Re: POL: Anarchism vs Limited Government

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On Tue, 6 Apr 1999 14:48:17 -0400 Randall Randall <wolfkin@freedomspace.net> writes:
>I've lately thought that on Tue, 06 Apr 1999, Ron Kean wrote:

>>Generally, when a suspect is arrested and held for trial, it is at
>least
>>an apparent initiation of force against the suspect. The suspect
>may, or
>>may not, be in fact guilty.
>
>Once it is determined which is the case, however, we know whether to
>prosecute those who apprehended the "suspect", right?

Yes, I suppose so. But the justice system as we have it allows for false arrest and malicious prosecution redress only in very limited circumstances. It almost never happens that a suspect who is acquitted at trial goes back and successfully sues or prosecutes those who accused, arrested, and tried him. O.J. has not. It seems as if 'honest mistakes' by the system are allowed to go unpunished. One libertarian has proposed that in death penalty cases the jury vote on the death penaly for the convicted. If, after the convict is executed, he is later proven not guilty, then those jurors who voted for death would themselves be executed. I guess the death penalty would be very rarely applied under that system.

>
>>In practice, a limited amount of initiation of force may be a price
>that
>>has to be paid in order to have a functioning criminal and civil
>justice
>>system.
>
>Yes, there will always be criminals who are not caught...but I don't
>think
>that this is what you meant. :)
>
>--
>Wolfkin.

No, that's not what I was thinking when I wrote that, but your interpretation is reasonable. Defense lawyers like to say it's better to let 10 guilty parties go free than to convict one innocent. The Anglo-Saxon 'presumption of innocence' is still with us.

Ron Kean

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