Stories of missing and abused youth

[Range_This11]

I'm not arguing that we should allow for mistakes to be made, but loopholes that the prosecution or defense can exploit to allow their client to go free or put another person's client behind bars will always exist. You're right, those are subjective terms, but we also have thousands if not millions of previous court cases (many of which are going to be similar to modern cases) to set precedence. We also have hundreds of years of experience using a judicial system. The courts are designed to benefit the most amount of people they possibly can. There are far too many variables in humans for any sort of judicial system to be perfect. It's at times like this where you have to take a pragmatic viewpoint instead of an idealistic viewpoint.

[Crocefisso]

I'm not arguing that we should allow for mistakes to be made, but loopholes that the prosecution or defense can exploit to allow their client to go free or put another person's client behind bars will always exist. You're right, those are subjective terms, but we also have thousands if not millions of previous court cases (many of which are going to be similar to modern cases) to set precedence. We also have hundreds of years of experience using a judicial system. The courts are designed to benefit the most amount of people they possibly can. There are far too many variables in humans for any sort of judicial system to be perfect. It's at times like this where you have to take a pragmatic viewpoint instead of an idealistic viewpoint.

 

Agreed. People that think that the justice system can be made perfect, without some form of neo-evolution radically changing human nature, are quixotic at best.

[Zierro]

We also have hundreds of years of experience using a judicial system.

 

And we have learned a lot from those experiences. But based on the Casey, OJ, and plenty of other unpopular trials, I think there is a lot more we need to learn about ourselves as flawed human beings that are striving for "the best" and the system we're using. You seem to take the conservative approach when it comes to the court, but the thing that keeps government alive and flowing is learning from past mistakes, learning from past triumphs, and essentially just not giving up fighting for what you believe would be a better system. It's a never-ending battle, but progress can always be made. If we just bit our tongues and didn't take the "idealistic approach" we probably would have maintained the medieval-style trials.

[Range_This11]

I agree with you that we need to learn more about ourselves, but that will not come from a revamping of the judicial system. The judicial system reacts to what the people believe is just. Laws are voted on and passed and twenty years later repealed. They are not designed to be cutting edge and it is not plausible for them to be so.

 

And just so we're clear, pragmatic =/= stagnant as you seem to be implying. Idealism allows us to dream of a perfect world but pragmatism allows us to use the tools we are given to create the best possible situation for the largest amount of people. Medieval-style trials were only a representation of what the general population assumed to be just.

[Zierro]

I agree with you that we need to learn more about ourselves, but that will not come from a revamping of the judicial system. The judicial system reacts to what the people believe is just. Laws are voted on and passed and twenty years later repealed. They are not designed to be cutting edge and it is not plausible for them to be so.

 

I don't see how having some fairness, balance, and foundation in which to base our system off of is nothing but a load of head-in-the-clouds idealism. My problem is how "reasonable doubt" is essentially random based on the jurors you get. People get convicted of murder for less evidence than there is against Casey all the time. As long as there's a juror who says, "Well it's POSSIBLE that the FSM from Pluto was responsible," then no amount of evidence matters - everyone is innocent. What I want out of the court is not to get Casey Anthony convicted of murder, but for there to be some form of consistency and that crazy word "precedent" to actually be used in practice instead of merely talked about. The solution is pragmatism: theory derived from practice and made into better practice. (IE: Courts need a more solid form of consistency with who they let go and who they don't, and this case screams that.)

 

And just so we're clear, pragmatic =/= stagnant as you seem to be implying. Idealism allows us to dream of a perfect world but pragmatism allows us to use the tools we are given to create the best possible situation for the largest amount of people. Medieval-style trials were only a representation of what the general population assumed to be just.

 

So your definition of pragmatism is to appeal to the masses? What if the masses are wrong like they were with the Salem Witch Trials? Population means next to nothing in the face of pure science and reasoning. In fact, we even have a logical fallacy for the purpose of avoiding the whole "WELL, WHO'S SIDE IS BIGGER??" method of discovering the truth. "Truth" being the most "pragmatic" solution to ethical affairs like these.