Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2016-09-06 06:52 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2016-09-06 06:52 pm
[ SECRET POST #3534 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3534 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
__________________________________________________
02.
[Paget Brewster, Criminal Minds]
__________________________________________________
03.
(Orange is the New Black)
__________________________________________________
04.
[Lord of the Rings]
__________________________________________________
05.
[Misha Collins, Supernatural]
__________________________________________________
06.
(Breaking Bad)
__________________________________________________
07.
[Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green]
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 26 secrets from Secret Submission Post #505.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 01:58 am (UTC)(link)An example I would give would be the recent case where Ke$ha was not let out of her contract with her alleged rapist. The internet was full of people condemning the entire legal system because of this decision. They wanted the judge thrown off the bench. I felt sympathetic with her, don't get me wrong. She deserves justice. But, on the other hand, I totally understood why the judge decided that way. If every person was allowed out of a contract simply because they ACCUSED someone of a crime (which, by the way, hadn't even gone to trial at the time of the controversial decision), the entire system of contracts would basically fall apart. Judges might make decisions individually, but they also have to consider the district-wide implications of their decisions.
I'm tired of people making decisions and judgments without knowing the facts. I'm sick of people who want to ruin people's entire lives because they assume someone is on the "wrong" side of a debate. This is not the way justice is meant to work.
SA
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 01:59 am (UTC)(link)Re: Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 03:41 am (UTC)(link)The legal system is one system for trying to hew out a rough idea of justice in a way that is repeatable and consistent and as just as possible. It doesn't have any intrinsic justification or goodness. Its standards of proof and disproof, innocence and guilt, criminal activity - those are all standards that are particular to it. When it comes to a judgment, it is a judgment only by and for and to those standards. Nothing more, nothing less. At its absolute best, that's all it can reach. It is not an investigation to discover the truth; it is not a divine mechanism for sorting good from evil. It is a system of analyzing evidence and determining whether it is sufficient to conclude guilt.
Obviously, we should try our best to understand the court system and to be skeptical and humble about what we know and can judge. But at the end of the day it is our responsibility as sentient moral human beings to use our reason and our judgment to draw our own conclusions about what is going on. It's our responsibility to look at the facts available to us and to use our brains to try to work out what conclusions we can, and it's our responsibility to use our moral judgment to see whether a given outcome accords with our own notion of justice.
Of course we are subject to a complex of emotions, assumptions, and opinions; the same is true in any other aspect of our life, and it's equally true of every person in a courtroom. Of course we should do our best to figure out as much as we can and not rush to judgment. But at the end of the day, it would be wrong and it would be dangerous to just assume that the judgment the court makes must be accepted at face value, and it's perfectly valid to look at a given sentence and come to the conclusion that it's a miscarriage of justice even if legally sound.
Courts ain't shit.
Re: Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 05:35 am (UTC)(link)You can't just pick and choose which sentences you believe are just or unjust based on feels and a misplaced sense of justice despite not having insight into all the facts and proof the court has though. In most cases, you do not have any access to any evidence, so you making the moral judgment of "but the courts are wrong, my judgement is right" is complete bullshit if you can't actually base your opinion on facts.
Re: Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 06:48 pm (UTC)(link)Second, I would point out that the most controversial cases are usually the ones that do have pretty widespread coverage, which means that there is a good amount of accessibility for facts.
Re: Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 01:12 pm (UTC)(link)I still highly disagree. As anon said above, we don't have access to what the courts have - evidence. Some cases become open to public perusal (and are therefore appropriately judged), but "trial by internet" occurs when a bunch of people decide a pending or sealed case based on their own personal feelings.
You can't completely disregard the justice system and then demand, in the same breath, that it imposes a legal sentence. One cannot exist without the other. Court cases CANNOT be based off of pure feelings and "morals" because everyone's morals vary - the only thing that should be used to impose a criminal punishment is logic. It often does not happen that way, but that's the principle that should be abided by, and often isn't, both by the court system and the people I'm complaining about on the Internet.
What would happen if court cases were based off of what the people decide is moral? Maybe rapists and murders wouldn't get away as easily, that's certainly true. But women might be punished for having abortions. Gay people and lesbians might be punished for their relationships. Innocent people would be sentenced, much more often, for crimes they didn't commit.
The court system isn't perfect, I never said that. But on the other hand, I think that analyzing court cases based off of who you think is guilty is completely illogical and outright damaging. A crowd of unorganized, uninformed people, screaming for people to be punished for things they know nothing about? WAY worse than our current system.
Re: Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 06:57 pm (UTC)(link)First, we have the court system as it actually exists. Second, we have the court system as we might think it ought to exist - the idealized notion of a court system. Third, we have our own judgments about fact and morals.
I'm not saying that we should use the standards of judgment that we use morally in the actual course system. I accept that there's a fundamental distinction there. So I'm not trying to say that feeling should be valid in law.
What I am saying is that neither should it be the case that our own personal judgments have to be limited by the legal standards of the court system. A court has certain standards for evidence specific definitions of guilt and innocence, etc - and those are not particularly relevant standards for our own moral judgments. In other words, it is perfectly valid for someone to think that someone who was found innocent in a court of law is morally faulty, or to draw conclusions about evidence different than those that apply in a court of law.
So to sum up here. What I'm saying is not that our personal judgment should overwrite the legal system (although there are cases where the legal system is indeed faulty). It's that our own personal standards of belief and of moral judgment are and ought to be distinct from legal processes. And that, therefore, it is valid for popular discussions and arguments over legal things to depart from the standards that apply to legal things.
Re: Trial by internet.
(Anonymous) 2016-09-07 08:37 pm (UTC)(link)