Would it be possible to pass a law where judges and prosecutors are punished if someone is executed and it’s later found they were not guilty?
Would it be a good or bad idea?
Would it be a good or bad idea?
I mean, better to just ban it entirely, but I’d take culpability as a half measure.
If the country does not have a good track record, it doesn't really change anything.
Based on his activity since being convicted I doubt he'll be released for significantly longer than his minimum sentence.
(If the law doesn't permit a longer minimum, then 21 years is the "maximum sentence" in that there cannot be a longer mandatory period imposed.)
I just don't see how it's fundamentally any better than the US system of minimum and maximum sentences, with some possibly some provisions for early parole reviewed every year or two after some portion "X" of the sentence has been served.
(Just devils' advocate, I live in a country without it or a need for it.)
And to make it more balanced, you could also punish them for exonerating someone later found guilty (with the available evicence at the first trial re-examined).
Just rough ideas, which might not work at all, but still, as it is judges have no skin in the game (not even their reputation, sometimes it's even the inverse: some judges purposefully give harsh senteces, e.g. to blacks to score political points they'll later exploit).
I doubt that. People can be punished if they fail badly, or even die if they make a mistake in all kinds of jobs, and they still do them.
>And your second paragraph is very much in conflict with the tenet that everyone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Well, if there really wasn't a "reasonable doubt" (as deemed on a second look) and the first judge decided it was, then it's on them...
Law is a process, punishing people who do their duty for the errors in the process when they have not been involved in misconduct would not be justice.
Death penalty itself is wrong.
There are tons of ways to perform badly without misconduct. Companies punish/fire/demote/etc employees who underperform all the time, for example. Or who make bad decisions consistently. Or even a single costly bad decision.
Why should "life of death judging" officials, highly paid at that, get a free pass?
That decision might prove in hindsight to be incorrect, based on new information or a fresh perspective. The judge cannot be held accountable for that.
We accept this as part of the job, that difficult decisions cannot always be made perfectly within any legal framework, but still need to be decided.
If this results in disproportionate punishment, the system is at fault - the system of laws - not the judge, who was doing their job.
The judge's decision might alternatively prove to be corrupt, in that the judge has been influenced by something outside of their training, knowledge of the law, and the evidence. The judge should be held accountable for that.
Well, I already covered that in another comment: we could still hold them accountable for decisions deemed later to be incorrect with the same data available at the time.
In common law systems (US, UK for example) the trial proceedings is adversarial system. If someone should lose money because the innocent is convicted, it should be the defense lawyer. The trial is a game.
In civil law jurisdictions (like in Continental Europe) the trial is fact-finding public inquiry. The court is more actively involved in investigating the the case.
Well, this "best" should be judged and rewarded or punished too.
In order to express a desire for a specific change, you need to have normative ideas. At least a conception of how things should be (or shouldn't). So it comes down to, do you agree that judges should not just handle out death sentences, for starters, without any negative consequence on them if they get them wrong?
But note that if my request was normative (it was), the response: "Because their 'performance' is to perform their part best they can" is even less than a normative statement: it's a tautology.