I’m a pretty pro-criminal justice reform guy, but most folks in that camp really don’t understand how very guilty most people in prison are. From first hand experience, the system is already inundated with meritless litigation, appeals, etc. People in person don’t exactly have a lot of better things to do. Innocence Project and similar organizations have to screen hundreds of cases to find the one or two meritorious ones. Ending prosecutorial immunity would mean 99 completely frivolous lawsuits for every one worth considering.
People who are pro criminal justice reform understand people are guilty. But they're trying to solve the actual systemic issues that lead to crime, not just say crime doesn't happen.
Policing doesn’t cause crime and any more than umbrellas cause rain. Systemic issues exist but those issues are more about circumstances that produce criminals (breakdown of family structures, etc.) not policing.
Yes absolutely—people buy umbrellas because of rain, and voters employ police because of crime. It’s a logical error to infer that the presence of umbrellas causes rain, or that the presence of police causes crime.
In this metaphor, rain that doesn't happen to land on an umbrella just isn't observed. The presence of police increases crime statistics, because some marginally illegal activity that happens all the time and is mostly unenforced would be acted on.
have to screen hundreds of cases to find the one or two meritorious ones
And even then, legal merit, long after conviction, brought forward by a team of highly motivated activists, against an indifferent (or often enough even sympathetic) legal system does not equate innocence. Peculiarities of the American legal system and political pressures exacerbate this.
If you find DNA evidence or a video recording to exonerate you, that's great. But if you're in prison because a cop planted drugs on you, there is no DNA evidence. There may not be a video recording of the events. How can you prove your innocence? Sometimes you can't, even when you are.
> Innocence Project and similar organizations have to screen hundreds of cases to find the one or two meritorious ones. Ending prosecutorial immunity would mean 99 completely frivolous lawsuits for every one worth considering.
This is interesting phrasing. It was an often-repeated statement during American history that, "it's better 100 guilty people should escape than that one innocent person should suffer."
Prosecutorial immunity removes State consequences for violating citizen rights. Lawsuits against the officers/prosecutors/states are some of the lowest consequences we could impose; as another commenter has mentioned often they just result in the State paying out money and little to no individual consequences for bad actors. But even that is at least some discouragement against violating Constitutional rights.
John Adams commented on this by saying, "It is of more importance to the community that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished....when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever."
He argued that without strong protections from the State for people's rights, that people would stop depending on or trusting the State to secure their rights, and that society would start to slip into extralegal chaos. Citizens would stop looking to the law as a protective force, and instead consider it to be something to avoid and subvert since "virtue itself is no security."
This is a particularly prescient idea today. We tell people to trust the legal system to protect their rights. But prosecutorial immunity undermines that message, because people see that their rights can be violated by the State itself and they will have no legal recourse to fix the situation. When they see that, we run the risk of making them disregard the entire legal system. Why cooperate with the State at all in any capacity; why trust the process when the process doesn't hold itself accountable to its own standards?
We live in a system with double standards, where citizens can be prosecuted, penalized, and even jailed for lying to the police or the FBI under extremely broad criteria, but where prosecutors and the State suffer no personal penalty for withholding evidence from the defense during a trial. How much damage does this do to our institutions? How can we possibly hope to convince ordinary people that an institution with those standards is trustworthy?
> This is a particularly prescient idea today. We tell people to trust the legal system to protect their rights.
I was prosecuted for 'trespassing' and 'misdemeanor assault', after my failed attempt to use a granted court order to free my friend from illegal confinement in a hospital emergency room (ref: my comment history).
I think the prosecutor realized while I was testifying that I was not like the other people he prosecuted, and attempted to elicit truth with his cross examination.
I was convicted by the city court judge, and sentenced to 2 years of unsupervised probation. My attorney said the problem was my accuser was a retired police officer who works for the state's largest non-Walmart private employer.
Still furious at getting steamrolled. Aside from the first judge, who granted habeas corpus on my pro se petition, I've gotten screwed by most the other judges who've considered my subsequent petitions over the years.
I think the Justices in Washington DC will have to do their job on my next petition to their court. Previously I asked to file under seal, which gave the court of appeals and the justices a convenient way to avoid having to deal with my petitions.
Literally, 2-10% of the incarcerated are fully innocent.
If those 99 are truly frivolous, than a petition to dismiss to or request for summary judgement should have them thrown out based on a lack of evidence/standing.
Because leaving things as they are is clearly worse than the scenario you describe, especially since those hypotheyical 99 frivolous lawsuits could be dismissed with very little effort.
Police do not have this immunity and yet somehow they can do their job without being paralyzed by frivolous lawsuits.
