Seems there’s a bit of a mixup here between prosecuting seriously and punishing severely. Not to mention investigating dilligently, judging fairly, and protecting the rights of* all* the parties. Of course* all* situations in which someone causes or may cause harm to someone else through malice or negligence should be looked into with all due dilligence and the prosecution if any must be undertaken seriously.
As even sven points out there are already statutes outlawing defamation, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, filing of false reports, blackmail, perjury, etc. One could make an argument for proportionality – but not equality – of the accusation vs. the punishment of the false report, as an aggravating circumstance, and I’d have to lean in AK84’s direction in that it should be only for cases where the person conscientiously fabricated an allegation with a deliberate intent to target the accused or reckless disregard for the harm done, and it can be actually proven so to criminal standard: acquittal or reversal of conviction or even refutation of a piece of testimony by itself does not create the presumption of malicious falsehood, as **Merneith **points out. There are such things as mistakes. People may be sincerely convinced of what is not factual.
But ISTM that standard would not be limited to rape cases alone, it could apply as well to any other type of framing… which brings us again to how we just do not punish all false accusation equally to the crime itself for anything else, do we? A victim would not feel safe reporting a crime under the threat of long years in prison if the case falls apart. The prosecution and trial of the accused must not be turned into that of the accuser/witness. That’s a trope for TV and movies and should stay there.
ETA: An anonymity rule for the accused however would not survive the start of the court proceedings, due to the right to a public trial in open court.
No. We should not and do not, as a general rule, apply the same punishment for false accusation of a crime that we do to the actual crime itself. Rape doesn’t hold some special spot in the pantheon of crimes that it should be exempt from that rule.
Again IMO you lie in court and or falsely accuse someone it should be some serious business. And as the OP is asking, the serious of the punishment for doing so should correlated to seriousness of the crime the other person is being charged with.
Are there laws that do so?
Or is it a basic “well, you lied in court, 5 years max” sorta thing? generally legally speaking?
FWIW, the ancient Israelites did, or at least that’s what the Bible dictates:
[QUOTE=Deuteronomy 19:16-20]
If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party. You must purge the evil from among you. The rest of the people will hear of this and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you.
[/QUOTE]
you think you could find me someone who was falsely convicted and spent 5 or 10 years who doesnt have a legitimate case the person who sent them there doenst deserve the exact same punishment???
Generally, I don’t subscribe to a justice system that actually embraces “an eye for an eye.” Punishments should be carefully considered, with all the relevant facts at hand - not automatically meted out according to what happened to the other guy.
Civil liability plays a role here as well. If someone falsely accuses someone else of a crime, and a person spends prison time as a result, the false accuser ought to be subject to some length of imprisonment as well as a hefty settlement.
You frame me and send me to prison for 10 years… and I’m innocent.
You need to go to prison for 20 years.
I doubt you will be able to say anything to convince me otherwise. Call me simplistic if you like, that would be ok, to me it is a very simple matter. You sent me to jail, I was innocent, you lied, you deserve what I got and then twice for doing it.
Oh, I don’t intend to convince you to change your mind. I simply think judgment should be part of determining punishment. Policies like three strikes, mandatory minimums, zero tolerance, and what you’re arguing here in terms of identical or harsher prison terms are all examples, in my mind, of silliness masquerading as “tough on crime.”
If someone has a third strike, the appropriate punishment may be a slap on the wrist or life in prison as circumstances dictate. If someone sends you to prison because of false testimony, the proper punishment could be anything from a stretch in a mental asylum to prison time - but how long you spent in prison isn’t the determining factor. The state also has responsibility for prosecuting you for a crime you didn’t commit - you can’t take it all out on your accuser.
The guy in prison sure as heck ain’t going to “will” himself outa there. And he ain’t gonna “will” his record away. And he isn’t gonna “will” any future folks/employers in his life to ignore it. And on an on.
Maybe you can get over a tramatic experience. Maybe you can’t. Or maybe its somewhere in between.
But convicted of a crime you didn’t commit? At the very least you are 100 percent screwed for the time you spend in jail.
But the concept of Justice is not. You should get at least as much punishment as I do. I was innocent. You lied. You purposefully framed me. You sent me to to a living hell for 5 or 10 years. You deserve - at least - what I got. Really, you deserve twice, but, that last part could be debated.
Disparaging remarks about the code of Hammurabi do not really contribute to the discussion, BTW.
This is not a competition. I mentioned find me a victim because you mentioned it. I’m not trying to compete with your claim, I’m not trying to invalidate it. Both situation are horrible. It’s, not, a competition.
Let’s assume, let’s say, 1 in 1000 people convicted of rape are actually maliciously framed for it. If you were that 1 in 1000 person, it would be a horrible horrible thing to have happen, right? Prison for 5 to 10 years and the rest of your life falsely labeled as a rapist?
