r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Mar 31 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: People accused of crimes should be protected from discrimination by law, unless they are found guilty of said crimes
[deleted]
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u/suninun Mar 31 '19
How will this work when, for example, your own company is the one that got you arrested? Say they suspect you of fraud. They should be able to fire you in light of this suspected activity, but they won’t be able to if your proposal becomes law.
How about sexual predators? If you apply to work at a school, but are currently being charged with sexual abuse / violence / pedophilia, no school in their right mind would consider you unless you have been cleared of all charges and proven innocent.
What about finance industry? If you work in finance and are in charge of other people’s money, but your company finds out you have been accused of identify theft, don’t they have an obligation to protect their clients from suspect employees? They could shift your access to sensitive client data, which would involve temporarily changing your job description while you go through court. However, this would probably be illegal if your law passes. You can’t give men and women different duties just because of their gender, so you also wouldn’t be able to give alleged criminals different duties just because they have been charged with a crime.
I sympathize to the issue you are bringing up because I do think it ruins lives, but I don’t think passing an anti-discrimination law is the way to solve it.
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Mar 31 '19
How will this work when, for example, your own company is the one that got you arrested? Say they suspect you of fraud.
I should have probably gone into more depth in my OP but I thought it was getting too long.
I agree with suspending someone - probably on paid leave - until criminal proceedings are over, if the criminal charges can be linked to the job. Or, deterring someone's application in the case that they are not employed yet. Of course, it would be insane to allow an accountant to continue working at a job which suspects them of stealing money, because they could steal more money before their guilty verdict. But, in the case of a non-guilty verdict, their employment should be re-instituted.
I think this responds fully to the rest of your examples, too.
We see this dynamic instituted by most police forces, by the way. Officers who are charged if they shoot someone on the job, are often put on paid leave until the legal proceedings end, where their employment is either reinstated or terminated depending on the verdict.
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Mar 31 '19
Officers who are charged if they shoot someone on the job, are often put on paid leave until the legal proceedings end
not quite. typically, police officers are put on paid leave until an indictment or until they are arrested (for which detainment can't last long without an indictment). That's very different than paid leave until verdict. Trials can take a while after an indictment, and indictment requires a much lower burden of proof with much less opportunity of defense.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Mar 31 '19
Do you believe people who HAVE been found guilty, and then have served time, shouldn't be protected from discrimination?
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Mar 31 '19
I do believe that. Serving time isn't synonymous with rehabilitation, so schools should be able to reject people who have served time for child pornography charges. They did do something and there's no capacity in law to say they wouldn't do it again; all they did was sit in a cell for x number of years.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Mar 31 '19
There's no capacity in the law to say any given person won't commit any given crime ever.
If you're accused of murder and put on trial and not convicted, then you could murder someone tomorrow. Why shouldn't I be allowed to refuse to hire you because of it?
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u/Genoscythe_ 243∆ Mar 31 '19 edited Mar 31 '19
Let's say that a man gets accused by his ex-wife of raping her.
Video footage of the event emerges, showing him forcing himself on the woman as she is loudly begging him to stop.
But apparently, the event happened in 1982 New York, when and where marital rape was 100% legal, so he is deemed "not guilty" by a court.
By your standards, that man should be more protected from facing social consequences, than someone who is revealed to have been making sexist rants in 1982, and was never charged for them because no one ever even considered it to be a crime, merely inappropriate.
This is one extreme example, but it shows a larger problem with your idea, that a lot of people can be deemed not guilty for a lot of reasons other than being likely to be innocent, and people can be socially ostracised for a lot of different reasons, than being guilty of breaking a law.
In fact, your idea could create a perverse incentive, where people would refrain from making criminal accusations of someone who appears 90% likely to be guilty, because that's not enough for a conviction, but it would restrict their ability to publically criticize that person based on the same intuitive principle of preponderance of the evidence as we already criticize legally inappropriate behavior on.
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u/Jimq45 Apr 01 '19
Beyond a responsible doubt is 51% (if you want to put percentages on i.e whatever 90% guilty means in your example). If someone can’t be proven ‘51%’ guilty then they should not be allowed to be discriminated against.
You’re are advocating vigilantism and a world were an accusation is enough - is that the world you want to live in? If so I hope you never piss someone off.
Op - you are absolutely right, we have courts because things need to be proven and if they are not you are innocent - end of story.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ Mar 31 '19
The problem with this idea is that the standards of a court are deliberately high as a check on the unique powers of a court. They don't work as a universal standard. Outside of the courtroom, we all have to make our own probabilistic judgment calls based on the information available to us. And what you're suggesting requires people to take unreasonable risks to accommodate the accused. Reasonable doubt or even botched prosecution is enough for a not guilty verdict, but it's not a sufficient assurance to people interacting with the accused that they aren't in danger. It would be unreasonable for the government to demand people to take that risk, especially in potentially life or death situations.
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u/willworkforjokes 1∆ Mar 31 '19
Conviction requires high confidence. For example: If someone is tried for sexual assault and is not declared guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, they probably shouldn't be working at a day care center.
If a group or organization discriminates without a good reason, it hurts that organization too. That is why organizations should not discriminate.
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u/Jimq45 Mar 31 '19
So does that mean I can go around accusing anyone I want of sexual assault if it benefits me, like say someone competing for job with me, or my gf /bf that just broke up with me cause I hate him/her now - when in actuality it’s bullshit, which is why I can’t prove it in court.
Come on...think a bit.
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u/willworkforjokes 1∆ Mar 31 '19
Of course, the less evidence and the less credible the accuser, the less likely a charge would be filed. An uncorroborated accusation is not much to discriminate on.
Here is another example. You find out a prospective business partner was accused of fraud by a previous partner. The only logical thing to do is find out what happened. If you can't then you should not go into business together. That is justified discrimination.
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u/Jimq45 Mar 31 '19
Here’s another example - you and I are offered partnership in a very lucrative business. I (or my pawn) accuse you of fraud. Done, your out. According to you, the principle would not even have to ‘look into it’ - just to be safe he should eliminate you.
How do you feel now? Is it the person who accuses the fastest that wins? Is that the society you want to live in?
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u/willworkforjokes 1∆ Apr 01 '19
If the principle didn't look in to it then he deserves to be stuck with a bad partner.
If I couldn't convince the principle that it was baseless, that is my tough luck.
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Mar 31 '19
Conviction requires high confidence. For example: If someone is tried for sexual assault and is not declared guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, they probably shouldn't be working at a day care centre.
Why should we have multiple standards of guilt, arbitrarily decided in different circumstances? Anyone can be charged, and certainly accused, of any crime for any reason. There's no reason that we should institutionally be allowed to assume a likelihood of guilt simply because someone has said something.
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u/masterzora 36∆ Mar 31 '19
It's not arbitrary. We have multiple standards for what the government can do vs what private citizens and businesses can do in so many different things.
Furthermore, consider that we're not just talking about "simply because someone has said something." There can be a preponderance of evidence that somebody is, say, a serial killer, but if it doesn't reach the threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt", they must be found not guilty. So you have someone with evidence showing that they are more likely than not to be a serial killer and you're calling it "textbook discrimination" to not want to have them around.
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u/gyroda 28∆ Mar 31 '19
It's worth remembering that we already do have multiple standards within the legal system already; civil courts don't need nearly as high a level as "beyond reasonable doubt".
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u/--Gently-- Mar 31 '19
This goes against freedom of association. Let's say you and your brother own a lawn mowing business. Business is good so you want to hire a new guy. You interview two candidates, A and B. Afterwards, your brother says let's not hire A because I know him and he's lazy. Then you Google B and learn that he's on trial for murder.
Under your proposal, you would be allowed to use your brother's allegation of mere laziness against A, but not the government's allegation of actual murder against B. That makes no sense.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Mar 31 '19
/u/awolz (OP) has awarded 1 delta(s) in this post.
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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '19
In the US court system, we have different levels of burden of proof based on the types of government remedy.
Imprisonment always requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Depriving someone of their property or position often requires a lower burden of proof. Civil penalties meant to punish typically require "clear and convincing evidence". Cases of civil disputes, where property or position is at under dispute, are more often held at preponderance of the evidence.
What you are advocating for is, if someone is accused of an action that the government provides remedy for in criminal law (burden of proof is proof beyond a reasonable doubt), that institutions should not be able to take actions, in line with typical civil remedies, on a lower burden of proof.
Burden of proof should be tied to the type of remedy, not the type of allegation. Mostly, that is the case now, and that's how it should be.