's easy to say when you're not one of those wrongfully convicted.
As I've said before: The terrorists want to destroy our way of life. And judging from people like Professor Malpass, they are succeeding.
"There are people who'd say it's better to let 10 guilty persons free to protect against one innocent person being wrongfully convicted," said Roy S. Malpass, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso... "I'm fine with that when we're dealing with juvenile shoplifters," Dr. Malpass said. "I'm not fine with that for terrorists. We haven't figured out the risk there."Oh really?
It's bad enough that we have declared pretty much the entire Fourth Amendment, and much of the rest of the Bill of Rights, "optional" (if not "null and void") where the War on Terror is concerned. It's bad enough that some jurists are brazen enough to suggest that omnipresent government data mining is no big deal, because a government computer isn't really "the government." It's bad enough that we have a megalomaniacal President who argues, with a straight face, that he is, as Commander-in-Chief, essentially a dictator during time of war.
No, even all that, apparently, is not enough to win the War on Terror. Now we are, as a society, going to jump the shark by not only wrongfully detaining people but also wrongfully convicting them with little or no reluctance, because "it's worth the risk"?
That's easy to say when you're not one of those wrongfully convicted.
As I've said before: The terrorists want to destroy our way of life. And judging from people like Professor Malpass, they are succeeding.
Posted by Kip on
19 April 2006
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