Deference to the Defense - thoughts stemming from recent trials

[Dill]

(11-14-2021, 08:58 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Our legal system is based on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and that someone needs to be proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt in order for them to be imprisoned. I think that everyone here is familiar with this ideal and would agree to that. We also all know that the court of public opinion does not work this way.

The way this often works in trials is that things are made a little more difficult for the prosecution because the defendant, the accused, has rights related to their presumed innocence. This is, quite frankly, a very liberal/progressive ideal. So why do so many people seem to throw that out the window when it comes to someone on the wrong side of the law in their eyes? I know there is likely a psychological answer for it and it will be justified by some because they need to calm their cognitive dissonance with that rationalization, but it was just a thought I was having.

I can offer a partial answer to this. Some just aren't down with the rule of law. Much of our popular culture supports this. How many times have you watched a movie or detective show and seen some perp actually committing a crime in the opening segment (so you KNOW he is guilty), followed by some Dirty Harry type fighting through the obstacles "liberals" throw in his way, invoking laws that coddle criminals, requiring search warrants and the like. Watching crime narratives unfold in the news, some similarly "know" the truth already and don't want the law getting in the way.

That's hardly the whole picture though. On the flip side, people now observe videos of shootings that clearly seem, to them, unjustifiable. Think of Tamir Rice. And yet the shooter is protected by law. And without video: the Zimmerman case baffled many. An armed vigilante can cruise a neighborhood identifying and confronting those he deems thugs, and get off scott free after shooting an unarmed kid in self defense. Many see a danger to the public in laws that free such shooters, not an enhancement of "freedom." Compare that then with the 20 years initially given Marisa Alexander for NOT killing someone. People start expecting imbalance, injustice, and let the authorities know they are watching.

"Cognitive dissonance" arises, then, when it appears that the law doesn't protect everyone, appears to defend one set of "rights" over another. 
This is not about what happens BEFORE a trial, but during and after, when the evidence is in and the law is clear, and justice does not seem served, though the letter of the law is. So its more about the expectation justice will not be served, and less about this or that individual's guilt. Now each self defense trial becomes a symbol and test of expected justice, each new case driven by frustration over the last.

(11-14-2021, 08:58 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: This also goes into the direction of some of the protests I have been seeing regarding race and the Rittenhouse case. At first I was baffled, because it is a white guy that shot other white guys. It seems, though, that the protests are because of how he was treated by the criminal justice system. They argue that a black person in those same circumstances would not have been afforded the same rights and protections. Honestly, I can't argue against that. They should be afforded the same rights and protections. I just don't like the idea of directing the ire towards Rittenhouse for that situation. There are people in those protests using that message to say Rittenhouse should be found guilty, and that I don't understand. Why should we drag others down to a place where they are being treated unjustly by the system?

A white guy shot other white guys, but in a riot sparked by the shooting of an unarmed black man, seven times in the back, by a policeman who was returned to duty without even administrative punishment.

Follow this with the optics of white guys open carrying during that riot, the armed Rittenhouse waived past police during a riot after shots were fired. The open carry right, which R did not have, looks like a white privilege here, unless one is prepared to argue that black men running around with rifles during the rights would also get water from the police, because they law says their right to open carry is "equal."  

Add to that, at least two of the people R shot apparently came to protest police violence against blacks; R came to "run towards danger."

I'll wager that most of the people who would like to see some punishment exacted for R's actions are less interested in this one individual than a legal system which enables his bad behavior--signals there will be no accountability for people who pick up their rifles to run towards danger whenever there is civil unrest. Since they think the system is unjust because it exonerates those responsible for what should be crimes, they don't think they are "dragging Rittenhouse down" to unjust treatment by the system. They want an unjust system to stop protecting vigilantes.

PS what are the parameters of your proposal? Just curious.