# You get to decide the fate of 100 accused murderers... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 9, 2017, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873 "2017-09-09T05:57:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/1 "2017-09-09T05:57:47Z")
and you know, as an actual fact, that 99 are guilty and that there is one innocent man in the group. You have to either send all of them to prison for life without parole or let them all go free. What do you do? And, if you don’t mind adding your political persuasion, please do so. ---
**Author:** ![kk\_fusion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kk_fusion/32/15276_2.png) [@kk\_fusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kk_fusion)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/2 "2017-09-09T08:06:38Z")
Do they all _appear_ guilty or innocent, i. e. is there a decent chance that the 99 will murder again if they go free? That’s what I would base my choice on. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/3 "2017-09-09T08:14:02Z")
Free them all. That innocent one might be me next time. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/4 "2017-09-09T08:31:53Z")
[Various](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-16638227) [cites](http://criminology.research.southwales.ac.uk/features/reoffending/) seem to indicate that the number of murderers who kill again _after serving their sentence_ is in the 0.5 to 1.5 percent region. So using those numbers, releasing 99 murderers to spare 1 innocent person seems likely to on average cause the death of one person. I can’t imagine that the reoffending rate is any less for murderers who completely get away with it, and likely it’s more. So for the good of society, sorry, Citizen Innocent, you’re going down. Says this lefty. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/5 "2017-09-09T08:56:52Z")
Free them. With the information you have given, you would be jailing 100 innocent men, as none of them are proven guilty. Political persuasion - alt-centrist. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/6 "2017-09-09T10:42:33Z")
Jail them. The innocent one will have the opportunity to prove himself in the appeals process. No such recourse is available for the guilty men once they’ve been acquitted. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/7 "2017-09-09T11:07:33Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Jail them. The innocent one will have the opportunity to prove himself in the appeals process. No such recourse is available for the guilty men once they’ve been acquitted. Just a comment, but the appeals process is heavily rigged for most defendants. It’s more or less set up as a kangaroo court to confirm the convictions. Even prisoners who have clear and overwhelming evidence proving their innocence have difficulty being heard - technically in many cases, even if they can prove they were innocent, as long as they got a fair trial with the evidence available at the time, the appeals court will uphold. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/8 "2017-09-09T11:29:31Z")
I would free them all. There would be no difference to them having remained uncaught, and there’s no reason to believe murderers do not walk among us every day. In general, apart from the horrors of prisons most places, maybe at present excluding Western Europe ( but not Britain, which wants to copy America ), I prefer killers to stay in jail — but the wrongly convicted must not live in such a place when innocent. Absolute Royalist — Socialist in economics ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/9 "2017-09-09T16:08:02Z")
Their fate is 100 trials. And since you know for a fact that 99 are guilty, your fate is to be a witness in 99 trials. Political persuasion: US citizen. Edit: Hell, since you also know for a fact that one is innocent, you can be a witness in that trial also. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/10 "2017-09-09T16:11:59Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Jail them. The innocent one will have the opportunity to prove himself in the appeals process. No such recourse is available for the guilty men once they’ve been acquitted. Innocence doesn’t require a new trial or release > [@](#): > > “This court,” Scalia pointed out, “has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a court that he is ‘actually’ innocent.” ---
**Author:** ![nate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nate/32/13085_2.png) [@nate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nate)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/11 "2017-09-09T17:09:03Z")
I love how dopers are quick to pick apart the hypothetical situation and cleverly solve it but in doing so completely miss the spirit of the question. This ethics dilemma sits in a wide gray area for me and my opinion could be easily swayed depending on who I discussed it with last. If it were two suspects, one was actually guilty and the other actually innocent, I don’t think I’d have a problem letting both go free as to sending them both to prison. On the other hand, if there were 1000 suspects, 999 guilty and 1 actually innocent, I don’t think I could let the 999 go free even at the cost of 1 innocent life. There is not a clear dividing line for me between the two situations, I don’t know what number of guilty would be worth the life of one innocent. Somewhere between 1 and 1000 I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_T-Cups](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Sir\_T-Cups](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_T-Cups)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/12 "2017-09-09T17:17:00Z")
Let them free. Just because they killed once doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll do it again. And those who may do it again could very well kill someone unimportant like another criminal or something. I’d feel sad if I sentenced a good person to prison. Polital views: Paying attention and having opinions on politics is a waste of time ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/13 "2017-09-10T19:52:08Z")
I think a lot of people here are purposefully dodging or fighting the hypothetical. The hypothetical, AIUI, is that 99 are guilty - no ifs or buts about it - and 1 is innocent, no ifs or buts about it. I voted to free them all, but I really could have voted either way. Really tough. I’m conservative. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/14 "2017-09-10T21:29:34Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > [Various](http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-16638227) [cites](http://criminology.research.southwales.ac.uk/features/reoffending/) seem to indicate that the number of murderers who kill again _after serving their sentence_ is in the 0.5 to 1.5 percent region. So using those numbers, releasing 99 murderers to spare 1 innocent person seems likely to on average cause the death of one person. > > I can’t imagine that the reoffending rate is any less for murderers who completely get away with it, and likely it’s more. > > So for the good of society, sorry, Citizen Innocent, you’re going down. Says this lefty. Yep. If you let 99 guilty men go and someone is murdered by one of them (or more than one person murdered by more than one of them) you helped cause that person’s death. I’m surprised so many people can live with that. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/15 "2017-09-10T21:35:08Z")
I think it’s always wrong to put in prison an innocent person … if we can’t figure out which one is it, then we have to set them all free … Political persuasion: revolutionary, throw down the evil Salem/Sacramento axis of evil … ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/16 "2017-09-10T21:57:54Z")
Free them. I just want to watch the world burn. Political persuasion: irrelevant (IMO). ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/17 "2017-09-10T22:02:34Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Yep. If you let 99 guilty men go and someone is murdered by one of them (or more than one person murdered by more than one of them) you helped cause that person’s death. I’m surprised so many people can live with that. And if you let 99 innocent men go and the guilty one passes with them he may murder again and we helped cause that death. It’s not an exact science. Innocents _are_ sentenced to prison or death. There is a charming story of Lenin, when in a Sovnarcom conference sent a note over the table to Dzerzhinsky enquiring how many counter-revolutionaries were then in the capital’s prisons: Felix wrote 1500 back, and V. I. put a little cross beside to indicate he had read it. Alas, Felix left, taking that as an order for the Supreme Measure of Social Defence and had them all slain by the next morning. Mistakes do happen. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/18 "2017-09-10T22:53:14Z")
I’m not certain I think in general most people only kill in extreme circumstances in the heat of the moment type situation, I’d like to think that generally most people that commit a murder are not likely to do so again, so I’d lean towards freeing them all. Would would Spock from Star Trek do? Maybe the opposite, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.” I had never seen that quote from Supreme Court Justice Scalia either, I find that kind of scary to think the government has no duty to release an innocent man if they find out later that he is factually innovative innocent, just because he was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/19 "2017-09-10T23:10:30Z")
I’ve grown very weary of this uniquely American doctrine that incarcerating human beings is the first resort, the default resolution, to any inconvenient disagreement. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2017, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873/20 "2017-09-10T23:23:45Z")
Easy, Send them all to prison.The evil of 99 murderers unpunished + 99(minimum) victims with no justice+ all the additional victims expected is much, much greater than the injustice of one innocent man in prison for life [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-get-to-decide-the-fate-of-100-accused-murderers/795873.md?page=2)