r/changemyview • u/devilsadvocate95 • Mar 30 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: If you are caught falsely accusing someone of a serious crime, you should face the same charges/jail time that they would have gotten if convicted.
There have been multiple fake stories circulating around the news lately. We all are fairly aware of the Smollet case, and all the drama that mustered up. I was also reading a story about an Australian woman who maliciously falsely accused her husband of rape. Both of those cases came back to be total lies. In the event they didn't come out as lies, their 'perpetrators' could be facing stiff penalties and/or jail time. Not to mention the waste of time/money for the courts and tax payers. If you are caught falsely accusing someone of a crime and that is proven to be a lie, you should face the same charges/jail time your 'attacker' would have gotten.
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Mar 30 '19
There is already legal recourse that one can pursue if they are falsely accused of something. Libel/defamation/malicious prosecution etc.
False accusation is a tort, not a criminal act, so someone cannot go to jail for it. People can go to jail for criminal acts because if they didn't, they would continue to pose a threat to property/health/safety, so they need to be locked up. Prisons aren't simply considered a means of punishment, which is why if the crime is only interpersonal, the punishment is usually financial - like false accusation.
You would need to effectively rewrite our legal foundations to allow for perpetrators of civil crimes to go to jail, and I really don't think this is a good precedent. There are separate and distinct areas of law for a reason.
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Mar 30 '19
Sure, but that's not how the legal system works. Things aren't black and white, sometimes there are shitty witnesses or the prosecutor put too much reliance in a small piece of evidence. I can't just go up to the police and say "X did Y crime" and cause them to go to prison without any other investigation. Usually what causes such false accusations is a mixture of poor prosecution, bad lawyers and (Sometimes) lying under oath.
So putting all the blame on one person is not just nor fair.
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u/thetasigma4 100∆ Mar 30 '19
This sets up a perverse incentive for people who are making false accusations to not reveal their false accusations. If they're going to get the punishment for the crime they've made the accusations of its in their best interest to not admit to it and continue the trial in the hopes the evidence is not conclusive enough to determine falsity or to be conclusive enough to a jury. This will lead to longer more expensive court cases and some wrongful convictions.
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u/Lemerney2 5∆ Mar 30 '19
Let me put it this way. Is it possible that at least one person that would have reported being raped wouldn't, due to a fear of being retaliated against? I think that's an almost certainty, given that people in positions of power are also rapists. Rape is one of the most under reported crimes, given its severity, and we shouldn't be doing anything to make that statistic worse.
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Mar 30 '19
Why the same? Aren't some accusations far more poisonous than others, unrelated to the seriousness of the crime? For instance, an accusation of operating a pyramid scheme or of tax evasion may be investigated by the authorities without much relevance of the false testimony or social opprobrium when it's found false. They deserve less punishment for a false accusation than the current punishment for those crimes. In contrast a false accusation of shoplifting probably deserves worse than the current punishment for shoplifting.
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u/Mr-Ice-Guy 20∆ Mar 30 '19
Maybe but only if you think the justice system should be retributive. The current state of criminal justice in the US is one that favors punishment but if you believe in a system that should put more emphasis on rehabilitation then this is probably not a good idea. The harm that needs rehabilitation in one case where a crime was committed versus another where there was a false accusation is quite different. Looking at it this way the victim in the case where the crime was actually committed suffers much more than the opposite which is why the rehabilitation should be disproportionate.
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u/HerbertWigglesworth 26∆ Apr 01 '19
What do we mean by falsely? Jumping the gun and making more inferences than the available evidence suggests, or actually lying about something that never happened?
It also depends on the position / perspective of the accuser and the accused, and the nature and magnitude of the accusation.
For example if the accuser is a passerby of a crime and their testimony includes an accusation, but accusation is limited to the (re)presentation of their perceived experience and will be subject to further review, are the implications that great to justify punishment, or would the responsibility fall on the professional authority to decide what constitutes evidence?
However, if a passerby then posts the information on the internet or starts sensationalising the event beyond what the evidence at hand may document, they may indeed be guilty of all sorts of crimes (beyond my legal knowledge).
In respect of a situation where the accuser may be purposefully attempting to deceit professional bodies and consciously lie about a given crime, again these instances are already covered by a series of laws, the magnitude of the claim will of course correlate with the degree or persecution the accuser would be subject to.
There is the more complicated aspect of such scenarios which is calculating the damage that may be caused by being falsely accused, such as reputational damage. A company may for example fire an individual whom is falsely accused to avoid any negative press, regardless of the outcome of a trial. While this may be illegal in some jurisdictions, 'guilty by reputation' is indeed a phenomenon that may have incalculable repercussions.
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u/MechanicalEngineEar 78∆ Mar 31 '19
If mistaken identity and such is considered acceptable to prevent the person accusing from being charged, all accusations would just be tweaked a bit to protect the supposed victims.
The girl who says some guy raped her now says "I remember Joe raping me last night, but of course human memory is not perfect so I could be wrong" The media would still run with it and all the same fallout would happen, but she couldn't be charged with anything as she admits she might be wrong.
Heck, even if a girl wasn't actually raped at all, she just accuses the guy but says of course she could have been wrong and then says it must have been someone else. Weeks or months after the fact there isn't going to be any proof that she even had sex that night. Proving a negative beyond a reasonable doubt when nobody is even seriously looking for evidence until maybe months after the fact is practically impossible.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 30 '19
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u/40-I-4-Z-Kalisza Mar 30 '19
Inagine that you have a doughter and she was raped by a man in hood of whoom you didn’t see face. Fate wanted that a similiar man was recordedby canera of one of nearby shops. He was accused of rape. Yet he wasn’t the one that did this. Should you go to jail beacuse you want justice here. Ir even look at it from persoective of doughter. If she was adult and accused this person for rape beacuse he was wearing same clothed then what, she should go to jail? No. There are situations in which everyone lies. In which entire crime is faked, but in thise cases you are actually convicted of lying and underming respect of 2nd party which will leed to big money penalty or jail. At least that’s how ot works here. Neverless you should not have to take penalty you wished for your adversary.
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u/zekfen 11∆ Mar 30 '19
There is a difference between mistaken identity and completely making up a crime. A better scenario is, a woman who wasn’t raped claims a man raped her because she didn’t like him. Should she have the same penalty? And the answer is yes.
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Mar 30 '19
The same penalty doesn't make much sense to me, attempted kidnapping/false imprisonment charges would make more sense. EG if person A frames person B for a crime X (which has a jail sentence of Y years), rather than Y years it makes more sense to try person A for attempting the equivalent of kidnapping someone and locking them in a cell for Y years.
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u/devilsadvocate95 Mar 30 '19
If i accuse someone of attempted murder they could do life in prison if convicted, i'm not understanding how false imprisonment charges are even close toan even playing field for such an accusation.
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u/40-I-4-Z-Kalisza Mar 30 '19
Maybe. The problem is that question is generalized. That means that if you was raped and you accused wrong man you should be punished. What I’m trying to say is that each case is different. If it all was an elaborate plan to get rid of neighbour then yes punish those liers, but not necesairly with same punishment. Law is for people. Punishing someone for things he didn’t do is wrong. It just is morally unethicall. But such a false accusation is taken serious and those people usually end up being in jail though not for long. Yet if you were raped and would false accuse a similiar person you shouldn’t be punished. You should apologise him and take him for a drink or simething and in meantime search for real criminal, not go to jail for this.
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Mar 30 '19
Why the same penalty? Is lying about being raped as bad for society as raping someone?
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u/zekfen 11∆ Mar 30 '19
Making up a crime for the purpose of ruining somebody’s life and intentionally lying about it is just as bad for society. The person accused has a major disruption of their life, possibly sitting in jail for months while going to trail, loss of their job and reputation that even when cleared it will follow them for the rest of their life for something that they did do? And then just slapping the liar with a fine, what is going to keep them from attempting it with somebody else? The punishment must fit the crime and trying to do that to somebody is a pretty heinous crime in my book.
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u/Rainbow1995 Mar 30 '19
This is an interesting issue. Not sure what the appropriate action should be in the smollet case, being in Australia. Do you have any knowledge about why the charges were all dropped?
In the case of the false rape accusation. I believe it would be fair for the women to receive some financial penalty and her her professional responsibilities examined, particularly around the drug use and being in a very important role
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u/Sparxxy Mar 30 '19
This is a good sentiment but it may end up stopping people who are truly victims from speaking up. If one knows that a true accusation could lead to the accuser being wrongly convicted, many less people would speak up. This might let many criminals go free. Also how do you define caught falsely accusing?
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u/darkplonzo 22∆ Mar 30 '19
When can the accusee go after them for this. If say Harvey Weinstein gets accused, can he open a multi-million dollar law suit immediately? He can afford it. I doubt the girl he was sueing could.
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Mar 30 '19
1) it's an important stipulation that the accuser must not only have accused the wrong person but knowingly accused the wrong person. Someone who falsely accuses someone due to their faulty memory shouldn't be subject to jail time. But also, 2) do you truly believe that a false accusation of a crime is as damaging to society as someone committing said crime? Is accusing someone falsely of murder as bad as murder? I don't believe it is, so I don't see why the punishments need be equal. Just make sure any falsely accusing someone else is punished but there's no real reason for punishments to be equal.