LOLWUT
if you have “sufficient evidence,” then there’s no “probably.” Did you even think about that sentence before typing it?
It should read “sufficient evidence to think that…”
that’s even worse. Because then you’re just advocating arresting people and trying them because “well, they must be guilty of something!”
Right now, for example, the standard of guilt in a criminal trial is that “no reasonable person, among a group of 12, would doubt your guilt”. But what if we randomly selected states and had them try different numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 jurors needed to believe the defendant guilty. These states continue on with these standards for 20 years, and then we look at the data of what happened in each of these cases. And based on that data, we determine that the total number of homicides, sexual assaults, robberies, etc. are all the lowest when the number of jurors is 6.
Mathematically, we’ll have proved that this is the ideal number for catching criminals. We’re successfully locking them up. There’s no doubt about that.
At the same time, it’s likely that a lot of these criminals were not guilty of the crime they were being judged for, they were just shifty-looking enough that half the jury decided, “This person’s certainly a crook. I’m sure he did it.” And while they were wrong on that second part, they were right on the first.
And, also, at the same time some people who are genuinely innocent and law-abiding are going to go to jail and have their lives ruined, simply because the standards of proof are low enough to allow for it.
Personally, I would be happy to be one of those innocents, if the total number of wrongly jailed is probably significantly lower than the total number of people saved by lowering the standards of justice. To go to jail wrongly, for the greater welfare of society is serving my country and my fellow citizens.
Not locking someone up, just so you can feel morally righteous about not having been unfair or unjust, doesn’t save the people that are murdered by that guy you let go free. Jailing everyone that looks shady is an easy road to police abuses and corruption. Ultimately, there’s no road that’s morally clean. If you think your path is somehow going to allow you to avoid getting dirty, then you’re just lying to yourself about the greater ramifications of your choice.
If a kid laughs while someone drowns, flunks a test for sociopaths, and factually broke a crime (even if not one that’s commonly used), I’m not going to lose much sleep if he’s put in front of a court. But I would want to differentiate between a kid who’s just too young to properly get what’s going on and one who is a psycho - hence the test. And I would use an actual law, not just throw him in a slammer for looking like a punk. And I would put him through a real trial with a fair jury. If he comes out clean on the test, if there’s no law, if he is cleared by the jury, I’m also not going to lose much sleep. I’m not talking about simple, one-step processes. I’m talking about fine adjustments to a machine that has many places where you can check assumptions, include statistical data, run tests, listen to testimony, and check against real law books.
As said, if there’s sufficient reason to believe, in addition to the video, that a kid is a future monster, and he has genuinely broken a crime, I’m not seeing much issue. If they’re going back to look in their books for laws, because they got a bunch of complaints from people on the internet, then I highly disapprove. There needs to be more than that.
I hate to defend these kids, because I personally think the trend of filming anything with your phone is disgusting.
But I just watched the video again, and really listened to the content of what they were saying. I don’t think, whatever they said, that they really thought they were filming a death. There’re notes of hyperbole in their voices, and the guy’s head comes up a lot. When it finally goes under and stays under, one of them says something like "Oh, man, he really went down, and he sounds shocked.
Now, any adult is going to say “What did they think was going to happen,” but teenagers don’t think. They are shocked when dumb stunts injure people, when sex results in VD or pregnancy, and when someone dies. They’re not little children, who can’t understand, but they aren’t fully mature adults, and just don’t think things through.
If they do get charged with something, I imagine their defense will go something like that, and it’s a fair argument.
They probably didn’t really think, when they started filming, that the guy was actually going to die. They probably thought he was going to come out of the water soaking wet, and looking stupid, and it would be a jackass moment, and super hilarious.
Now, I’m not going so far as to claim that they would have helped if they’d realized what was happening, but maybe they didn’t know what to do. I remember once when I was a teen, and one of my friends broke his kneecap, and the rest of us crowded around-- we we all concerned, we helped him to a chair, someone said should we get his parents. It took an adult coming onto the scene to say “Go call 911!” and again to tell up we didn’t need a quarter to do so. And then to tell one of us to go down to the corner and flag the ambulance, and direct it where to go. And again-- 911 probably could not have gotten to this guy in time. It would have depended on how far away rescue was. If there was a firehouse very close by, maybe.
I doubt these kids, in 10 years, will behave the same way in an emergent situation. I also think they probably learned a lesson that day.
On another note: someone said the drowned man walked into the water in his clothes voluntarily. What was up with that? How does that happen by accident? I know lakes are murky and have sudden drop offs, so he could have been trying to retrieve something, gone in six inches, and slipped, or suddenly found himself in three feet, and gotten caught in a current. But it’s still very odd. Do we know the story behind the man’s behavior?
yeah, you’ll say that right up until the moment you’re actually facing prison time for something you didn’t do.
ITG hypothetical bullshit isn’t how we should approach criminal justice.
Where’s AM when you need him?
The video on YouTube ended up putting a report on the medical examiner’s desk.
When the police take your statement, they are going to fill out reports. In the case of a dead body, they are going to be filling out a report for the ME. If you make a statement that is in that report, then that would be reporting to the ME.
The differences between that, and finding a dead body and linking it to a video online are fairly drastic.