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Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

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Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#61

Post by serans »

rayiner wrote: post #57
agwa wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do your PD friends care so much about protecting the rights of their "clearly guilty" clients? It's because protecting the guilty's rights ensures the innocent's rights are protected too. The trope here is the suggestion that criminals are getting off on technicalities. As you've illustrated with Miranda, even with the improperly-obtained evidence suppressed, he was still convicted. The government doesn't need to…

> Why do your PD friends care so much about protecting the rights of their "clearly guilty" clients? It's because protecting the guilty's rights ensures the innocent's rights are protected too. It's not a matter of protecting the rights of guilty people or not, but determining how much to protect them. Every procedural protection has a cost. If a procedural protection might be invoked by a person who has a 10% chance…

I guess the problem is there's no such a thing as a person having "a 10% chance of being innocent" Either he is or he is not. He might have certain probability of being declared guilty (which is entirely different), but I don't think there's a way to estimate that.

BTW 99% is a very low accuracy. If we accepted that for aircraft, 13 would crash weekly.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#62

Post by anigbrowl »

rhizome wrote: post #60
anigbrowl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that I agree with him about the widespread existence of this attitude, though.

In a system that purports to consider suspects innocent until proven guilty, why is there stigma when the suspect is not proven guilty? The suspicion that they are actually guilty supersedes the idea that law enforcement (incl. the prosecutor) is fallible. The stigma derives from an authoritarian mindset in this way.

Yes, but that's a feature of human psychology. A lot of people are authoritarians, and in a society where free speech is constitutionally protected they enjoy the right to trumpet their opinions about the likely guilt of people being acquitted.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#63

Post by rhizome »

anigbrowl wrote: post #62
rhizome wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a system that purports to consider suspects innocent until proven guilty, why is there stigma when the suspect is not proven guilty? The suspicion that they are actually guilty supersedes the idea that law enforcement (incl. the prosecutor) is fallible. The stigma derives from an authoritarian mindset in this way.

Yes, but that's a feature of human psychology. A lot of people are authoritarians, and in a society where free speech is constitutionally protected they enjoy the right to trumpet their opinions about the likely guilt of people being acquitted.

So would you agree that "innocent until proven guilty" is basically a lie, since "human psychology" drives society to consider suspects to be always-guilty regardless of the outcome of the accusation? At any rate, the stigma being discussed in this thread derives from this tendency of society, innate to its members or not.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#64

Post by anigbrowl »

rhizome wrote: post #63
anigbrowl wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that's a feature of human psychology. A lot of people are authoritarians, and in a society where free speech is constitutionally protected they enjoy the right to trumpet their opinions about the likely guilt of people being acquitted.

So would you agree that "innocent until proven guilty" is basically a lie, since "human psychology" drives society to consider suspects to be always-guilty regardless of the outcome of the accusation? At any rate, the stigma being discussed in this thread derives from this tendency of society, innate to its members or not.

No, of course not. A court can acquit someone but it can't control how everyone thinks about the process. If a certain percentage of the population are authoritarians who believe the police are always right and defense lawyers are always tricksy shysters, there's not much the court can do about it other than acknowledging the facts that point to an acquittal.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#65

Post by rhizome »

anigbrowl wrote: post #64
rhizome wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So would you agree that "innocent until proven guilty" is basically a lie, since "human psychology" drives society to consider suspects to be always-guilty regardless of the outcome of the accusation? At any rate, the stigma being discussed in this thread derives from this tendency of society, innate to its members or not.

No, of course not. A court can acquit someone but it can't control how everyone thinks about the process. If a certain percentage of the population are authoritarians who believe the police are always right and defense lawyers are always tricksy shysters, there's not much the court can do about it other than acknowledging the facts that point to an acquittal. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drin…

What do you mean "if" a certain percentage of the population are authoritarians? You just described authoritarianism as (as I interpret you) basic human nature. However, I think it's cultural, so there is more to do than to throw ones hands up in powerlessness, and it has to do with the assumptions people make about the legal system (as I described). Stigma is not an innate attribute like a freckle.

Regardless, we could have shortened this thread considerably if you'd just said "eh, whaddya gonna do?" up front.

Re: Fifth Amendment shields child porn suspect from decrypting hard drives

#66

Post by anigbrowl »

rhizome wrote: post #65
anigbrowl wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, of course not. A court can acquit someone but it can't control how everyone thinks about the process. If a certain percentage of the population are authoritarians who believe the police are always right and defense lawyers are always tricksy shysters, there's not much the court can do about it other than acknowledging the facts that point to an acquittal. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drin…

What do you mean "if" a certain percentage of the population are authoritarians? You just described authoritarianism as (as I interpret you) basic human nature. However, I think it's cultural, so there is more to do than to throw ones hands up in powerlessness, and it has to do with the assumptions people make about the legal system (as I described). Stigma is not an innate attribute like a freckle. Regardless, we co…

You just described authoritarianism as (as I interpret you) basic human nature.

I said 'a lot of people are authoritarians,' not that it was inherent. It varies from country to country, eg I think Swedes are somewhat less authoritarian than Americans in the aggregate.

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