Guilty or Innocent

Which is worse, in your opinion... guilty but found innocent or innocent but found guilty.

I am not talking salvation, but about crime here on earth.

I choose A. People who are guilty but are judged innocent learn they can do what they want, so they keep doing it.

B, people who are innocent but sentenced for the crime anyway, is unfortunate, but not nearly as damaging.

Right, increasing more damage to more than just the one. Both are terrible, I agree. But as a society it seems guilty found innocent is in more danger.

My answer would be neither. The system is the system, it isn't perfect and it has its flaws. The laws of the land were put into place mostly for others to have peace of mind. A person might escape the law, but a person cant run from personal guilt or what they identify with. If i were locked up for something i didn't do, at least i would have peace of mind knowing that i am not guilty, and that what i was judged for or perceived to be wasn't me. I think what would be worse is being guilty, being found guilty, judged, and staying in that state of being/identifying as guilty without ever being able to repent or change my mind about myself.

Innocent but found guilty.
Imagine, blending the scriptural Hell into the material realm of prison here, you are absolutely not guilty of a very serious crime for which you've been found guilty. Twelve people, (12 disciples, interesting how that works out in American Jurisprudence), said that by a preponderance of the evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt YOU did this!
Then the judge sentences you to the maximum allowed by law; Life in prison without parole. The only way you will ever exit that Hell on Earth is in a casket.

Hell has its demons, prison does too. Prison is a sub-culture of the free world. The microcosm of the macrocosm. Almost anything you can obtain in the free world is there in the prison world.
And that is your future for the rest of your life.
Now, imagine when all this happens you are female and but 20 years old and you have a family history of longevity. Which means you could live to be 90.

Seventy
Years
from the time you wake up till you fall asleep, in Hell on Earth!
And you didn't do anything to deserve being put there.

And after all appeals are exhausted, that is your life until that life is over.

New question building on the first one: What would you do then?

There's an old saying in the justice system and it is known as Blackstone's Ratio. It says, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

Sure, it's the perfect cop out for the system itself. It isn't a perfect system but it's the best we've got.
That may be true.
However, as one who has watched the system at work, I can tell you, if we let ourselves think it is the best we can do, and we leave it at that, the crime against ourselves and the future is one of indifference. And likely because the question is impersonal.
It is easy to think others must suffer what we do not.It is easier and yet worse still if we satisfy that opinion by thinking, the "others", "they", must have done something to deserve it. If not the actual crime they're not serving time for, something else. And this time they simply got caught and though innocent should still pay for what they got away with before.

Because after all, and I heard a juror say this once, if they weren't guilty of something would they be defending themselves against a law (s) that accuse them now?

I have been innocent and found guilty in a court of law! And trust me the thoughts of killing some people can over flood you, but think God for cooler heads on my behalf!! God used the whole thing on my behalf and brung me into a place with Him i would have never known!! That's the only way I can say it!

Now all of these people in or out of the court; pertaining to me and this injustice i suffered, must be judged as I was! But first I needed to be judged by God concerning other matters. I'm trying to condense this so i hope it makes sense!!

Now I would not change it for the world, but then I didn't have the slightest clue that God was thwarting me for the greater good of the kingdom! I had to trust that these other people were hearing God for me.

Both are equally bad. The guilty though are not "found innocent". It is enough to simply cast *reasonable doubt* upon their guilt, and that can be manipulated on all sides. As to the innocent being found guilty, every criminal proclaims his/her innocence and invariably pleads "Not Guilty". And many of the rules that apply to criminal trials do not allow the full picture to be presented either way. Also plea bargains totally undermine the justice system, so in the end justice rarely prevails.

if we were talking about disease etc. a false positive is not as bad as a false negative.

if you're told you're sick but you're not, the worst that happens is you receive treatment you didn't need, and experience anxiety over it that wasn't necessary. there may be treatments that are very taxing, but it's not as bad as the alternative:
if your'e told you're well but you really aren't, then don't get treated, and the sickness you have progresses, potentially beyond the point that treatment could even possibly be effective for.

neither is 'good' -- good is being 100%, accurate, neither acquitting the guilty or condemning the innocent

It would be hell on earth and terrible, sooooo horrible.

My answer is influenced by someone I believe innocent who is in jail now. Seems a terrible injustice to be wrongly accused. The trial was a circus. There was another guy spent 10:years in prison also wrongly accused. Put yourself in that persons place. Imagine the level of resentment! Id be ropeable!!

I get how tragic it would be but on the other hand, what if a guilty person ofq murder is found innocent, goes out and does it again? I suppose then that person would probably be found guilty but the innocent would rarely have their case overturned.


It just is not simple.


I think it is such a tragedy, either way. I can not fathom having to not only lose your freedom but also be taken from family and probably dealt with poorly, especially knowing I was innocent. I can not imagine. If the guilty person didn't do whatever it was again, well clearly that would be MUCH better. I think it is a tough situation.

Jesus Christ was innocent. Or did someone already say that?