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Comment by jdavis703 | Hacker News Reader

The other solution seems to be endangering the general public by opening the courts in a pandemic or to start having secret courts. Neither are particularly compelling. Far less people were assaulted in the US than died of coronavirus, and even fewer were assaulted for witness intimidation. And a secret court is obviously bad for a rules based democracy.

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You can censor live events for nuisances like strong language or nudity, but you can't protect the privacy of victims? You would be absolutely astonished, how many women are intimidated/assaulted each year. The infection rates of covid pale against that.

Roughly 300,000 people were assaulted in 2019 (last year of uniform crime stats from the FBI). The annualized amount of COVID-19 death is about 400,000.

Correction: 300,000 reported assaulted, not 300,000 assaulted.

Specifying that for only one side isn't exactly balanced. There were only 400,000 reported covid deaths as well.

I'm not sure why is it that you only mention "women" here, are you implying men are never assaulted?

It needn't be one or the other.

You can have remote trials but just don't put personal information in records, and prohibit unauthorized recording. Have one official recording that redacts personal addresses and contact information.

No parr of the justice system should be hidden from view. If its too dangerous to be made public, its not important enough to be used.

I disagree. I strongly think the justice system should be first and foremost protecting victims and not exposing them to more harm.

That would encourage victims to not bring wrongdoings to trial in fear of their personal info being exposed.

If someone is convicted, then yeah, go ahead and put them on a sex offender registry with their address. Loss of privacy is a consequence of their actions. That's justice.

But goddamn no don't put the victim's address in public view.

Everyone should be treated equally in the court. A court that prioritizes the victim is barely batter than having a system based on vigilante justice.

Well yes, so you start out by not publishing either party's address. If and when someone is convicted as a sex offender, it's reasonable to publish their address at that point, and continue to protect the victim's identity.

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