Okay, so I finally broke down and started reading the Harry Potter series. I started a week and a half ago, and now I’m in Book Five, Order of the Phoenix, just after Harry’s hearing at the Ministry of Magic.
My conundrum is this - why, oh why, doesn’t the Ministry of Magic make greater use of Veritaserum? Snape’s convinced of it’s potency in Book Four. Dumbledore has confidence in it as well, and doesn’t mind using it on Moody/Crouch Jr. to get at the truth.
And yet, we saw in the Pensieve that people were condemned to Azkaban without being given a chance to take Veritaserum to prove their innocence. While one could argue that it would be unethical to force a defendant to take it, certainly they’d be offered it as an option, no?
Such an option in Harry’s hearing would’ve cleared him instantly, and revealed the truth about Voldemort. Heck, they could probably clear Sirius in that fashion, as well.
Well, since the imperious curse can be fought (Harry manages to do this in GOF) I am assuming that there are ways of fighting off veritaserum as well. Thus veritaserum is probably considered admissable as evidence, but not enough to hinge the whole case on, somewhat like (if I understand correctly, I am not an attorney), a lie detector in Muggle courts.
Hey, if this were a Marvel Comics letter page Instead of the SDMB, I would get a no-prize for this :D
How far have you read in book 5? Basically it becomes increasingly clear that the powers that be in the Ministry are, while not actually evil, completely wrapped up in their own petty squabbles and are completely uninterested in hearing about Voldemort. They’re not interested in hearing the truth or fighting the fight.
Veritaserum probably wouldn’t do any good in this case. A person who’s crazy will probably just repeat their delusion in the belief that they were telling the truth, right? Well, Harry’s already been branded a lunatic by the Wizard press, so anything he said about seeing Voldemort, while perhaps raising a few uneasy eyebrows within the Ministry hearing committee, would be officially brushed off as the ravings of a deranged boy. And since he’s obviously been proven deranged (after all, he claimed to have seen Voldemort even after taking Veritaserum, and we all know he’s gone for good), that would be the end of Harry’s career at Hogwarts.
As for Sirius, while Harry’s word wouldn’t be good enough to clear him of anything, it would certainly be good enough for the Ministry to use in tracking him down and sending him back to Azkhaban.
That wasn’t how the No-Prizes worked back when they still awarded them. They were generally given to people pointing out mistakes.
You are assuming that the Veritaserum is fight-offable. Well enough. Is it fight-offable without the persons in the room with you noticing? Why is Snape so confident that it would make Harry spill his guts? Why does Dumbledore accept the things Crouch Jr says so readily? Crouch Jr fought off the Imperious Curse - one would think that his mental discipline in that regard, especially fortified with months of freedom from its effects, would apply to the Veritaserum as well - and yet, we see no signs of any resistance whatever.
All that aside, if it is resistable, I would’ve expected Rowling to note that somewhere, as the casual reader can easily see that given the information we have about it, it would dispense with the whole Ministry denial situation, and Sirius’s fugitive status.
If you find out why people aren’t given the option in real life to use Sodium Pentothal to clear one’s name, I think you’d find your answer. My guess is that if Veritaserum is based on Sodium Pentothal, they don’t use it because it is potentially dangerous - SP depresses the central nervous system, it can be lethal if an incorrect dose is given (which would me the added expense of having medical personel on hand to give it) and it may not always work because being more willing to talk doesn’t neccessarily mean telling the truth- does anyone know if SP works on pathological liars or sociopaths?
First, congrats on being sucked into the Harry Potter Wormhole. You’ll be waiting at the door for the Amazon delivery when Book Six comes out, just like the rest of us. insert evil laughter here
In addition to the reasons above, I always had the idea the Veritaserum is very rare, and very hard to make. Snape (later in the book, I believe) even says that it takes a month to mature, and likely there aren’t a whole bunch of wizards with the requisite Potions cred to make it properly.
Okay, this is better. Except, I just mentioned where I was in book five. First post.
Let’s think about this, then. What you’re saying would suggest that the Ministry of Magic has no spells to verify the sanity of the subject. Okay. So it could be problematic in Harry’s case. But let’s look at a different case - Crouch Jr’s trial. He insisted he was innocent, begged his father for mercy, etc, etc - clearly, it wasn’t his sanity that was in doubt in that case, it was his honesty. They didn’t offer him a shot at Veritaserum either.
Sodium Pentothal isn’t 100% reliable. As for medical reasons - I find it difficult that Dumbledore would immediately use a medically risky method whereas Fudge (who allowed a Dementor to suck the soul of a prisoner without even interrogating the man!) would balk at it.
And if a Death Eater like Crouch Jr. isn’t a sociopath, what is?
Well, if he says that later in the book, that’ll certainly help matters. Still, when it came to the Death-Eater Azkaban trials, I would’ve thought Veritaserum would be warranted.
Yeah, I picked up all five paperbacks at Kroger’s one day, while ill. Finally motivated myself to start reading them, knowing that I’d read the others in rapid succession, as is my method.
And you still haven’t posted a response to some of the threads I was certain you would, during your busy week. Maybe my predictive powers are slipping…
Maybe they don’t use it much because of a work-around the Rowling herself used in OotP - you just need to get a confederate to do a memory alteration on you, and you’ll truthfully say you believe you were eating an ice cream sundae - excuse me - a wizard sundae when the crime happened.
I just thought of it like Sublight’s idea, much like Auspex in V:tM.
Giving them the serum doesn’t mean that they are telling the truth, just that they are telling the truth as they see it. Whether they are crazy, have had their memories altered or whatever truth serum is only good for what they know as the truth.
So, for example, if someone is colourblind and had taken the serum they could honestly say the red pen is not red. It’s not in their eyes.
I don’t know that this is a very useful case to examine, given that
Crouch, Jr. was guilty anway. He’d only have incriminated himself by taking Veritaserum, unless there’s some way to counter it. If there’s some way to counter it, it would be no good in a court of law. If there’s not a way to counter it, his only choice would be to refuse it.
Heck, it’s possible Crouch, Jr., was offered Veritaserum “offscreen” at some point and refused it.
But my guess would be that Veritaserum is used rarely, if ever, in wizard trials, for reasons already mentioned by others: the MoM is corrupt and incompentant, and there can be a big difference between what a person sincerely believes happened and what actually happened. Veritaserum could only make a person tell the former, not the latter, and that’s not really very good evidence.
No spoiler fields necessary in this one. I agree that Crouch Jr. would’ve refused the Veritaserum - however, if he had done so, he would’ve been unable to convincingly behave in that manner in the courtroom.
Considering that the wizard trials seem to rely currently on what various folks Say happened, I would consider relying on what people think happened a step up. Removes the possibility of direct, deliberate falsehood.
Your predictive powers cannot stand against the forces of bronchitis and inertia.