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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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You have to go through a pretty substantial amount of double checking for a conviction.

The prosecutor to even charge you in the first place, then convincing a grand jury (about 16-23) which while typically very permissive especially with just a majority rule often aren't a rubber stamp, and then generally a judge for pretrial and then a trial jury of 12 who typically all have to agree, and while rare you can also get a JNOV and then you can often still appeal upwards multiple times if you feel that strongly about your case.

While wrongful convictions can and do happen, it's often due to a combination of bad luck and a case/evidence being really complex. It is not perfect, it will never be perfect without forfeiting many of the freedoms and privacies we have (a price most citizens do not wish to pay), but we try really hard to make sure only the criminals are punished.

Many of the founding fathers believed strongly that the courts must be trusted to punish the criminals and that the innocent must be safe. Such as this from John Adams, where he believed that a society where the innocent don't feel safe for their innocence breaks down the very rule of law, and they were determined to err on the side of caution to keep free society secure and stable.

The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But 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, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever.

Thanks for the reply, you clearly know more about the process than I do. I definitely lean more towards @Jiro's sensibilities, where the system should work by not criminalizing normal behaviour rather than not convicting normal behaviour (kinda, usually, unless we don't like you). But we live in a complex world, and I'm not a hardcore libertarian. I do understand that there are sometimes tradeoffs, and going after both producers AND consumers of child porn leads to less child abuse than the alternative.

Mind you, we're now in a world where AI can produce child porn without any victimization at all. So there's much less reason to criminalize certain patterns of bits. Will the laws adjust? I doubt it. The ratchet only goes one way. Even Rand Paul probably doesn't want his name on the "Free the Pedophiles" bill.

You have to go through a pretty substantial amount of double checking for a conviction.

"The law makes it possible to charge a lot of innocent people, but it's okay because the system will probably use discretion and not put them in jail" is a recipe for tyranny.

The usual scenario is where the government wants to get you anyway, either because they hate the actually-legal things you're doing, because some prosecutor or cop knows in his heart without evidence that you're guilty of some crime, or because finding you guilty will cover their asses after some kind of mistake, or because it would be good publicity to catch a criminal. Then the double-checking miraculously vanishes. Three felonies a day is a little exaggerated, but it only takes one felony to ruin your life.