Regardless of which is more important, which generally compels more of your concern or personal interest: That the guilty be convicted, or that the innocent be acquitted?
I do some criminal defense, so my inclination is in that direction.
I refuse to answer the poll because none of the options capture my full viewpoint. In general, I support the idea of an adversarial trial with the presumption of innocence unless the prosecution proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt. For example, I support the jury decision in cases like Casey Anthony in which she was almost certainly guilty of something in the death of her daughter but the prosecution couldn’t prove guilt in the charges that they sought. Some people may see that as a miscarriage of justice but I believe it is necessary to preserve basic freedoms for all Americans even if over-zealous prosecutors overreach and lose a few easy cases in the process. They just have to use those examples to learn their game better.
I have a friend that was convicted for life for killing his wife and step-son in Texas. The only problem was, he is not only innocent, he wasn’t even there at the time. It was a murder-suicide that the stepson committed and was ruled as such by the police until months later when an overzealous and now proven corrupt prosecutor got hold of the case. They didn’t like the fact that there was no one to prosecute for that crime so they found my friend and arrested him based on a theory that would make Oliver Stone shake his head in disbelief.
Somehow, they found both the dumbest possible jury in Texas combined with an incompetent public defender and scored a conviction. He is supposed to be thankful he didn’t get the death penalty for a crime he didn’t commit against family members he lost. Luckily, there are are some ill funded but effective innocence projects that can take a few clear-cut cases and they picked his.
His original conviction was overturned to be sent back to a new trial. That would be instant good news except he is still in jail awaiting the process to work its way through because his bail was set too high to get out between trials. I expect him to be declared Not Guilty once and for all in the next few months. The state of Texas knows that they have a wrongful imprisonment suit on their hands after that so they are not making things easy at all.
Acquitting the innocent. The Guilty will take care of themselves by committing future crimes and eventually get convicted. If they don’t, there is no harm in leaving them unconvicted.
Poll way to limited IMO as well.
The actual process from the arresting officer and the ones that told him to get a person all the way through the lawyers and on to the judges and juries is so not about justice but about power, being right, and also the load that is being processed.
For a person to get a fair trial, there needs to be many more courts and fewer laws that require a trial.
Due to my personal experiences, I am way not liking the people who deal with it & they are not about justice, fairness or even getting the correct perp.
Laws & justice have nothing in common including common sense. But this is what we have and it is slowly drowning in it’s own excrement.
The system is bad enough but the enforcement is totally out of control. Many reasons & most are not easy to fix, that are driving this.
OK, I’ll be quite now. Need more options.
I wonder what Roger Goodell’s answer to this would be.
I’m sure that’d be of some comfort to your family if you’re their next victim.
Likewise your family would find much comfort knowing their innocent kin is locked up in jail probably getting anal raped.
The poll is a false dichotomy. The obligation of the state should be to get it right. Shodan’s case shows why.
So if someone commits mass murder, but is acquitted, and commits no further crimes, hey, no harm in leaving them unconvicted? 
Yes. You understood me perfectly. Why are you confused?
But I’m a little confused about why you think there is a problem with not convicting people anyway, after they are acquitted. Do you disapprove of the double jeopardy doctrine?
Whose case?
I think he means Shagnasty
…and I voted “Aquitting the innocent”. I’m not going to argue about the OP being a false dichotomy - it doesn’t say the one excludes the other, it asks what concerns us more. I’d like the guilty to get convicted, but I’d prefer no innocents get caught up in that process, because people aren’t eggs and Justice isn’t an omelette
67 to 10 in favor of acquittal at this point. I’m kind of wishing this had been a public poll.
How many attempts at conviction did you have in mind?
Why?
[QUOTE=Sir William Blackstone]
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”
[/QUOTE]
I agree with Bill.
Cant we vote the same? Yes I want the innocent defended but I want the guilty caught and punished.
Because see kayaker’s Blackstone quote. it seems to me that people who prioritize convictions of the guilty over acquittals of the innocent probably tend to disagree with Mr Blackstone. I would be mildly interested to know who those people are.
I voted that the acquittal of an innocent defendant would be of more concern to me. I would imagine that for all but the most sensational cases, the defendant has far fewer resources available to them than the prosecution.