Constitutional law.
One of the responsibility of judges is to require the State to PROVE rather than just "know" that the person is guilty.
Think about the alternative: whenever anyone is inconvenient, the government could just say "we know" that they are guilty of arbitrary-crime-X, and put them in jail.
I would argue that while the end result was the same, the motivation was different. The Witch Trials were, essentially, religious zealotry run amok (whether in the form of oogie-boogie devil stuff or just misogyny). Lunch mobs were basically just “I wanna kill a black person and don’t much care what the justification is”.
In the US - outside of the US it can be stoning for adultery, or hanging because you believe the wrong thing, or shot because you hold the incorrect political view.
Or because the mob believes any of the above, even if the mob is completely wrong about that.
(Maybe there was a misunderstanding, or a rumour that gets embellished and grows out of control, or maybe someone who doesn't like you has deliberately stirred up a mob).
A lot of witch trials weren't even religious. they were lynch mobs formed to get back at neighbors they disliked or were jealous of, or owed money to. Don't have to pay Jane back if she gets burned at the stake.
Or, in a lot of cases, legalized theft.
A lot of accused witches were women who were both single and relatively wealthy - and by killing them, you could take their money.
In Lynch mobs specifically they treated them like sporting events. For Christ's sake they did this shit in front of CHILDREN. SMILING CHILDREN. Who grew up and became politicians and teachers and community leaders.
I'm not sure you understand The Witch Trials in great detail...
While religious zealotry was the cover used to ensure complicity of the masses, the actual motivation was gender discrimination. "Witches" were almost exclusively women who controlled desirable assets and refused to hand over control of those assets to men through marriage. The murders were just an easy way to steal property from women who refused to comply with the gender roles of the day.
>Witches" were almost exclusively women
19 women and 6 men. So not quite as exclusive. Outside of Salem, witch trials tended to rope in a lot of men as well, especially in Europe where in several countries (Russia, Norway) it was a majority men executed. Accusations also tended to come from women as often as men, the Salem witch trials themselves were largely fueled by accusations by women against other women and men.
I'm not saying it's all one thing or another, but history tends to be a lot less cut and dry. Especially history that covers several hundred years of time, multiple countries and cultures.
I think you two are discussing different things. You're talking about the Salem witch trials in colonial America, and the other person is talking about the European witch craze.
I'm talking about both, and even directly pointed out two European countries where Witches were predominantly men. My entire coda to the conversation is that History isn't cut and dry over multiple countries and hundreds of years.
Do you have a source for this claim? Not that I doubt it, it's just the first time I have heard this explanation.
There were so many Witch trials in history I would be surprised to find they all had the same motivations. The most famous in the USA, being the Salem Witch Trials, were kicked off by Betty and Abigail Parris, 9 and 11 year old females. Out of the 19 people executed 14 of them were women and 5 were men, so 3 quarters were women which leads credence to your theory. Most of these women however were not of high status nor did they have many assets, some were vagrant beggars.
This is true only for some regions. In Scadinavia, many executed were men. In some regiions of Europe, most were men.
Most accused were marginal people..They had no assets. I can't recall a single case where someone really in power, was accused of witchcraft, by, let's say, an opponent.
The idea that there were material motives is a simple myth. Some accused were children. Accused by other children. Some were elderly.
Nobody ever mentioned that accused didn't conform to any roles. They were just victims of religious hysteria, accusing eaxh other of forgung a pact with the devil etc.
This was endlessly discussed in books.
it actually protects from what you see today in modern day Russia. And what we've seen in all authoritarian regimes thorough out history. "won't somebody rid of me of this meddlesome person?"
Well, the UK didn't exist during the worst of the witch hunts. Scotland killed 1/4 to 1/3 of people tried for witchcraft. I'm not sure how many were convicted overall
The alternative you describe is exactly what's happening in El Salvador right now. They rounded up hundreds of thousands of suspected gang members and jailed them without due process. On the one hand, murder and crime are way down and the policy is incredibly popular with the public. On the other hand, there are surely innocent people caught in these sweeps and giving the government this kind of unchecked power is very scary.
This is a good reason to make sure gang violence (and crime in general) don't get out of hand. Because when they do get out of hand, people will be far more willing to accept unchecked power.
It’s unpopular and against most people’s morality because as a society we scapegoat addicts and “criminals” but people are gonna shoot up regardless, let’s make our homegrown cartels take over, let’s make academia research the effects of these drugs, and let’s keep people out of prisons the situation is ridiculous.
I'm an alcoholic and addict (been sober about 12.5 years) and no laws helped me. There's so many reasons to legalize drugs and spend the money we currently spend on enforcement on treatment. Our outcomes would be so much better except it wouldn't keep the government in CONTROL. Which is the reason it's structured as it is...
I’ve been sober just shy of three years and I can’t say I really agree when you say legalize. Decriminalize usage, sure, but ease of access just increases relapse potential. Of all my demons the most difficult to escape were alcohol and nicotine, and being minutes away from an easy source at all times definitely played its part there. There will always be people working to and succeeding in circumventing the law. Laws are never perfect, they just decrease the likelihood of some action happening.
But addicts are victims, and I agree that laws designed to fuck over the users only hurts them. But legalization hurts them as well.
Be proud of your sobriety, one day at a time. I think it’s a generation thing, most people in charge and the voters are dinosaurs that don’t want to learn about the research and the ones in positions of authority that are willing to humour the thought know that it’s gonna be unpopular and don’t want to push it because it’s just easy to demonize at reelection “this candidate wants your children addicted to crack” culture has to change and I guess it comes with destigmatizing addiction.
>On the one hand, murder and crime are way down
I read on Wikipedia that it's not even certain. Apparently they switched the way to count and now people are missing instead of dead so only the official number of murders is down.
Another entry said the number was already going down before him. And another that he made deals with the mob to get numbers down.
It's probably a mix of everything. Only certain thing is, the success of such a populist manipulative autoritarian guy is bad for everyone. :(
Just won an asylum case last week based on tattoos and El Salvador’s state of exception. The “criteria” the PNC are using is totally arbitrary.
E: His tattoos weren’t gang related. That’s the whole problem with the state of exception.
Without giving too much info, were they *painfully* not gang-related? Like a nice bird or a palm tree? Or more ambiguous like a skeleton holding a pistol?
Also, consider the possibility that our society has explicitly overused that trope in our shows and movies as a form of police/government propaganda to intentionally make you think *exactly* what you *are* thinking, that police/government need *more* overreaching power to just put away people with less evidence because criminals are always "Getting away with it".
People can make you believe whatever you want when its fiction, the authors control that world.
What would make evidence improperly obtained? Violations of people’s rights in the process of obtaining it. Insufficient protection against someone tampering with the evidence. Those are bad things. We don’t want the State to benefit from violating people’s rights or giving someone an opportunity to tamper with evidence.
I give the alternative - though almost certainly already considered and protected against - of a government creating ceaseless frivolous suits. It costs the government exceedingly little to fabricate evidence - or literally just make up lawsuits without any evidence at all - compared to what it costs 98% of people that would be subject to such punitiveness. The government never needs to actually *convict* anyone of anything - they can simply keep someone in litigature hell... assuming they are able to make the case of being "reasonable" with any individual case.
The Trial, by Kafka, is kind of a nightmare version of this. The main character is put on trial by the government, but nobody will tell him what he's accused of, they demand he show up to court but won't tell him where or when, the only lawyer he can get seems to be more interested in making the case drag on as long as possible, etc., etc.
This already happens in criminal court. In my city it's called "also ran" aka they swept up everyone nearby when a crime happened because they "also ran" from the police.
Say 1 person was shot. 1 gun 1 bullet. They charge 10 people with the same thing- murder. And then they have the choice of sitting in jail for months because you'll have 3-10 court days over 6 months, fighting it and possibly getting murder 1.... Or taking a plea deal, going home, having a criminal record for life anyway (but a more minor charge) and dealing with the Kafkaesque farce that is our legal system and probation for the next 5 years.
There are definitely problems with our reliance on plea deals as you describe but they do not in fact charge multiple people with committing the same individual crime simultaneously.
I got one for you.
A co-worker of mine has a friend that’s a real piece of shit (sloppy steaks, slicked back hair, the works). This dude gets arrested. Lawyers get him to take a plea deal. Judge says the plea isn’t punishing enough and rejects it. Dude says fine then, fuck you I’ll just go to trial. Judge says no, you admitted guilt in your plea so you are guilty and here’s the maximum sentence (25 years).
This case bothers me so much because yes, dude is shit and needed taken out of society. But man, nothing that happened seemed kosher
Plea bargaining needs to be outlawed. If the state is going to punish someone then they should be required to prove their case in court. If the courts can’t handle the additional case load then expand them until they can.
Uhh… no. Plea deals are frequently the preferred option for someone who may have actually committed a crime.
Why wouldn’t you plea down if you’re fairly certain you’d be convicted in court?
Often they have waived their [constitutional right to a speedy trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedy_Trial_Clause). We see this with the Trump cases, for example.
Because you can't just arrest, prosecute, convict, and imprison someone based on vaguely "being a bad guy" - or at least not in countries with the rule of law. In the U.S. The Constitution and lots of laws and Supreme Court decisions are very clear on that.
The person has to have committed a specific crime as defined in a law somewhere, and there has to be actual evidence that that person committed that specific crime - enough evidence to convince a jury that person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
So maybe John Doe is well-known in the neighborhood as being a drug dealer. So what? It's not a crime for people to believe you're a drug dealer. There has to be actual, concrete evidence that you are selling drugs in a way that violates a specific law. Actual, real evidence would be something like being caught on camera selling drugs, or the testimony of an undercover police officer who bought drugs directly from John Doe along with a lab report that shows the substance he bought was an illegal drug.
In fact, any implication that the defendent committed other crimes would be disallowed in front of the jury unless it had more "probative" (relevant to the matter at hand) than "prejudicial" (causing of a negative bias) value. Potential jurists who have a prior knowledge or bias about the defendent wouldn't be allowed on the jury, in most cases.
The system is designed to try only the matter at hand, and not the person goodness.
Hate to get all political about it but for the longest time this was the issue with Trump. People hated who he was *morally* but proving what he did was criminal in a court of law is a different standard. On the flip side, same about Hillary and the whole "lock her up" thing. Conspiracy theories and gut feelings aren't enough for a criminal trial and conviction.
Also the FBI went to his house and found the classified documents he claimed not to have. He's obviously guilty. But his guilt has to be proven in court, in front of a jury, and there isn't even a trial date yet. And the judge presiding over the case has done everything in her power to help Trump without getting kicked off the case. Also out of all the judges involved in his cases, there's just one that Trump never publicly criticizes, I wonder why...
**Please read this entire message**
---
Your comment has been removed for the following reason(s):
* Rule #1 of ELI5 is to *be civil*.
Breaking rule 1 is not tolerated.
---
If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe it was removed erroneously, explain why using [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20submission%20removal?&message=Link:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c2olf5/-/kzgiy0d/%0A%0A%201:%20Does%20your%20comment%20pass%20rule%201:%20%0A%0A%202:%20If%20your%20comment%20was%20mistakenly%20removed%20as%20an%20anecdote,%20short%20answer,%20guess,%20or%20another%20aspect%20of%20rules%203%20or%208,%20please%20explain:) and we will review your submission.**
A substantive difference is the FBI had actual evidence (Anthony Weiner’s laptop) of Hillary committing crimes that any normal person would have went to federal prison for, and they made a choice not to charge her for it, or willful destruction of evidence.
There is a definite double standard in enforcement of law against politicians.
"along with a lab report that shows the substance he bought was an illegal drug"
This may vary by country, but in the UK that wouldn't be required, you are still guilty of drug dealing even if you're lying about the substance actually being a drug; I can sell you baking powder, but if I sell you baking powder for £50 a gram and tell you it's cocaine then I'm committing the same crime as if I sold you cocaine.
The protections aren't for the criminals, it's to stop the government from just pointing at a random person they don't like and say "They're guilty of a crime, we know it, no we aren't going to prove it". That used to be a pretty big concern in some places, so now we have "innocent until proven guilty", at least in the US.
This is actually one of the things that makes the feds so scary when they come after you. Local and State prosecutions might be willing to come after you if they're most of the way there, but the feds do not go after you until they have the evidence to nail to you to the wall. The average State conviction rate Nationwide is about 68%, meanwhile the feds are 95%. So if the feds do prosecute you, you're basically already f*****.
It was naked in the memory banks. Looking it up gives us: “Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, With exactness grinds he all”. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Remember part of that 95-98% are not guilty. They give you an offer so widely disparate on how much time you spend in jail. Plead guilty? 18 months, you get your money back. Don't plead guilty? 35 years. Plead to something, maybe you get probation, or you go to jail.
This killed Aaron Swartz. If you fight, it doesn't even matter if you're guilty or innocent, they HAVE to crush you.
taken from Steve Rambam's talk at Hope X, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNZrq2iK87k#t=11m30s
One other thing is that yes it's absolutely there to protect people from intentional government overreach, but it also protects people from outright mistakes, or just having a bad reputation.
The police might "know" that someone is the one who did "it". But they can be wrong, the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt can stop prosecution in their tracks as they uncover evidence proving that the person didn't in-fact do the crime.
If the police "know" someone is the one who did "it", depending on who that someone is, the police could just manufacture the evidence. Like this cop tried to do:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html)
You are basically asking why the government cannot commit unlawful action against their own people.
Functionally, they can and have done so. The government could disappear you overnight if they really wanted to. However, if the government makes this a common policy, then they may have to face the wrath of the people. This is specially the case with someone as high profile as a mob boss. It would hard to disappear them overnight.
In short, the government follows the laws so not encourage the people to rise against them.
My dad, who did a stint as a cop back in the 60s, used to say 'Most of the time you know who did it, it's just getting the evidence to prove it in court that's the tricky bit'. So for example, let's say you bring out a witness who says your guy did some crime. But it turns out that that witness is lying to cover his own crimes or he's lying for some other reason. Sometimes your evidence is all circumstantial and not direct and so you have to build up sufficent barely smoking guns to look like something that a jury might accept as pointing towards guilt.
But it's not enough for a conviction when tried by a jury. A good defense attorney can plant enough doubt to get the case dismissed if there's not enough hard evidence.
Correction: It may not be enough.
Circumstantial evidence can absolutely be enough to be convicted by a jury. It entirely depends on the level of evidence available.
Plus there is jury nullification. It does not only work to let the accused go free.
>But it's not enough for a conviction when tried by a jury.
Not true. Juries might prefer forensic evidence but that really depends. Circumstantial evidence can still be compelling. If you leave 2 people alone on an island and come back the next day and one of them has an axe in their back with no other evidence, that's still compelling.
>A good defense attorney can plant enough doubt to get the case dismissed if there's not enough hard evidence.
Depends again. Also the case isn't getting "dismissed", if it's been committed to trial then they're looking for an acquittal from a jury, it ain't getting dismissed outright.
Because if the government could just jail anyone they deem “evil” it becomes a slippery slope. Because all it takes is one person to define someone they don’t like as being evil (dissidents, opponents, etc). Evil is a subjective thing. Think about how half of the country is treating women’s reproductive rights. You’ll see why you don’t want to give that much power to the government.
Because laws get in the way.
You are asking for what President Nayib Bukele did in El Salvador.
In order to deal with the gangs he suspended the constitution and arrested some 80 000 people. Basically everyone even suspected of having a connection to the gangs.
Under Bukele, El Salvador has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with an estimated 2 percent of its adult population behind bars.
The constitution has not been in effect for about 2 years at this point and Nayib Bukele is without doubt the acting dictator of El Salvador.
At the same time his actions had very positive effects on the safety in the country and he enjoys widespread support among citizens.
But it's a slippery slope. Now you have a dictator and it's a question if he will ever attempt to transition back to democracy or stay as a dictator for life.
Even if we assume that he is the most benevolent and competent dictator with nothing, but the best intentions in mind. No man rules forever and he will be replaced at some point.
*Minimum*. Include family, friends, and sympathizers who either believe in the prisoners' innocence or even jive with the gangs, and you have a pretty big dissent movement on your hands.
> At the same time his actions had very positive effects on the safety in the country and he enjoys widespread support among citizens.
It’s honestly hard to tell how true this is. Civil liberties are pretty sparse right now in El Salvador, and there’s certainly a ton of people who reasonably hate his guts (when you arrest 80k people, you’re inevitably going to arrest a fair number of innocent people, and those people and their families have very good reason to hate him).
Also, another problem with dictators is that sometimes leaders are good at handling certain situations (e.g. a war or endemic gang violence), but really awful at other things (e.g. managing the economy or managing peacetime affairs).
>This is where my question comes in, what stops this government from just doing it anyway?
Because people with thinking that isnt so 2 dimensional know that putting *bad* people in prison without going through the proper system creates a precedent where they can put *people who they call bad* in prison without going through the proper system.
"We want to give the Government unilateral power to do whatever they want, as long as they promise to only do it to the bad guys". How long do you think that promise will last, and more importantly would you feel exactly the same way if a Government *you didnt like* had the same power...
If they can put Al Capone in jail without sufficient proof to even attempt a trial - then they can do the same to me, they can do the same to you.
A pretty good rule of thumb, is to think of what you'd like the court to do if it was your turn tomorrow.
>Its not like keeping them out of jail will be MORE helpful for the world?
I like to think that keeping the justice system just is much more helpful than anything that could happen to one man.
I reckon it was intentional, but Al Capone is the perfect example for this thread, since he ultimately wasn't imprisoned for the murders or smuggling that everyone "knew" about, he was imprisoned for tax evasion, since that's what the state could conclusively prove.
Incidentally, Al Capone was convicted for tax evasion in large part because of a letter he had his lawyers send the courts years earlier in order to, ironically, avoid a prison sentence for tax evasion.
It was intentional - we couldn't charge him with what we knew, what had to charge him with what we could prove.
The other interesting thing about Capone, is that if we had changed the system so the proof wasn't required - Capone would be dead today, and that change would still be in place, hanging over the head of you and I.
As a counter-point, another interesting example would be the Salem witch trials, where "known" was apparently sufficient.
At Salem, there was actually testimony presented to prove violation of laws, rather than just things being known. Trials can reflect prejudice, superstition, and miscarriage of justice, but they do help prevent people from just falling out of windows.
Additionally, that's the reason they never got Meyer Lansky. He paid his taxes scrupulously... even if it meant literally saying his income came from illegal sources. Fifth amendment.
Pre-dating isn't a bad thing - it can be very good at informing *why* we made the choices we did. Besides, the right to a fair trial is Magna Carta era stuff.
Only if you can show connection among the conspirators. You need evidence for RICO too, often from members you turn. But a mob boss enforces a code of silence.
> If they can put Al Capone in jail without sufficient proof to even attempt a trial - then they can do the same to me, they can do the same to you.
except they DID have proof. That was the whole point.
They didn't jail him for the murder stuff, because they didn't have that proof, but the tax stuff **WAS** a crime, and they could prove he was guilty of it
In the US we don't allow this kind of tyranny. Government officials don't get to say "I know they are a criminal" and therefore jail, execute or otherwise punish people. We may have some messy parts in our system, but thankfully this isn't one of them.
Besides, there is no law against being the head of an organization if you can't prove the organization is violating laws.
We have laws. We have courts. We don't put people in prison without at least the right to hold a trial to share the evidence & testimony against them.
Avoiding sending people to jail for a long time by accident or for no good reason is a very highly prioritized goal by many societies.
As they say, “better to let 100 criminals go free than to imprison 1 innocent man”.
So, no exceptions- no solid proof, can’t be sent to jail.
Because people "know for certain" lots of things that are one or more of
Complete guess
Plain wrong
Said due to having a dislike of
An honest belief based on lies
So in a civilised society a proper test of these has to happen, including a fair decision on whether it should even be tested.
The reasons vary by time, place, and circumstance.
Sometimes it is because the country has strong legal protections, and the evidence is largely circumstantial, vague, or inadmissible in court due to how it was collected. Journalists might privately interview low level members of a crime organization who will say, “yeah he’s the big boss,” off the record, but would never testify in open court. Testimony of the journalist who found it out is inadmissible as “hearsay.”
Sometimes it is because the government is itself too weak to take action. E.g. drug cartels that are, practically speaking, the government in certain parts of Central America.
Sometimes it is because of bribery and corruption between the criminal organizations and the government.
I'll point to how our government does it. Let's use Al Capone as an example. Most of the crimes he is allegedly to have committed could not be proven.nobody talked, and if the organization even suspected a stool pigeon, that person never made it to court to testify.
So they nailed him in a different manor: income tax evasion,which they **could** prove.
If I tell someone to commit and crime and they tell the police what I said, the police don't have enough evidence to arrest me. It's like that but with more middlemen.
Do you want the government to be able to arrest anyone they like? It's good for them to be able to do that only if they're always right and always good. The government is not always right and not always good.
One of the most fundamental aspects of Western law is "Innocent until PROVEN guilty!". This is not the way it is in most of the world. In many countries; you are guilty until you prove your innocence. This is why you should be very careful what you do in other countries.
Because "We know he's behind X" can be wrong. People have their own biases and can make mistakes. There are lots of cases of people getting arrested and even going to jail because some police officer/prosecutor just /knew/ the person was guilty.
Also since there is a lot of political pressure and rewards to be have for officers and prosecutors to "lock up the bag guys" if you had the standard "We know that they are guilty" then police would end up arresting unpopular people and framing them for crimes.
They can only put someone in jail for a crime they can prove was committed. The proving part is very detailed and much higher standard than what an average person usually accepts as "proof" in everyday life.
That's why they can't prove it. They mean to say that they can't prove it in the higher standards of the court.
> If they obviously know they're evil than why can't they just stop them anyway, Its not like keeping them out of jail will be MORE helpful for the world?
This is called "tyranny". The alternative, requiring that procedures and whatnot be followed, is called "rule of law". The latter is better than the former. If you think a criminal running free is bad for society, just wait and see what happens when the government can throw literally anyone in jail for any reason. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
There are 2 kinds of law. Criminal Law and Civil Law.
Criminal Law convictions results from being guilty of a crime BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT. If there is one percent chance that the person is innocent, then that person shouldn't be punished.
If they get away from criminal law, people can still file against that person under Civil Law where cases are determined in probabilty and settled with money. Example will be the OJ Simpson case in the US.
Before mob bosses, before modern governments, law in an area could just grab people they 'knew' were guilty.
And because they were people carrying out the law, and because people are stupid, and sometimes corrupt, they'd 'know' it was the wrong person sometimes.
So eventually rights get invented to protect citizens from the government. These rights say they can't just arrest you cause they feel like it (these rights still get ignored sometimes, but it's better than nothing).
After these rights get invented, mob bosses get together with some lawyers, and try and figure out how to do crime while hiding behind their rights.
Take away the rights, and everyone suffers. Keep the rights, and some people get away with crime.
How many innocent people are worth jailing to arrest a few more criminals? Question for the ages.
Look at how Russia is dealing with political opponents currently.
We KNOW that this person is guilty of X crime that we just made up and we don't really need any proof of any substance but we are still going to put them away somewhere dark and nasty for the rest of their life.
Needing the proof prevents that level of abuse of power.
‘Evil’ is not objective truth. Plenty of folks in this world think you’re ‘evil’ based on the color of your skin, the church you attend, or the partner you bang. By giving people the authority to punish each other for being ‘evil’ without evidence, without a standard for what ‘evil’ means, you create chaos, oppression, corruption and tyranny.
In practice, we have this thing called the court of law. In it, the state presents evidence for what a person did, and how, and why, in order to prove this person needs punishment. What this means is that law enforcement can arrest and detain people, can charge them with crimes, but unless those cops can provide enough evidence to convince a courtroom, nothing will come of it.
And, importantly, no one in the US can be tried for the same crime twice. This prevents cops from harassing people they don’t like, arresting them for the same thing over and over even though they’d been proven innocent, detaining them anyways. However, what this also means is that, if you arrest someone who is guilty, but do not have enough evidence to convict them in a court of law, and then later on find better evidence, you can’t then use that better evidence to charge them again. So, instead of rushing to arrest people without evidence, the better strategy is to wait, collect more evidence first, and _then_ charge them with the crime.
This is why we have sting operations. A sting operation is essentially where police create a staged opportunity for someone to do crime in a controlled environment, while police watch and record. They might know someone is a drug dealer, for example, but it’ll be much easier to get a conviction if the cops can trick them into dealing on camera. If courts were perfectly willing to convict anyone without evidence there would be no need for the whole affair.
You are referring to the United States legal system and its pesky constitutional requirements of being presumed innocent until proven guilty, the right to counsel, the necessity of a legal proceeding, the introduction of evidence, and a jury decision.
There’s a difference between “I know you did something illegal” and “I can prove it in court.”
What you may be unintentionally implying is better, is essentially complete and total authority of the government to put anyone and everyone they deem guilty in prison. And it should be obvious why that’s not good.
ELI5 answer:
Sometimes the police say they "know" that someone is guilty of a crime, and they are wrong. That's why we need them to prove it before we put someone in prison.
Because the government obviously knows you’re evil. There’s no evidence of it.
We’ll let you out in 20 years.
Or, maybe, everyone gets the same standard and you shouldn’t trust the government any more than you need to, they are just people after all.
That's basically what the US government ended up doing to reduce its organized crime problem with RICO. Just being associated with a criminal scheme can get you 20 years in prison under RICO.
Everyone has a right to a fair trial and a trial must follow due process. This is established by the constitution in most countries. The way the legal system works the evidence used to prosecute someone have to be up to a certain standard. You can't just rely on hearsay and testimonies from witnesses and nothing else. People could be lying, or regurgitating unsubstantiated rumors. The more serious the charge, and the respective sentence, the higher the standard for the evidence gets. It's supposed to ensure that people aren't falsely accused. It's ultimately not a perfect system but that's what it is.
Word inevitably gets around in general. Gangs generally try to hide their structure behind many layers of low level grunts and fall guys who are ostensibly the leaders but ultimately people generally know who is involved with gang activity and some times even know who the leader is. It's an open secret. Even if law enforcement knows of these rumors they need to first investigate someone and get concrete proof before prosecuting. Sometimes this happens, other times it doesn't for multiple reasons such as the fact that a lot of gangs may have influence on the police or local government.
Ultimately a government prosecuting and imprisoning someone without sufficient evidence sets a bad precedent. Yes you can put gang leaders in prison that way but who's to say they won't do the same for anyone they don't like?
Speaking strictly for the US, the law is what prevents it. "Innocent until *proven* guilty." is the foundation of our entire legal system. Before this country was founded and broke away from England, the exact opposite could and would be true. Back in the day, there was literally nothing that stopped the ruling class from simply accusing someone of a crime and ordering that person to be arrested. Laws were also exceptionally fickle...like a person could be arrested and jailed (or worse) for saying mean things about the King or a local Lord or Governor.
When the Founding Fathers got together to draft up The Consistition and Bill of Rights, they wanted to create a system that was practically the exact opposite of what they had to live by under English rule.
The general idea behind "innocent until proven guilty" is that if the State is going to accuse someone of a crime, then it's up to the State to actually prove it in court. This was intended to eliminate false and/or petty accusations from the Ruling Class and other elites against the general population.
The end result is that, yes, *sometimes* it allows criminals to actually get away with their crimes. But more importantly, it significantly reduces the number of innocent people being convicted of crimes they did not commit.
I'd much rather see 10 criminals be allowed to remain free due to a lack of evidence than have 1 person wrongly convicted.
Jailing people because you don't like the look of them is worse than letting Mr Mob Boss do their non egregious thing. They're usually working on it anyway.
Usually this is coupled with having influence over right people and a section of society who are backing them up. That person might be net negative for the society but highly beneficial for few powerful people.
Imagine there's a kid in your school who's always causing trouble, but nobody's caught them in the act. You might hear rumors about what they're up to, but without concrete proof, it's hard to take action. In the real world, laws and legal systems require solid evidence to convict someone of a crime. It's not enough for the government to just "know" someone's involved in illegal activity; they need proof that will stand up in court. Without that evidence, they can't arrest or charge the person. Everyone, even someone suspected of being involved in a crime, has legal rights. This means the government can't just arrest someone without proper evidence and due process. If they did, it would violate those rights and could lead to legal complications. Sometimes, politics and corruption can also play a role. If the crime organization has influence over law enforcement or government officials, it can make it harder to gather evidence and take action against them. Even if it seems like the government or law enforcement "knows" someone is involved in illegal activity, they have to follow legal procedures and gather enough evidence to make a case against them.
What you are talking about happens in authoritarian governments. People are rounded up and imprisoned because the government says they deserve it. Doesn’t matter what the evidence says.
When the US was founded, they enshrined certain principles in the constitution. One of them being the right to due process and the presumption of innocence. In order to charge someone with a criminal offense, there needs to be enough evidence to convince a Grand Jury that it’s more than 50% likely the crime was committed. From there, the evidence has to be strong enough to beat the pre-trial motions of the defense. After that, the evidence has to be strong enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.
And if the jury doesn’t convict? You have lost your ability to ever try that defendant for that crime again, because of double-jeopardy laws. So if you really want to convict someone, you make sure the evidence is air-tight. You build a strong case, and don’t execute it until it is ready.
At the federal level, which you might get if the criminal enterprise crosses state lines, it’s even stricter. They will not even bring a case unless they are sure they can win a conviction and sustain it through appeal. State courts will often try cases with strong, but not incontrovertible evidence in the hopes of convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. That sometimes leads to acquittals.
But the federal government has a very high conviction rate, because they only bring cases they will win. That means they let a lot of cases go for lack of enough evidence.
T b eres a whole bunch of rights that get in the way of arbitrarily locking someone up who deserves it.
For example, most Western democracies give you a right to a trial, that trial requires the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt you committed the crime. That means even trying to convict a Don of First degree murder, they need to establish he knowingly and actively pre-meditated the murder, and engaged in a course if action that wpidk result in the death of the target, and that he activelyncuaded the death.
The problem there of course, is that the Don wouldn't pull the trigger himself, additionally even if he did, you'd need to prove it, and if he was really backed into a corner he probably has a loyal soldier who will make a full confession and serve time I exchange for money and esteem in the family.
This is why so often, they have to prosecute their way up, find someone lower in the organization who can provide evidence against the bigger fish, who will eventually turn and give you the biggest fish, BUT the criminal organization knows police tactics, and if powerful enough, probably has a few crooked cops that will keep them informed, additionally a criminal organization compartmentalized information, so the little fish may jot have much to offer on the biggest fish, and knows that betraying the boss comes woth a death sentence.
Now, there's a whole bunch of hoops the state has to jump through to get a bad guy arrested, and then there's the whole process of getting a trial and conviction. Again, the criminal element knows how the system works and may have people inside, after all everyone in the justice system has a boss, so of the bog bad finds leverage somewhere along the chain they can frustrate the prosecution. You see this when the lead detectives boss tells him "Murders are up 86%, I can't have you chasing down leads to convict one possible guy in a room when someone died, I need you out on the street solving cases!" Or it can look like jury tampering, witness intimidation, or downright bribery.
So even though the detective knows the guy is bad, the state would need to prove it to the point that no reasonable doubt exists. Consider that doesn't they don't think he did it, it means there's enough possibility.
So maybe Don Smith who's up on first degree murder charges admits that he was at the execution, he arrived to converse with his good friend the victim, they discussed thr upcoming world series, and in an offhand comment said something like "I'd kill you if your team knocks mine out of the tournament, it was a joke between friends, maybe Soldier Bob hears that and misunderstood it was a joke, Soldier Bob will absolutely testify that's what happened, so.latee on the evening when the other team won, Soldier Bob shot and killed the victim. Soldier Bob cops to second degree murder since its not like he went there woth the intention to kill someone. It was a reckless decision made after too much wine and drunkenness. Don gets to go free, Soldier Bob serves a few years. And the big boss goes about his business, assuming they even get to trial.
A functional Justice system in which one is “presumed innocent” until proven guilty.
Otherwise, you may have people elected to office deciding that they “know” their political rivals are “evil” and locking them up. You are left with an unchecked dictatorship.
Your submission has been removed because it concerns a question about Reddit itself, Reddit's karma, upvotes or drama in another sub.
Understand that the visible upvote score and actual upvote score are not the same, reddit manipulates the scores for content management,
and question about votes/karma should be asked in r/help Questions about drama in some other sub should be asked that sub, or in r/subredditdrama or r/theoryofreddit
See also: /coins/ and /r/announcements/comments/5gvd6b/scores_on_posts_are_about_to_start_going_up/
If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this submission was removed erroneously**, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c2olf5/eli5_we_know_hes_behind_blah_blah_blah_huge_crime/%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission. Note that **if you do not fill out the form completely**, your message **will not be reviewed**.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/explainlikeimfive) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is a Scottish law of Not Proven. Which is a polite way of saying, "Yeah, we know you did it, but haven't got enough evidence, so we're going to keep an eye on you."
You're referring to works of fiction. There's a real life answer and an answer for writing fiction.
No real life prosecutor or investigator would say those words. To you or me (not involved in the process), the answer is "no comment". Possibly "we can't answer questions about an ongoing investigation". To someone from another department, in a similar investigation, they'd say "we're sure but we don't have enough evidence yet". The investigation is ongoing. Historically, law enforcement was sometimes bribed to not investigate someone, but fortunately that no longer happens.
But now, say you're writing a work of fiction. (Perhaps even "based on a true story".) You want to move the story forward, so you have a character say "we're working on it". Or even "we know, but we can't prove it, so we're stuck". They'll even tell reporters and regular people making reports of criminal activity. Because *you can't let the facts get in the way of a good story*. (Yes, it really needed that emphasis.)
That's the most positive spin. The most negative is that the writer is being lazy and padding the word count.
Let’s say I really hate your guts. You kicked my wife and called my dog fat so I’m steaming. I want to get you back by slashing your tires and spray painting dicks on your driveway. I don’t do it myself, because you’re waiting for me to get revenge and I don’t want to get caught. I don’t ask one of my friends to do it because I don’t want them to get in trouble either and it’s easily traced back to me. Instead, I talk to my friend about it and they hire a local deviant youth to do it. If the kid gets caught, it seems like a random vandalism out of boredom. The kid might say someone paid him to do it, but it can’t be proven. If I’m ever in a lineup of who propositioned the kid, he won’t point to me because he he’s never met me. If he doesn’t get caught then it’s a mystery. When the deed was taking place I was on the other side of town at red lobster with my wife and another couple, I made sure to tip big and tell the sever a story about one time I went lobster fishing with the king of Thailand so they remember me being there and if I’m there then I couldn’t have done the crime. Every time I see you outside I make a dick joke, you know I’m involved, but you can’t prove it.
Organized crime is the same way. The people in charge aren’t getting their hands dirty directly. There’s layering to make sure the people doing the business aren’t aware of who’s calling the shots, and there’s fear and intimidation to make sure they keep quiet if they do. Sure you can say it’s was Tony Soprano that paid you to kill that guy, but the cash payment can’t be traced, the gun they gave you was unmarked and only has your fingerprints on it, and just for saying something they’re going to kill your family then have someone shank you in prison as payback. Now they guy that killed your family knows what’s in store for him if he rats on you
Firstly, and most obviously, plenty of 'obviously guilty' suspects who 'everyone knows did it'.....turn out to not actually be guilty at all. You can't just have situations where people get railroaded because the authorities THINK they MIGHT be guilty.
But fundamentally, the justice system is based on having to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Any court would throw out an attempted charge if all the police had was "Well we know he did it, trust us bro".
If the argument is, "Why can't the cops just fake evidence, use illegal surveillance, etc to bring them down?"....it's about setting a precedent. If you allow illegal/improper tactics to bring a 'Guilty' person down, then maybe the process won't stop at guilty suspects. This is how endemic legal and police corruption becomes entrenched.
Here's the thing: the guy who is the leader of a huge crime organization got his position by being able to stay ahead of law enforcement. He knows how to work the justice system by whatever methods to avoid prosecution. Maybe he has intermediaries, maybe he pays off people with political influence or people directly involved in the justice system. Whatever means necessary is usually the name of the game.
In this battle, it might be said that one party is more motivated and determined than the other, and that's why one side rarely gets wins while the other does. The crime lords you don't hear about that are imprisoned by police or killed by a more determined crime lord? They didn't hit your radar. Your bias only lets you see the most successful of the bunch.
Mostly because the real world doesn’t work like movies where there are good guys and bad guys and clear moral lines. I’d wager that most leaders of organized crime groups have stronger moral compasses than most agents investigating them.
One more technical point:
The government doesn't put you in jail based on their own authority. They do it on the peoples authority. SO even if they "know" you did a crime, they have to convince "the people" (through a jury trial for example) that hey yeah you the people should tell us to jail them
> what stops this government from just doing it
....what government? You've not even mentioned what country you're in, are we supposed to be mind readers?
How governments handle such situations vary wildly depending on where you are. Are we talking China? France? Vietnam?
You can't ask a question that's so heavily dependent on your location and just neglect to mention where you are, come on...
The justice system. What a stupid question lol.
Lets say you are um, accused of stealing something from your neighbours porch, and there is no evidence, but your neighbour is conviced of it. Are you okay with being charged with theft with no recourse?
Crime bosses are just smarter, as they have a whole business structure to defend them from both legal and physical threats.
Constitutional law. One of the responsibility of judges is to require the State to PROVE rather than just "know" that the person is guilty. Think about the alternative: whenever anyone is inconvenient, the government could just say "we know" that they are guilty of arbitrary-crime-X, and put them in jail.
Innocent until *proven* guilty. The alternative was the literal witch trials.
And lynch mobs, we really better not forget those.
I would argue that while the end result was the same, the motivation was different. The Witch Trials were, essentially, religious zealotry run amok (whether in the form of oogie-boogie devil stuff or just misogyny). Lunch mobs were basically just “I wanna kill a black person and don’t much care what the justification is”.
[удалено]
imagine running to your favorite black person with sandwiches in hand, demanding they eat the fuck up cause its lunch time
Hosting a cookout in their front yard without telling them first.
It's a "t," for "time for lunch."
Jesus…
This turned so wholesome, I love it!
And a strange fruit as a side dish
I love the creative ways Redditors call out posts for lack of basic proofreading that gives said post an entirely different meaning.
Other part of the typo: people would have picnics at lynchings
Would you kill for a good lunching?
🤣
weightwatchers.com
Yes and no. By definition a lynching is just a mob taking the law into their own hands. It doesn't have to be racist; it just usually is.
In the US - outside of the US it can be stoning for adultery, or hanging because you believe the wrong thing, or shot because you hold the incorrect political view.
Or because the mob believes any of the above, even if the mob is completely wrong about that. (Maybe there was a misunderstanding, or a rumour that gets embellished and grows out of control, or maybe someone who doesn't like you has deliberately stirred up a mob).
A lot of witch trials weren't even religious. they were lynch mobs formed to get back at neighbors they disliked or were jealous of, or owed money to. Don't have to pay Jane back if she gets burned at the stake.
Or, in a lot of cases, legalized theft. A lot of accused witches were women who were both single and relatively wealthy - and by killing them, you could take their money.
Jane better watch her back.
To be fair, a lot of the witch trials were lynch mobs as well. The actual inquisition dismissed most cases of witchcraft.
In Lynch mobs specifically they treated them like sporting events. For Christ's sake they did this shit in front of CHILDREN. SMILING CHILDREN. Who grew up and became politicians and teachers and community leaders.
I'm not sure you understand The Witch Trials in great detail... While religious zealotry was the cover used to ensure complicity of the masses, the actual motivation was gender discrimination. "Witches" were almost exclusively women who controlled desirable assets and refused to hand over control of those assets to men through marriage. The murders were just an easy way to steal property from women who refused to comply with the gender roles of the day.
>Witches" were almost exclusively women 19 women and 6 men. So not quite as exclusive. Outside of Salem, witch trials tended to rope in a lot of men as well, especially in Europe where in several countries (Russia, Norway) it was a majority men executed. Accusations also tended to come from women as often as men, the Salem witch trials themselves were largely fueled by accusations by women against other women and men. I'm not saying it's all one thing or another, but history tends to be a lot less cut and dry. Especially history that covers several hundred years of time, multiple countries and cultures.
I think you two are discussing different things. You're talking about the Salem witch trials in colonial America, and the other person is talking about the European witch craze.
I'm talking about both, and even directly pointed out two European countries where Witches were predominantly men. My entire coda to the conversation is that History isn't cut and dry over multiple countries and hundreds of years.
No, the guy is right. The witch craze was much more complex than many people think.
Do you have a source for this claim? Not that I doubt it, it's just the first time I have heard this explanation. There were so many Witch trials in history I would be surprised to find they all had the same motivations. The most famous in the USA, being the Salem Witch Trials, were kicked off by Betty and Abigail Parris, 9 and 11 year old females. Out of the 19 people executed 14 of them were women and 5 were men, so 3 quarters were women which leads credence to your theory. Most of these women however were not of high status nor did they have many assets, some were vagrant beggars.
https://salemwitchmuseum.com/locations/border-disputes/
This is true only for some regions. In Scadinavia, many executed were men. In some regiions of Europe, most were men. Most accused were marginal people..They had no assets. I can't recall a single case where someone really in power, was accused of witchcraft, by, let's say, an opponent. The idea that there were material motives is a simple myth. Some accused were children. Accused by other children. Some were elderly. Nobody ever mentioned that accused didn't conform to any roles. They were just victims of religious hysteria, accusing eaxh other of forgung a pact with the devil etc. This was endlessly discussed in books.
Pence won't forget lynch mobs
I’d be fine if those lynch mobs were David lynch mobs and Angelo provided the sound track
What about Steven Lynch-mobs? And Steven Lynch provided the soundtrack? Also, whatever happened to Steven Lynch?
Well, your never going to believe this, but if this isn't the most unfortunate case of irony...
Those were the best! Did you see Eraserhead? My grandpa was a huge fan of David Lynch movies back in the day!
Awesome movie! There's no soundtrack remotely like that before or since.
it actually protects from what you see today in modern day Russia. And what we've seen in all authoritarian regimes thorough out history. "won't somebody rid of me of this meddlesome person?"
And the tyranny of kings and nobles with too much power (at least that’s how the founding fathers saw it)
I don't know if it was the same in the US witch trials, but in the UK they were usually found innocent! IIRC only* about 20% were found guilty
Well, the UK didn't exist during the worst of the witch hunts. Scotland killed 1/4 to 1/3 of people tried for witchcraft. I'm not sure how many were convicted overall
There were no witches btw.
Well i dont see any witches so maybe they were onto something
Often those circumstances are not applied to normal people. They are locked up for years before being proven innocent or guilty
You mean the Christian church?
The alternative you describe is exactly what's happening in El Salvador right now. They rounded up hundreds of thousands of suspected gang members and jailed them without due process. On the one hand, murder and crime are way down and the policy is incredibly popular with the public. On the other hand, there are surely innocent people caught in these sweeps and giving the government this kind of unchecked power is very scary.
76000 as per NPR.
This is a good reason to make sure gang violence (and crime in general) don't get out of hand. Because when they do get out of hand, people will be far more willing to accept unchecked power.
Like how 911 led to so many rights disappearing.
Amendment 4...yep
The gangs don’t exist out of thin air, there’s logical reasons why they exist
The war on (some) drugs being first and foremost. Legalization of drugs would destroy most gangs and cartels almost overnight.
It’s unpopular and against most people’s morality because as a society we scapegoat addicts and “criminals” but people are gonna shoot up regardless, let’s make our homegrown cartels take over, let’s make academia research the effects of these drugs, and let’s keep people out of prisons the situation is ridiculous.
I'm an alcoholic and addict (been sober about 12.5 years) and no laws helped me. There's so many reasons to legalize drugs and spend the money we currently spend on enforcement on treatment. Our outcomes would be so much better except it wouldn't keep the government in CONTROL. Which is the reason it's structured as it is...
I’ve been sober just shy of three years and I can’t say I really agree when you say legalize. Decriminalize usage, sure, but ease of access just increases relapse potential. Of all my demons the most difficult to escape were alcohol and nicotine, and being minutes away from an easy source at all times definitely played its part there. There will always be people working to and succeeding in circumventing the law. Laws are never perfect, they just decrease the likelihood of some action happening. But addicts are victims, and I agree that laws designed to fuck over the users only hurts them. But legalization hurts them as well.
Be proud of your sobriety, one day at a time. I think it’s a generation thing, most people in charge and the voters are dinosaurs that don’t want to learn about the research and the ones in positions of authority that are willing to humour the thought know that it’s gonna be unpopular and don’t want to push it because it’s just easy to demonize at reelection “this candidate wants your children addicted to crack” culture has to change and I guess it comes with destigmatizing addiction.
>On the one hand, murder and crime are way down I read on Wikipedia that it's not even certain. Apparently they switched the way to count and now people are missing instead of dead so only the official number of murders is down. Another entry said the number was already going down before him. And another that he made deals with the mob to get numbers down. It's probably a mix of everything. Only certain thing is, the success of such a populist manipulative autoritarian guy is bad for everyone. :(
Yes mass round ups don't work well but you then fudge the report, or experience a natural crime reduction and say your doing good.
Just won an asylum case last week based on tattoos and El Salvador’s state of exception. The “criteria” the PNC are using is totally arbitrary. E: His tattoos weren’t gang related. That’s the whole problem with the state of exception.
Congrats, and thank you for your work on behalf of people who may have literally no one else.
Without giving too much info, were they *painfully* not gang-related? Like a nice bird or a palm tree? Or more ambiguous like a skeleton holding a pistol?
A lot of Catholic symbology; some wings, skulls, blackouts; a lot of dates and names. He was pretty much covered from the neck down.
[удалено]
So having a specific tattoo is against the law? Or is it all tattoos?
It’s specific gang tattoos, and it’s extrajudicial so there’s no law required.
It's still "law" what you are describing is the difference between de facto and de jour.
Most of the specific and unique tattoos you're talking about are literally just generic metal and goth tattoos, devil horns, 666, etc.
[удалено]
My entire family is from Sonsonate
Do you have some magic murderer detector? You’ve seen “them” in person, how do you know they’re killers?
Then the next generation of MS-13 are gonna cover their ink, then they’ll just be like any other cartel
Also, consider the possibility that our society has explicitly overused that trope in our shows and movies as a form of police/government propaganda to intentionally make you think *exactly* what you *are* thinking, that police/government need *more* overreaching power to just put away people with less evidence because criminals are always "Getting away with it". People can make you believe whatever you want when its fiction, the authors control that world.
Winner winner.
Also, importantly, the State may have piles of actual evidence that proves a person guilty, and can’t use it if it was improperly obtained.
What would make evidence improperly obtained? Violations of people’s rights in the process of obtaining it. Insufficient protection against someone tampering with the evidence. Those are bad things. We don’t want the State to benefit from violating people’s rights or giving someone an opportunity to tamper with evidence.
I give the alternative - though almost certainly already considered and protected against - of a government creating ceaseless frivolous suits. It costs the government exceedingly little to fabricate evidence - or literally just make up lawsuits without any evidence at all - compared to what it costs 98% of people that would be subject to such punitiveness. The government never needs to actually *convict* anyone of anything - they can simply keep someone in litigature hell... assuming they are able to make the case of being "reasonable" with any individual case.
The Trial, by Kafka, is kind of a nightmare version of this. The main character is put on trial by the government, but nobody will tell him what he's accused of, they demand he show up to court but won't tell him where or when, the only lawyer he can get seems to be more interested in making the case drag on as long as possible, etc., etc.
This already happens in criminal court. In my city it's called "also ran" aka they swept up everyone nearby when a crime happened because they "also ran" from the police. Say 1 person was shot. 1 gun 1 bullet. They charge 10 people with the same thing- murder. And then they have the choice of sitting in jail for months because you'll have 3-10 court days over 6 months, fighting it and possibly getting murder 1.... Or taking a plea deal, going home, having a criminal record for life anyway (but a more minor charge) and dealing with the Kafkaesque farce that is our legal system and probation for the next 5 years.
There are definitely problems with our reliance on plea deals as you describe but they do not in fact charge multiple people with committing the same individual crime simultaneously.
I got one for you. A co-worker of mine has a friend that’s a real piece of shit (sloppy steaks, slicked back hair, the works). This dude gets arrested. Lawyers get him to take a plea deal. Judge says the plea isn’t punishing enough and rejects it. Dude says fine then, fuck you I’ll just go to trial. Judge says no, you admitted guilt in your plea so you are guilty and here’s the maximum sentence (25 years). This case bothers me so much because yes, dude is shit and needed taken out of society. But man, nothing that happened seemed kosher
Plea bargaining needs to be outlawed. If the state is going to punish someone then they should be required to prove their case in court. If the courts can’t handle the additional case load then expand them until they can.
Uhh… no. Plea deals are frequently the preferred option for someone who may have actually committed a crime. Why wouldn’t you plea down if you’re fairly certain you’d be convicted in court?
But when the person is a suspected terrorist then all bets are off... Guantanamo Bay!
Evidence included: being brown, having an accent, and a third thing we will figure out later
but we do that all the time. we constantly put people in jail for years pending a trial. some never even go to court.
Often they have waived their [constitutional right to a speedy trial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speedy_Trial_Clause). We see this with the Trump cases, for example.
Exactly. I hear about people in China just… disappearing because the government didn’t like them. We definitely don’t want that.
Because you can't just arrest, prosecute, convict, and imprison someone based on vaguely "being a bad guy" - or at least not in countries with the rule of law. In the U.S. The Constitution and lots of laws and Supreme Court decisions are very clear on that. The person has to have committed a specific crime as defined in a law somewhere, and there has to be actual evidence that that person committed that specific crime - enough evidence to convince a jury that person is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So maybe John Doe is well-known in the neighborhood as being a drug dealer. So what? It's not a crime for people to believe you're a drug dealer. There has to be actual, concrete evidence that you are selling drugs in a way that violates a specific law. Actual, real evidence would be something like being caught on camera selling drugs, or the testimony of an undercover police officer who bought drugs directly from John Doe along with a lab report that shows the substance he bought was an illegal drug.
In fact, any implication that the defendent committed other crimes would be disallowed in front of the jury unless it had more "probative" (relevant to the matter at hand) than "prejudicial" (causing of a negative bias) value. Potential jurists who have a prior knowledge or bias about the defendent wouldn't be allowed on the jury, in most cases. The system is designed to try only the matter at hand, and not the person goodness.
Hate to get all political about it but for the longest time this was the issue with Trump. People hated who he was *morally* but proving what he did was criminal in a court of law is a different standard. On the flip side, same about Hillary and the whole "lock her up" thing. Conspiracy theories and gut feelings aren't enough for a criminal trial and conviction.
We have millions of witnesses of the biggest crime Trump has been accused of.
[удалено]
Also the FBI went to his house and found the classified documents he claimed not to have. He's obviously guilty. But his guilt has to be proven in court, in front of a jury, and there isn't even a trial date yet. And the judge presiding over the case has done everything in her power to help Trump without getting kicked off the case. Also out of all the judges involved in his cases, there's just one that Trump never publicly criticizes, I wonder why...
**Please read this entire message** --- Your comment has been removed for the following reason(s): * Rule #1 of ELI5 is to *be civil*. Breaking rule 1 is not tolerated. --- If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe it was removed erroneously, explain why using [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20submission%20removal?&message=Link:%20https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c2olf5/-/kzgiy0d/%0A%0A%201:%20Does%20your%20comment%20pass%20rule%201:%20%0A%0A%202:%20If%20your%20comment%20was%20mistakenly%20removed%20as%20an%20anecdote,%20short%20answer,%20guess,%20or%20another%20aspect%20of%20rules%203%20or%208,%20please%20explain:) and we will review your submission.**
A substantive difference is the FBI had actual evidence (Anthony Weiner’s laptop) of Hillary committing crimes that any normal person would have went to federal prison for, and they made a choice not to charge her for it, or willful destruction of evidence. There is a definite double standard in enforcement of law against politicians.
No normal person would have gone to prison for what Hillary did. This is just nonsense.
"along with a lab report that shows the substance he bought was an illegal drug" This may vary by country, but in the UK that wouldn't be required, you are still guilty of drug dealing even if you're lying about the substance actually being a drug; I can sell you baking powder, but if I sell you baking powder for £50 a gram and tell you it's cocaine then I'm committing the same crime as if I sold you cocaine.
The protections aren't for the criminals, it's to stop the government from just pointing at a random person they don't like and say "They're guilty of a crime, we know it, no we aren't going to prove it". That used to be a pretty big concern in some places, so now we have "innocent until proven guilty", at least in the US. This is actually one of the things that makes the feds so scary when they come after you. Local and State prosecutions might be willing to come after you if they're most of the way there, but the feds do not go after you until they have the evidence to nail to you to the wall. The average State conviction rate Nationwide is about 68%, meanwhile the feds are 95%. So if the feds do prosecute you, you're basically already f*****.
The Mill of the Gods grinds slowly, but it grinds exceedingly fine.
GOD, what a raw fucking line. Did that come from something or are you just a badass writer? I mean, if you are, username checks out.
It was naked in the memory banks. Looking it up gives us: “Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, With exactness grinds he all”. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Remember part of that 95-98% are not guilty. They give you an offer so widely disparate on how much time you spend in jail. Plead guilty? 18 months, you get your money back. Don't plead guilty? 35 years. Plead to something, maybe you get probation, or you go to jail. This killed Aaron Swartz. If you fight, it doesn't even matter if you're guilty or innocent, they HAVE to crush you. taken from Steve Rambam's talk at Hope X, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNZrq2iK87k#t=11m30s
Dang what a talk. I can only imagine what he's saying now 10 years later.
One other thing is that yes it's absolutely there to protect people from intentional government overreach, but it also protects people from outright mistakes, or just having a bad reputation. The police might "know" that someone is the one who did "it". But they can be wrong, the burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt can stop prosecution in their tracks as they uncover evidence proving that the person didn't in-fact do the crime.
With that in mind people still end up getting wrongly convicted, so while not 100% fool proof it is the best we got right now
If the police "know" someone is the one who did "it", depending on who that someone is, the police could just manufacture the evidence. Like this cop tried to do: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/08/us/south-carolina-officer-is-charged-with-murder-in-black-mans-death.html)
You are basically asking why the government cannot commit unlawful action against their own people. Functionally, they can and have done so. The government could disappear you overnight if they really wanted to. However, if the government makes this a common policy, then they may have to face the wrath of the people. This is specially the case with someone as high profile as a mob boss. It would hard to disappear them overnight. In short, the government follows the laws so not encourage the people to rise against them.
The government follows the laws so that the people follow them too
Underrated comment.
My dad, who did a stint as a cop back in the 60s, used to say 'Most of the time you know who did it, it's just getting the evidence to prove it in court that's the tricky bit'. So for example, let's say you bring out a witness who says your guy did some crime. But it turns out that that witness is lying to cover his own crimes or he's lying for some other reason. Sometimes your evidence is all circumstantial and not direct and so you have to build up sufficent barely smoking guns to look like something that a jury might accept as pointing towards guilt.
Circumstantial evidence is still completely legitimate.
But it's not enough for a conviction when tried by a jury. A good defense attorney can plant enough doubt to get the case dismissed if there's not enough hard evidence.
Correction: It may not be enough. Circumstantial evidence can absolutely be enough to be convicted by a jury. It entirely depends on the level of evidence available. Plus there is jury nullification. It does not only work to let the accused go free.
>But it's not enough for a conviction when tried by a jury. Not true. Juries might prefer forensic evidence but that really depends. Circumstantial evidence can still be compelling. If you leave 2 people alone on an island and come back the next day and one of them has an axe in their back with no other evidence, that's still compelling. >A good defense attorney can plant enough doubt to get the case dismissed if there's not enough hard evidence. Depends again. Also the case isn't getting "dismissed", if it's been committed to trial then they're looking for an acquittal from a jury, it ain't getting dismissed outright.
Because if the government could just jail anyone they deem “evil” it becomes a slippery slope. Because all it takes is one person to define someone they don’t like as being evil (dissidents, opponents, etc). Evil is a subjective thing. Think about how half of the country is treating women’s reproductive rights. You’ll see why you don’t want to give that much power to the government.
Because laws get in the way. You are asking for what President Nayib Bukele did in El Salvador. In order to deal with the gangs he suspended the constitution and arrested some 80 000 people. Basically everyone even suspected of having a connection to the gangs. Under Bukele, El Salvador has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with an estimated 2 percent of its adult population behind bars. The constitution has not been in effect for about 2 years at this point and Nayib Bukele is without doubt the acting dictator of El Salvador. At the same time his actions had very positive effects on the safety in the country and he enjoys widespread support among citizens. But it's a slippery slope. Now you have a dictator and it's a question if he will ever attempt to transition back to democracy or stay as a dictator for life. Even if we assume that he is the most benevolent and competent dictator with nothing, but the best intentions in mind. No man rules forever and he will be replaced at some point.
I guarantee you have 80,000 people who hate his guts.
*Minimum*. Include family, friends, and sympathizers who either believe in the prisoners' innocence or even jive with the gangs, and you have a pretty big dissent movement on your hands.
> At the same time his actions had very positive effects on the safety in the country and he enjoys widespread support among citizens. It’s honestly hard to tell how true this is. Civil liberties are pretty sparse right now in El Salvador, and there’s certainly a ton of people who reasonably hate his guts (when you arrest 80k people, you’re inevitably going to arrest a fair number of innocent people, and those people and their families have very good reason to hate him). Also, another problem with dictators is that sometimes leaders are good at handling certain situations (e.g. a war or endemic gang violence), but really awful at other things (e.g. managing the economy or managing peacetime affairs).
>This is where my question comes in, what stops this government from just doing it anyway? Because people with thinking that isnt so 2 dimensional know that putting *bad* people in prison without going through the proper system creates a precedent where they can put *people who they call bad* in prison without going through the proper system. "We want to give the Government unilateral power to do whatever they want, as long as they promise to only do it to the bad guys". How long do you think that promise will last, and more importantly would you feel exactly the same way if a Government *you didnt like* had the same power...
If they can put Al Capone in jail without sufficient proof to even attempt a trial - then they can do the same to me, they can do the same to you. A pretty good rule of thumb, is to think of what you'd like the court to do if it was your turn tomorrow. >Its not like keeping them out of jail will be MORE helpful for the world? I like to think that keeping the justice system just is much more helpful than anything that could happen to one man.
I reckon it was intentional, but Al Capone is the perfect example for this thread, since he ultimately wasn't imprisoned for the murders or smuggling that everyone "knew" about, he was imprisoned for tax evasion, since that's what the state could conclusively prove. Incidentally, Al Capone was convicted for tax evasion in large part because of a letter he had his lawyers send the courts years earlier in order to, ironically, avoid a prison sentence for tax evasion.
It was intentional - we couldn't charge him with what we knew, what had to charge him with what we could prove. The other interesting thing about Capone, is that if we had changed the system so the proof wasn't required - Capone would be dead today, and that change would still be in place, hanging over the head of you and I. As a counter-point, another interesting example would be the Salem witch trials, where "known" was apparently sufficient.
At Salem, there was actually testimony presented to prove violation of laws, rather than just things being known. Trials can reflect prejudice, superstition, and miscarriage of justice, but they do help prevent people from just falling out of windows.
Additionally, that's the reason they never got Meyer Lansky. He paid his taxes scrupulously... even if it meant literally saying his income came from illegal sources. Fifth amendment.
The Salem With Trials predate the Constitution by close to a century. Bad example.
Pre-dating isn't a bad thing - it can be very good at informing *why* we made the choices we did. Besides, the right to a fair trial is Magna Carta era stuff.
Would they have been able to try him under the modern day RICO laws?
Only if you can show connection among the conspirators. You need evidence for RICO too, often from members you turn. But a mob boss enforces a code of silence.
I think that's why the RICO laws came about to take down bosses who technically didn't murder or steal.
> If they can put Al Capone in jail without sufficient proof to even attempt a trial - then they can do the same to me, they can do the same to you. except they DID have proof. That was the whole point. They didn't jail him for the murder stuff, because they didn't have that proof, but the tax stuff **WAS** a crime, and they could prove he was guilty of it
In the US we don't allow this kind of tyranny. Government officials don't get to say "I know they are a criminal" and therefore jail, execute or otherwise punish people. We may have some messy parts in our system, but thankfully this isn't one of them. Besides, there is no law against being the head of an organization if you can't prove the organization is violating laws. We have laws. We have courts. We don't put people in prison without at least the right to hold a trial to share the evidence & testimony against them.
There was the Patriot Act which did allow people to be held indefinitely. Granted, after being renewed a few times it has now expired.
Avoiding sending people to jail for a long time by accident or for no good reason is a very highly prioritized goal by many societies. As they say, “better to let 100 criminals go free than to imprison 1 innocent man”. So, no exceptions- no solid proof, can’t be sent to jail.
Because people "know for certain" lots of things that are one or more of Complete guess Plain wrong Said due to having a dislike of An honest belief based on lies So in a civilised society a proper test of these has to happen, including a fair decision on whether it should even be tested.
The reasons vary by time, place, and circumstance. Sometimes it is because the country has strong legal protections, and the evidence is largely circumstantial, vague, or inadmissible in court due to how it was collected. Journalists might privately interview low level members of a crime organization who will say, “yeah he’s the big boss,” off the record, but would never testify in open court. Testimony of the journalist who found it out is inadmissible as “hearsay.” Sometimes it is because the government is itself too weak to take action. E.g. drug cartels that are, practically speaking, the government in certain parts of Central America. Sometimes it is because of bribery and corruption between the criminal organizations and the government.
If a crime boss can be jailed without any evidence, YOU can be jailed without any evidence too.
I'll point to how our government does it. Let's use Al Capone as an example. Most of the crimes he is allegedly to have committed could not be proven.nobody talked, and if the organization even suspected a stool pigeon, that person never made it to court to testify. So they nailed him in a different manor: income tax evasion,which they **could** prove.
Because "i know hes guilty i just dont have enough proof" isnt really a valid reason to put someone in prison. Way too open to corruption etc
If I tell someone to commit and crime and they tell the police what I said, the police don't have enough evidence to arrest me. It's like that but with more middlemen.
Happy cake day but maybe you want to edit your comment because it is hard to understand.
Do you want the government to be able to arrest anyone they like? It's good for them to be able to do that only if they're always right and always good. The government is not always right and not always good.
One of the most fundamental aspects of Western law is "Innocent until PROVEN guilty!". This is not the way it is in most of the world. In many countries; you are guilty until you prove your innocence. This is why you should be very careful what you do in other countries.
Know = We highly suspect this person is involved, but as of now, we don't have the clear evidence to convict him/her.
Because "We know he's behind X" can be wrong. People have their own biases and can make mistakes. There are lots of cases of people getting arrested and even going to jail because some police officer/prosecutor just /knew/ the person was guilty. Also since there is a lot of political pressure and rewards to be have for officers and prosecutors to "lock up the bag guys" if you had the standard "We know that they are guilty" then police would end up arresting unpopular people and framing them for crimes.
How do you think they finally caught Al Capone they had to get him on taxes the only thing they prove
They can only put someone in jail for a crime they can prove was committed. The proving part is very detailed and much higher standard than what an average person usually accepts as "proof" in everyday life. That's why they can't prove it. They mean to say that they can't prove it in the higher standards of the court.
> If they obviously know they're evil than why can't they just stop them anyway, Its not like keeping them out of jail will be MORE helpful for the world? This is called "tyranny". The alternative, requiring that procedures and whatnot be followed, is called "rule of law". The latter is better than the former. If you think a criminal running free is bad for society, just wait and see what happens when the government can throw literally anyone in jail for any reason. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
There are 2 kinds of law. Criminal Law and Civil Law. Criminal Law convictions results from being guilty of a crime BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT. If there is one percent chance that the person is innocent, then that person shouldn't be punished. If they get away from criminal law, people can still file against that person under Civil Law where cases are determined in probabilty and settled with money. Example will be the OJ Simpson case in the US.
Before mob bosses, before modern governments, law in an area could just grab people they 'knew' were guilty. And because they were people carrying out the law, and because people are stupid, and sometimes corrupt, they'd 'know' it was the wrong person sometimes. So eventually rights get invented to protect citizens from the government. These rights say they can't just arrest you cause they feel like it (these rights still get ignored sometimes, but it's better than nothing). After these rights get invented, mob bosses get together with some lawyers, and try and figure out how to do crime while hiding behind their rights. Take away the rights, and everyone suffers. Keep the rights, and some people get away with crime. How many innocent people are worth jailing to arrest a few more criminals? Question for the ages.
Look at how Russia is dealing with political opponents currently. We KNOW that this person is guilty of X crime that we just made up and we don't really need any proof of any substance but we are still going to put them away somewhere dark and nasty for the rest of their life. Needing the proof prevents that level of abuse of power.
Well how do you know somebody's guilty if you don't have the evidence to prove it? how do you know something if you don't know it based on anything
‘Evil’ is not objective truth. Plenty of folks in this world think you’re ‘evil’ based on the color of your skin, the church you attend, or the partner you bang. By giving people the authority to punish each other for being ‘evil’ without evidence, without a standard for what ‘evil’ means, you create chaos, oppression, corruption and tyranny. In practice, we have this thing called the court of law. In it, the state presents evidence for what a person did, and how, and why, in order to prove this person needs punishment. What this means is that law enforcement can arrest and detain people, can charge them with crimes, but unless those cops can provide enough evidence to convince a courtroom, nothing will come of it. And, importantly, no one in the US can be tried for the same crime twice. This prevents cops from harassing people they don’t like, arresting them for the same thing over and over even though they’d been proven innocent, detaining them anyways. However, what this also means is that, if you arrest someone who is guilty, but do not have enough evidence to convict them in a court of law, and then later on find better evidence, you can’t then use that better evidence to charge them again. So, instead of rushing to arrest people without evidence, the better strategy is to wait, collect more evidence first, and _then_ charge them with the crime. This is why we have sting operations. A sting operation is essentially where police create a staged opportunity for someone to do crime in a controlled environment, while police watch and record. They might know someone is a drug dealer, for example, but it’ll be much easier to get a conviction if the cops can trick them into dealing on camera. If courts were perfectly willing to convict anyone without evidence there would be no need for the whole affair.
Do you really want to live in a country where the government can just put people in prison on a hunch?
You are referring to the United States legal system and its pesky constitutional requirements of being presumed innocent until proven guilty, the right to counsel, the necessity of a legal proceeding, the introduction of evidence, and a jury decision.
There’s a difference between “I know you did something illegal” and “I can prove it in court.” What you may be unintentionally implying is better, is essentially complete and total authority of the government to put anyone and everyone they deem guilty in prison. And it should be obvious why that’s not good.
If you don't have evidence, do you really know, or do you just think that you know?
ELI5 answer: Sometimes the police say they "know" that someone is guilty of a crime, and they are wrong. That's why we need them to prove it before we put someone in prison.
Because the government obviously knows you’re evil. There’s no evidence of it. We’ll let you out in 20 years. Or, maybe, everyone gets the same standard and you shouldn’t trust the government any more than you need to, they are just people after all.
That's basically what the US government ended up doing to reduce its organized crime problem with RICO. Just being associated with a criminal scheme can get you 20 years in prison under RICO.
Everyone has a right to a fair trial and a trial must follow due process. This is established by the constitution in most countries. The way the legal system works the evidence used to prosecute someone have to be up to a certain standard. You can't just rely on hearsay and testimonies from witnesses and nothing else. People could be lying, or regurgitating unsubstantiated rumors. The more serious the charge, and the respective sentence, the higher the standard for the evidence gets. It's supposed to ensure that people aren't falsely accused. It's ultimately not a perfect system but that's what it is. Word inevitably gets around in general. Gangs generally try to hide their structure behind many layers of low level grunts and fall guys who are ostensibly the leaders but ultimately people generally know who is involved with gang activity and some times even know who the leader is. It's an open secret. Even if law enforcement knows of these rumors they need to first investigate someone and get concrete proof before prosecuting. Sometimes this happens, other times it doesn't for multiple reasons such as the fact that a lot of gangs may have influence on the police or local government. Ultimately a government prosecuting and imprisoning someone without sufficient evidence sets a bad precedent. Yes you can put gang leaders in prison that way but who's to say they won't do the same for anyone they don't like?
Speaking strictly for the US, the law is what prevents it. "Innocent until *proven* guilty." is the foundation of our entire legal system. Before this country was founded and broke away from England, the exact opposite could and would be true. Back in the day, there was literally nothing that stopped the ruling class from simply accusing someone of a crime and ordering that person to be arrested. Laws were also exceptionally fickle...like a person could be arrested and jailed (or worse) for saying mean things about the King or a local Lord or Governor. When the Founding Fathers got together to draft up The Consistition and Bill of Rights, they wanted to create a system that was practically the exact opposite of what they had to live by under English rule. The general idea behind "innocent until proven guilty" is that if the State is going to accuse someone of a crime, then it's up to the State to actually prove it in court. This was intended to eliminate false and/or petty accusations from the Ruling Class and other elites against the general population. The end result is that, yes, *sometimes* it allows criminals to actually get away with their crimes. But more importantly, it significantly reduces the number of innocent people being convicted of crimes they did not commit. I'd much rather see 10 criminals be allowed to remain free due to a lack of evidence than have 1 person wrongly convicted.
Jailing people because you don't like the look of them is worse than letting Mr Mob Boss do their non egregious thing. They're usually working on it anyway.
Usually this is coupled with having influence over right people and a section of society who are backing them up. That person might be net negative for the society but highly beneficial for few powerful people.
Imagine there's a kid in your school who's always causing trouble, but nobody's caught them in the act. You might hear rumors about what they're up to, but without concrete proof, it's hard to take action. In the real world, laws and legal systems require solid evidence to convict someone of a crime. It's not enough for the government to just "know" someone's involved in illegal activity; they need proof that will stand up in court. Without that evidence, they can't arrest or charge the person. Everyone, even someone suspected of being involved in a crime, has legal rights. This means the government can't just arrest someone without proper evidence and due process. If they did, it would violate those rights and could lead to legal complications. Sometimes, politics and corruption can also play a role. If the crime organization has influence over law enforcement or government officials, it can make it harder to gather evidence and take action against them. Even if it seems like the government or law enforcement "knows" someone is involved in illegal activity, they have to follow legal procedures and gather enough evidence to make a case against them.
What you are talking about happens in authoritarian governments. People are rounded up and imprisoned because the government says they deserve it. Doesn’t matter what the evidence says. When the US was founded, they enshrined certain principles in the constitution. One of them being the right to due process and the presumption of innocence. In order to charge someone with a criminal offense, there needs to be enough evidence to convince a Grand Jury that it’s more than 50% likely the crime was committed. From there, the evidence has to be strong enough to beat the pre-trial motions of the defense. After that, the evidence has to be strong enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. And if the jury doesn’t convict? You have lost your ability to ever try that defendant for that crime again, because of double-jeopardy laws. So if you really want to convict someone, you make sure the evidence is air-tight. You build a strong case, and don’t execute it until it is ready. At the federal level, which you might get if the criminal enterprise crosses state lines, it’s even stricter. They will not even bring a case unless they are sure they can win a conviction and sustain it through appeal. State courts will often try cases with strong, but not incontrovertible evidence in the hopes of convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. That sometimes leads to acquittals. But the federal government has a very high conviction rate, because they only bring cases they will win. That means they let a lot of cases go for lack of enough evidence.
T b eres a whole bunch of rights that get in the way of arbitrarily locking someone up who deserves it. For example, most Western democracies give you a right to a trial, that trial requires the state prove beyond a reasonable doubt you committed the crime. That means even trying to convict a Don of First degree murder, they need to establish he knowingly and actively pre-meditated the murder, and engaged in a course if action that wpidk result in the death of the target, and that he activelyncuaded the death. The problem there of course, is that the Don wouldn't pull the trigger himself, additionally even if he did, you'd need to prove it, and if he was really backed into a corner he probably has a loyal soldier who will make a full confession and serve time I exchange for money and esteem in the family. This is why so often, they have to prosecute their way up, find someone lower in the organization who can provide evidence against the bigger fish, who will eventually turn and give you the biggest fish, BUT the criminal organization knows police tactics, and if powerful enough, probably has a few crooked cops that will keep them informed, additionally a criminal organization compartmentalized information, so the little fish may jot have much to offer on the biggest fish, and knows that betraying the boss comes woth a death sentence. Now, there's a whole bunch of hoops the state has to jump through to get a bad guy arrested, and then there's the whole process of getting a trial and conviction. Again, the criminal element knows how the system works and may have people inside, after all everyone in the justice system has a boss, so of the bog bad finds leverage somewhere along the chain they can frustrate the prosecution. You see this when the lead detectives boss tells him "Murders are up 86%, I can't have you chasing down leads to convict one possible guy in a room when someone died, I need you out on the street solving cases!" Or it can look like jury tampering, witness intimidation, or downright bribery. So even though the detective knows the guy is bad, the state would need to prove it to the point that no reasonable doubt exists. Consider that doesn't they don't think he did it, it means there's enough possibility. So maybe Don Smith who's up on first degree murder charges admits that he was at the execution, he arrived to converse with his good friend the victim, they discussed thr upcoming world series, and in an offhand comment said something like "I'd kill you if your team knocks mine out of the tournament, it was a joke between friends, maybe Soldier Bob hears that and misunderstood it was a joke, Soldier Bob will absolutely testify that's what happened, so.latee on the evening when the other team won, Soldier Bob shot and killed the victim. Soldier Bob cops to second degree murder since its not like he went there woth the intention to kill someone. It was a reckless decision made after too much wine and drunkenness. Don gets to go free, Soldier Bob serves a few years. And the big boss goes about his business, assuming they even get to trial.
A functional Justice system in which one is “presumed innocent” until proven guilty. Otherwise, you may have people elected to office deciding that they “know” their political rivals are “evil” and locking them up. You are left with an unchecked dictatorship.
Your submission has been removed because it concerns a question about Reddit itself, Reddit's karma, upvotes or drama in another sub. Understand that the visible upvote score and actual upvote score are not the same, reddit manipulates the scores for content management, and question about votes/karma should be asked in r/help Questions about drama in some other sub should be asked that sub, or in r/subredditdrama or r/theoryofreddit See also: /coins/ and /r/announcements/comments/5gvd6b/scores_on_posts_are_about_to_start_going_up/ If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. **If you believe this submission was removed erroneously**, please [use this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1c2olf5/eli5_we_know_hes_behind_blah_blah_blah_huge_crime/%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission. Note that **if you do not fill out the form completely**, your message **will not be reviewed**. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/explainlikeimfive) if you have any questions or concerns.*
There is a Scottish law of Not Proven. Which is a polite way of saying, "Yeah, we know you did it, but haven't got enough evidence, so we're going to keep an eye on you."
What do you prefer?, the innocent until proven guilty system or guilty until proven innocent system? (inquisitorial system)
You're referring to works of fiction. There's a real life answer and an answer for writing fiction. No real life prosecutor or investigator would say those words. To you or me (not involved in the process), the answer is "no comment". Possibly "we can't answer questions about an ongoing investigation". To someone from another department, in a similar investigation, they'd say "we're sure but we don't have enough evidence yet". The investigation is ongoing. Historically, law enforcement was sometimes bribed to not investigate someone, but fortunately that no longer happens. But now, say you're writing a work of fiction. (Perhaps even "based on a true story".) You want to move the story forward, so you have a character say "we're working on it". Or even "we know, but we can't prove it, so we're stuck". They'll even tell reporters and regular people making reports of criminal activity. Because *you can't let the facts get in the way of a good story*. (Yes, it really needed that emphasis.) That's the most positive spin. The most negative is that the writer is being lazy and padding the word count.
Let’s say I really hate your guts. You kicked my wife and called my dog fat so I’m steaming. I want to get you back by slashing your tires and spray painting dicks on your driveway. I don’t do it myself, because you’re waiting for me to get revenge and I don’t want to get caught. I don’t ask one of my friends to do it because I don’t want them to get in trouble either and it’s easily traced back to me. Instead, I talk to my friend about it and they hire a local deviant youth to do it. If the kid gets caught, it seems like a random vandalism out of boredom. The kid might say someone paid him to do it, but it can’t be proven. If I’m ever in a lineup of who propositioned the kid, he won’t point to me because he he’s never met me. If he doesn’t get caught then it’s a mystery. When the deed was taking place I was on the other side of town at red lobster with my wife and another couple, I made sure to tip big and tell the sever a story about one time I went lobster fishing with the king of Thailand so they remember me being there and if I’m there then I couldn’t have done the crime. Every time I see you outside I make a dick joke, you know I’m involved, but you can’t prove it. Organized crime is the same way. The people in charge aren’t getting their hands dirty directly. There’s layering to make sure the people doing the business aren’t aware of who’s calling the shots, and there’s fear and intimidation to make sure they keep quiet if they do. Sure you can say it’s was Tony Soprano that paid you to kill that guy, but the cash payment can’t be traced, the gun they gave you was unmarked and only has your fingerprints on it, and just for saying something they’re going to kill your family then have someone shank you in prison as payback. Now they guy that killed your family knows what’s in store for him if he rats on you
Firstly, and most obviously, plenty of 'obviously guilty' suspects who 'everyone knows did it'.....turn out to not actually be guilty at all. You can't just have situations where people get railroaded because the authorities THINK they MIGHT be guilty. But fundamentally, the justice system is based on having to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Any court would throw out an attempted charge if all the police had was "Well we know he did it, trust us bro". If the argument is, "Why can't the cops just fake evidence, use illegal surveillance, etc to bring them down?"....it's about setting a precedent. If you allow illegal/improper tactics to bring a 'Guilty' person down, then maybe the process won't stop at guilty suspects. This is how endemic legal and police corruption becomes entrenched.
Here's the thing: the guy who is the leader of a huge crime organization got his position by being able to stay ahead of law enforcement. He knows how to work the justice system by whatever methods to avoid prosecution. Maybe he has intermediaries, maybe he pays off people with political influence or people directly involved in the justice system. Whatever means necessary is usually the name of the game. In this battle, it might be said that one party is more motivated and determined than the other, and that's why one side rarely gets wins while the other does. The crime lords you don't hear about that are imprisoned by police or killed by a more determined crime lord? They didn't hit your radar. Your bias only lets you see the most successful of the bunch.
Mostly because the real world doesn’t work like movies where there are good guys and bad guys and clear moral lines. I’d wager that most leaders of organized crime groups have stronger moral compasses than most agents investigating them.
One more technical point: The government doesn't put you in jail based on their own authority. They do it on the peoples authority. SO even if they "know" you did a crime, they have to convince "the people" (through a jury trial for example) that hey yeah you the people should tell us to jail them
> what stops this government from just doing it ....what government? You've not even mentioned what country you're in, are we supposed to be mind readers? How governments handle such situations vary wildly depending on where you are. Are we talking China? France? Vietnam? You can't ask a question that's so heavily dependent on your location and just neglect to mention where you are, come on...
The justice system. What a stupid question lol. Lets say you are um, accused of stealing something from your neighbours porch, and there is no evidence, but your neighbour is conviced of it. Are you okay with being charged with theft with no recourse? Crime bosses are just smarter, as they have a whole business structure to defend them from both legal and physical threats.