So he’s enjoyed 73 years of freedom. How much enjoyment did his victims have?
Are you in favor of releasing Charles Manson, on the basis that he may regret his youthful mistakes?
No, because obviously there will be prosecution only if there are still evidences against him, which says nothing about evidences useful for his defense.
Let’s simplify a lot. Let’s assume that in such a case, there’s only one possible evidence of guilt and one possible evidence against guilt. That half of people who can be suspected are innocent, and the other half guilty. And let’s say that after 70 years there’s only 1 in 20 chance that relevant evidences can still be found and presented in court.
There are, say, 200 surviving possible criminals. The task of the prosecution is indeed difficult. They will be able to find the evidence against only 200/20 = 10 people. 190 others will die peacefully without prosecution, including many who were guilty. But what of the 10 ones who are prosecuted, amongst which 5 are innocent?
None of them will be able to present a convincing defense. 5 because they’re in fact guilty and there has never been an exculpatory evidence, and the 5 others because despite being innocent, their chance to be able to present this once existing exculpatory evidence is statistically very low.
Time passing prevents prosecution from being able to mount a case. So many people will get away with their crime. But it also prevents the accused from mounting a defense, so people actually charged won’t have a fair trial. You can’t deny a specific person a fair trial because plenty of others who were guilty presumably weren’t prosecuted at all.
Why? Presumption of innocence means that you can’t lock up someone who wasn’t found guilty in court. On what basis would you detain a person who hasn’t been sentenced? Because someone somewhere feels he might be guilty?
Id like to add that we should also pursue any surviving Soviets who participated in crimes against humanity up until 1989 and any surviving Chinese who committed crimes against humanity during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. And Cambodians in the Khmer Rouge. And some Rwandans and Serbs. If crimes against humanity are to be considered criminal, lets go after all of gthe worst of the worst.
OK, first of all, the right to be able to assist your lawyer is an American thing. We don’t know if this exists in either Poland or Germany.
Second, in answer to the OP, “too far” in pursuing Nazis would be digging them up, and driving stakes through their fat black hearts, and then decapitating them, just to make sure they stayed put.
Unlike the hypothetical intellectually disabled murderer, the only reason this Nazi is being tried this late and possibly while not quite competent is because he’s actively avoided prosecution for over 70 years.
Reading the Wiki of the accused, it seems like it will be nearly impossible to put him in a specific location when specific crimes were committed. It was said that he was part of the Warsaw Uprising suppression, but it seems like his unit wasnt there.
Should he be prosecuted for specific proven crimes or simply because he was an SS officer? If there is specific evidence that he was involved in war crimes, try him. Otherwise, it goes against our conception of justice to try his for his association with a criminal organization.
How do you know that? The article states that the prosecution began in 2013.
Once again, there’s a lot of assumption of guilt in this thread. Half the post at least seems to be " fuck him, we don’t need to show that he’s a war criminal since he’s a war criminal and that’s awful. If he wanted a chance to demonstrate that he isn’t a war criminal, he shouldn’t have been a war criminal".
What posts are you reading? It seems to me that people are saying he should be put on trial.
We need to see the evidence before we can really have an opinion though.
The passage of time benefits the defense more than the prosecution. Unless you can point out a reason otherwise, it can be assumed evidence for both sides disappears at an equal rate. So if ninety percent of the defense evidence is lost so is ninety percent of the prosecution evidence. And such a balance favors the defense. The prosecution has to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt; the defense doesn’t have to prove anything.
The report indicates there seems to be sufficient evidence to justify a trial.
These posts, for instance, that all state how richly he deserves to be punished for his crimes, none of them adressing the issue of whether a trial would fair nor envision that he might not be a criminal to begin with (and I stopped quoting after the 5 first posts, there are plenty of others like that) :
American accusatory system. In a civil law system, both evidences of guilt and exculpatory evidences must be provided to the court. And even in the American system, it’s blatantly obvious that the defendant will be better off if he can provide such exculpatory evidences. The defendant lawyer’s certainly can sit on his ass and try to poke hole at the prosecution’s evidences, but if he can instead have a witness stating that the defendant was at a birthday party at the moment of the crime, the chance of acquital will rise substantially.
I already explained why it’s not true. 90% of the evidence dissapear on average. It doesn’t mean that exactly 90% of the evidence for the accusation and exactly 90% of the evidence for the defense will dissapear in every single case. If you’re unlucky and evidences against you is part of the remaining 10%, you’re fucked, because it’s still 90% likely that exculpatory evidences you could have used to refute the accusation have dissapeared. You can’t have a fair trial.
In practical terms : there were ten crimes. Out of the ten victims, only one is still alive after 70 years. 9 crimes out of ten won’t be prosecuted. But one will be. The survivors testify that he saw you at the crime scene. Your defense is that you were with Bob at the time, celebrating his birthday. Unfortunately, for you, it’s 90% likely that Bob is dead, so you won’t have the means to refute the survivor’s testimony. The fact that many others got away with their crimes because of dissapeared evidences of guilt doesn’t do you any good if you get sentenced because of dissapeared exculpatory evidences.
The more time passes, the more the process becomes random, more and more dependant on what elements are randomly still existing and what elements have randomly dissapeared. If you aren’t sentenced, it’s not because you’re innocent, but because evidences against you aren’t available anymore. If you’re sentenced, it’s not because you’re guilty, but because evidences in your favour aren’t available anymore.
According to the link they are
i) Unsure if he even is the same man
ii) Even if he is, they cannot even show what exactly he is said to have done and when. They are not even sure is his unit was in theatre at the time.
Would you please link to the evidence?
Also, part of the problem here is that few of us know about the history of Ukraine in the 1930s. It is doubtful this guy was a Nazi. Although he might well be a murderer and a war criminal. The reason young Ukrainian men were willing to fight with the Germans is explained in books like this.
‘Too far’ would be prosecuting family, neighbors, co-workers, etc. who might have known but didn’t say anything.
Prosecuting the person him/herself is fair game regardless of age, in my opinion.
The trial should be held, and judgement passed.
It’s possible any punishment would be pointless, but he should be found guilty if he is so. Closure is important.
Two comments.
First, it’s not whether he can assist his lawyer; as UDS stated upthread, it’s whether the accused has the capacity to give his lawyer instructions on how to conduct his defence.
The lawyer is not in charge of the defence; the accused is. If the accused lacks the capacity to understand the proceedings, or to remember the events from 70 years ago, then he’s not able to give instructions to his lawyer and the lawyer cannot act.
That’s why the Sixth Amendment is framed the way it is, outlining all the procedural rights of the accused. It ends by saying that the accused shall have the right: “to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.” Counsel assist the accused, not the other way around.
Second, this is not just a US thing. It’s the general approach throughout the common law countries, and based on the European Convention on Civil Rights, to which both Germany and Poland adhere, it seems to be the case in Europe as well. Article 6(3) sets out the accused’s rights at trial, including the right to counsel:
[QUOTE=European Convention on Civil Rights]
Everyone charged with a criminal offence has the following minimum rights:
…
(c) to defend himself in person or through legal assistance of his own choosing or, if he has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require;
[/QUOTE]
I have only a nodding acquaintance with criminal procedure in civil law countries, but the Convention uses the same type of language as the Sixth Amendment: the accused has the right to defend himself, either directly or through the assistance of counsel.
That really is a basic part of how lawyers operate, especially in criminal trials: a lawyer can’t take a step in a case without instructions from the client.