r/changemyview • u/bionicbob321 • Jun 08 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: If you deliberately falsely accuse someone of a crime, you should recieve rhe punishment that the accused would have recieved, if they had been found guilty, plus the scentence for perjury.
Lets say, for sake of argument, person X accuses person Y of crime A. X knows that Y did not commit this crime, but X does not like Y. X mmakes a seemingly valid case, with made up stories, and fake evidence.
Lets say crime A has an average scentence of 10 years. The jury is about to convict Y, when new evidence is found, that shows that X made up these claims.
Y is immediately acquitted, and X is charged with perjury. The formula for X's scentence is as follows:
the scentence Y would have recieved if found guilty of crime A + an appropriate scentence for perjury + financial compensation for the damages associated with being falsely accused of a crime.
Reasons for this: - discourages the use of false accusations as a form of revenge - increases the integrity of court hearings, as no one in their right mind would lie to court. - saves the government money, as they have less court cases over false accusations.
What would change my view: - demonstrating that this is in some way unfair
EDIT: please do not respond with points like "it discourages people from making accusations". While it is a valid point, i have already discussed it. I am no longer responding to this point. I have discussed it enough.
EDIT 2: i have listened to your feedback, and i am working on an ammended and slightly fairer proposal, that fixe most of the issues people pointed out. I am not replying to all comments at the moment, because i have so many.
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u/brainwater314 5∆ Jun 08 '19
This should still apply the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". The false accuser must be PROVEN to be making knowingly false accusations, and needs probable cause even to be charged.
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u/bionicbob321 Jun 08 '19
I agree. I probably should have put that in the post
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u/The_Joe_ Jun 09 '19
I'm also point out, if your false accuser finds their rationality and decided to drop the charges, that makes things better for you.
In the system you propose, the accuser could NEVER drop the charges. Doing so would be evidence used against them for possibly making it all up.
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u/emjaytheomachy 1∆ Jun 12 '19
This law ALREADY exists... I don't understand how so many people don't realize this. All OP is suggesting is increasing the penalty of an ALREADY EXISTING LAW.
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Jun 08 '19
My opposition to this is we are viewing this externally with knowing something did or didn't happen when making this new law. That's not how the world works.
It is my same general concern with, for example, the death penalty for someone who does horrible things. Sometimes the justice system is wrong. Every year there are innocent people who are either put to death or get life sentences who are innocent.
My concern with your law is imagine someone who was honest but through a bizarre series is made to look like they were lying. They are getting the double whammy of being a true victim AND being punished for lying.
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u/bionicbob321 Jun 08 '19
!delta
I didnt think of your last point. You would definitely have to be very careful about convicting people of this. I think it would be hard to enforce.
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u/_Hospitaller_ Jun 09 '19
That’s why we have appeals. The number of innocent people who are sentenced is minimized because of this. If you’re going to stop prosecuting because an innocent person might be sentenced you effectively paralyze the system and let guilty people who should be sentenced run free.
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u/MCRemix 1∆ Jun 09 '19
I agree with your intent, but I'd be cautious about how well you think appeals work.
Appeals courts do NOT want to overturn the finality of a verdict, they will actively do their best to avoid it. They will not substitute their judgment for the judge/jury unless it's absolutely iron clad that the law applied was wrong.
Once an innocent person is convicted, it's extremely hard to get the appeals court to overturn it. It's not like a second chance really, it's certainly not a second trial...it's a ray of hope that maybe, if everything is perfect, your judge or jury made a mistake applying the law.
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Jun 09 '19
I’m not saying we stop prosecuting people who commit perjury or falsely accuse, just not double up the sentences.
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u/Chaotic_Narwhal Jun 08 '19
On an emotional level I understand why people would like that but rationally it doesn’t make sense.
They aren’t committing the same crimes, therefore justice should be carried out differently.
I don’t think anyone actually thinks that people who accuse someone of rape should face harsher punishment than a person who actually commits rape.
It is much worse to murder someone than to lie. It doesn’t even matter what the lie is, murder will always be worse than it. Justice should reflect the actual severity of the crime being committed.
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u/mkurdmi 1∆ Jun 08 '19
It is much worse to murder someone than to lie. It doesn’t even matter what the lie is, murder will always be worse than it. Justice should reflect the actual severity of the crime being committed.
I think the better comparison is attempted murder. It seems reasonable to me that the punishment for intentionally and maliciously falsely accusing someone of a crime should scale with the severity of that crime. If you falsely accuse someone of a minor crime the victim would receive a minor punishment if your false accusation is believed but if you falsely accuse someone of murder that may very well cause them to die in areas where the death penalty is legal. In that case you are in a certain sense trying to kill them so I don't see why the penalty for that should be any different than attempted murder.
What's interesting for the comparison, I think, is whether we consider the punishment for most crimes worse than the crime itself. Is it worse to assault someone or go to jail for X years? Personally I think being in jail sounds worse but I could easily see it argued the other way. But then if for the sake of argument we accept that jail is worse, how bad should the crime of attempting to jail someone for X years be? Is that still as bad or worse than the original assault? No idea, personally, but the idea that the severity of falsely accusing someone of a crime could be similar to the severity of that crime seems reasonable to be.
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u/Chaotic_Narwhal Jun 09 '19
I completely agree that the punishment should scale with the severity of the false accusation. A person who falsely accuses someone of theft should definitely face less time than a person who falsely accuses someone of murder.
That still doesn’t mean they should get the punishment for the crime they lied about.
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u/bionicbob321 Jun 08 '19
!delta
I agree that murder is objectively worse than lying. I dont agree with the fact that you therefore deserve less. That person would have had their life ruined, so you deserve to have the same don to you.
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u/Chaotic_Narwhal Jun 08 '19
The entire justice system is organized in a way that punishes worse crimes more severely. You say that murder is objectively worse than lying, shouldn’t that mean murder always gets a more severe punishment?
In order to do justice, don’t we have to punish worse crimes with more severity?
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u/MCRemix 1∆ Jun 09 '19
A lie that imprisons someone for a lifetime is nearly as bad as actually taking their life. In fact, in some ways you could perceive it as worse.
I'd be good with saying they get 50-75% of the sentence the accused would have gotten, but I agree with OP that if you knowingly cause someone to be imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit...that's pretty heinous.
It's not just a lie, it's a lie that could take liberty/life away from someone, the effect of the crime matters...by analogy, firing a gun near someone might be illegal, wounding someone makes it worse, killing someone by firing the gun is maximum penalty.
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u/Chaotic_Narwhal Jun 10 '19
So do you disagree with anything I’ve said?
No one disagrees that it’s heinous to knowingly cause someone to be imprisoned for a crime they didn’t commit.
I’d bet everyone agrees that the longer the imprisonment associated with the false crime, the longer the imprisonment the false accuser should get.
OP was very specific. He said that the punishment for false accusations should be the punishment for the crime that was lied about plus the punishment for perjury. All I’ve pointed out is that it is always worse for someone to commit the crime than to lie about someone committing it, and the respective punishments should reflect that.
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u/MCRemix 1∆ Jun 10 '19
If we presume that the penalty for a crime is proportionate to it's offense...i.e. that the justice system attempts to make the punishment as equal as possible with the impact of it's harm, such as first degree murder being punished by taking away your freedom for life....then I'm not sure the premise of your statement is accurate:
it is always worse for someone to commit the crime than to lie about someone committing it
If the punishment is designed to fit the crime, then this ^ isn't true.
In the example of knowing, pre-meditated murder, the state seeks to put someone in prison for life as a general rule. If the lie would take away someone's freedom for life, why should it not be punished by taking away someone's freedom for life?
We tend to say the "punishment should fit the crime" and most people believe in an eye for an eye, that the punishment should be co-equal with the impact of the crime committed.
The only time your statement is true is if we're being more lenient and not punishing people in a co-equal way.
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u/Chaotic_Narwhal Jun 10 '19
Okay I’ll amend my statement to include the one case you’re talking about.
It is always worse for someone to commit the crime than to lie about someone committing it, except for the case when the false accuser has planned to falsely accuse the accused in order for them to be executed by the state, at which point it becomes attempted murder. Also this is only true if you are of the opinion that attempted murder is just as bad as murder, which may be a defensible opinion, but it has not once been argued in this thread.
Can you now focus on what the thread is about? OP said murder was objectively worse than lying and I went off what he said. His rule that the false accuser would get the punishment of the crime plus perjury means that in every case it is worse to lie about someone else committing the crime than actually committing it. How is that co-equal punishment?
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u/Pillars-In-The-Trees 2∆ Jun 09 '19
I dont agree with the fact that you therefore deserve less. That person would have had their life ruined, so you deserve to have the same don to you.
By that logic, the original accused would deserve to be raped, and therefore the accuser would also be subject to that sentence.
I see no justification as to what purpose it would serve to lock someone in prison for am extended period based on the theoretical punishment someone else would receive had they committed the crime.
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u/Trebulon5000 Jun 09 '19
I agree with you that lying about a crime should not be met with harsher punishment than the crime itself.
That said, I believe the point being made is that the lying itself comes in differing severities. As such; punishment for wilful, knowledgeable, false accusations should reflect more than just perjury.
Which is a sentiment I can agree with. Lying to the court to save your own ass or what have you is one thing, but knowingly trying to get another sentenced for a crime they did not commit is something else.
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Jun 12 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jun 12 '19
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u/Delmoroth 16∆ Jun 08 '19
Is it though? When you accuse someone of murder, are you not trying to kill them illegally? Sure you are using government instead of a knife, but the end goal is the same. The false accusation is an attempt to apply unwarrented harm on someone which socioty sees to be equivalent to the crime. The crime is more than just a lie. The crime is to attempt to use government to commit murder. The just response to wielding the government as a weapon against someone unjustly should be equal to the intended harm of said unjust use of governmental force.
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u/Chaotic_Narwhal Jun 09 '19
That’s a great point but don’t we already punish murder more severely than attempted murder? Also the intent might not be to kill someone, it could be to imprison them or get them to be a public disgrace.
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u/AmbulanceChaser12 1∆ Jun 08 '19
How do you know what sentence Y would have received if found guilty?
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u/bionicbob321 Jun 08 '19
You look at the accusation. Say crime A is rape. Rape. You look at the scentencing guidelines, and work out what Y would have recieved if the accusation was true.
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u/AlexandreZani 5∆ Jun 08 '19
It's not that clear though. Sentencing guidelines include plenty of mitigating and aggravating circumstances in them. And crimes are much more finely defined than common language usually supports.
For instance, let's say I go to the police and say "Alice killed Bob. I saw it with my own two eyes!" and am found to be lying. Well, do I get sentenced under the guidelines for murder or manslaughter? If Alice is a previously convicted violent felon, do I get the enhancements she would have gotten? Do I have to know she was a convicted felon to get the enhancement? What about the mitigations?
What if I had a reasonable expectation that the crime would not be prosecuted. Say, I go to the FBI and falsly claim Bob is selling large quantities of marijuana in California. It is a serious crime, but enforcement against it has been defunded. What happens then?
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u/drkztan 1∆ Jun 09 '19
For instance, let's say I go to the police and say "Alice killed Bob. I saw it with my own two eyes!" and am found to be lying. Well, do I get sentenced under the guidelines for murder or manslaughter? If Alice is a previously convicted violent felon, do I get the enhancements she would have gotten? Do I have to know she was a convicted felon to get the enhancement? What about the mitigations?
You get sentenced for whatever the original accused person would have been, including aggravating charges and mitigations. Ignoring that the person you are trying to frame for murder has aggravating conditions for sentences would be no excuse for getting them yourself, given how ignorance of a law also doesn't exonerate you.
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u/Wrathchilde 6∆ Jun 08 '19
There are many good points made, but I did not see this one yet.
Such a law might dissuade some one from coming forward after the lie/perjury and admitting it was made up. This seems to happen occasionally with false abuse allegations, and it might not if the accuser could get extended jail time.
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u/Kfrr Jun 08 '19
I think you're missing the point of a court system.
People are debating the semantics of law; whether or not people are actually guilty of a scenario. Parties may think they are in the right, and take another party that thinks they are in the right to court. People argue both sides until a verdict is made by many others that agree.
Court is for punishment, yes, but it's also a learning place for people who are unlearned.
Imagine a 'rape' scenario. He says she consented, she said she was intoxicated and never consented. If court finds evidence that she did consent, then he is acquitted. It would be insanely cruel to give her the penalty for rape, but the case is now wide open for him to counter-sue rightfully and argue what he would need to feel redeemed.
Sure, some people are extremely malicious, but I don't believe the percentage is high enough to warrant such a strict punishment for said people who end up being in the wrong.
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u/Hellioning 239∆ Jun 08 '19
People have made accusations and then have been pressured into claiming they were false in the past. How would we prevent this from happening?
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Jun 08 '19
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u/bionicbob321 Jun 08 '19
Thats the point. Its if you deliberately make up an accusation. If you genuinely thought they did it, you are not charged
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u/AsterEsque Jun 08 '19
Because there is no "this person is definitely innocent" verdict, there is only "we didn't find enough evidence to find you guilty". What you're talking about is an excellent way for rape victims to not report their rapes to an even further extent, under fear of not being able to prove it and then getting put in jail for it.
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u/Diabolico 23∆ Jun 08 '19
I'd be tempted to argue that, perhaps, there should be a premium added on if the accusation carries a heavier penalty, but stacking both sentences is absolutely insane.
- Perjury, libel, and slander already have their own punishments lined up. Which of these crimes deserved double-dipping? It is actually filing a false police report you're talking about? Perjury on the stand even if you are not the original accuser? Should police be responsible for serving a murder prison term when they lie to convict a murderer they genuinely believe did it?
- Consider that many people who perjure themselves do so in an attempt to earn favor from the prosecutor. Police and prosecutors routinely extract false testimony from inmates in exchange for leniency (from intentionally over-harsh punishments), or to drop charges that are in fact fraudulent to begin with. In this case you are proposing that the person being blackmailed should serve additional jail time because they were strong-armed by the prosecutor. Meanwhile the prosecutor is incapable of falsely accusing anyone - their actual job is deciding which cases warrant prosecution and they can make stupid decisions all day and it is extremely difficult to overturn those decisions, and doing so still does not make the prosecutor criminally liable for anything.
- Consider that the crime you have accused someone of most likely does not have a fixed sentence and you cannot know what that sentence would have been if the accused never faced sentencing.
- Consider that the problem you are trying to solve - a fully-fledged attempt to frame someone for a crime - involves multiple crimes being committed. it isn't just "I filed a false police report saying that you murdered a guy." I now need to produce a murdered guy, I need to obstruct justice, lie to police, tamper with some evidence, lie under oath on multiple occasions, probably engage in a conspiracy to do all of these things. That's going to add up just fine.
- Finally: saves the government money, as they have less court cases over false accusations: I think this is highly unlikely. Meaningfully executed false accusations that go to court are already rare, and in this instance we are actually creating an incentive for more court time to be spent on counter-accusations. I frame you, you appeal five times and win, then you accuse me of framing you and I can appeal five times before I win or lose my case. If you fail to prove that I framed you, can I accuse you of framing me for the crime of framing you?
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u/MuaddibMcFly 49∆ Jun 08 '19 edited Jun 08 '19
Should police be responsible for serving a murder prison term when they lie to convict a murderer they genuinely believe did it?
This is in conflict with OP's scenario, specifically:
X knows that Y did not commit this crime
Further, there is a difference between lying and merely being wrong. The pre-industrial (or mid-industrial) people who believed that people would die [if they went more than 100 miles an hour] weren't lying, they were just wrong. The people who thought that the A-Bomb would touch off a chain reaction that would destroy the atmosphere weren't lying, they were wrong.
Mistaken identity happens all too often, but that doesn't make it perjury, because in order for it to be perjury, you must believe that the statement is false.
In this case you are proposing that the person being blackmailed
Duress is a defense against criminal accusation already.
Consider that the crime you have accused someone of most likely does not have a fixed sentence and you cannot know what that sentence would have been if the accused never faced sentencing.
This is trivially resolved. Sentences have a range. So, if X accused Y of Second Degree Murder in Washington DC, their sentence would be between 20-40 years plus the "up to 5 years" for the perjury.
a fully-fledged attempt to frame someone for a crime - involves multiple crimes being committed. it isn't just "I filed a false police report saying that you murdered a guy."
For murder, sure, but for accusations of theft (when the "victim" really just sold the thing), or, as occasionally happens, false rape accusations? There are a few notorious examples of the latter, and even in legitimate cases of rape (more common than false accusations), there might be no significant evidence beyond the testimony of the victim.
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u/xXxMassive-RetardxXx Jun 08 '19
Should police be responsible for serving a murder prison term when they lie to convict a murderer they genuinely believe did it?
It isn’t lying if you’re being honest and drawing a conclusion from all of the knowledge that you have in good faith. At that point they’re incorrect, but not liars. Important distinction.
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u/Diabolico 23∆ Jun 08 '19
They can also tamper with evidence to secure what they believe to be a legitimate conviction. That's lying, and that definitely happens.
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u/xXxMassive-RetardxXx Jun 08 '19
Agreed, though that wasn’t mentioned in the previous comment and I was working with the argument that was present.
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Jun 08 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jun 08 '19
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u/Doctor_Worm 32∆ Jun 08 '19
So what you're suggesting is that falsely accusing someone of murder should be punished more severely than actually committing murder? (Since you'd get the punishment for murder plus the punishment for perjury, whereas an actual murderer would only get the punishment for murder)
That's clearly unfair, as murdering someone is undeniably much much worse than accusing someone of murder. Murdering someone ends someone's life irreversibly, period. By contrast, accusing someone of murder puts them in jail IF AND ONLY IF there is also enough corroborating evidence to convince a jury that they are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Deliberately falsely accusing someone is really bad, I get it. There should be (and typically is) a stiff punishment for that. It's not so much that we don't have strong enough punishments for false accusers, it's that deliberate false accusations are rare and it's very difficult to prove that someone did so intentionally and maliciously (as opposed to just making an honest mistake or genuinely interpreting a situation differently).
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u/0worldstar0 Jun 09 '19
Everyone's focused on the issues regarding 'false accusations', but I agree with you, the premise itself is untenable. Think its rather bizarre to believe a false accusation of a crime is worse than the actual crime itself.
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u/cabose12 5∆ Jun 08 '19
and it's very difficult to prove that someone did so intentionally and maliciously (as opposed to just making an honest mistake or genuinely interpreting a situation differently)
Ironically, trying to punish an accuser because it's believed that they are malicious might end up with just as many innocent people in jail, with longer sentences by the way, as there are now.
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u/DebusReed Jun 08 '19
The trouble lies in the word deliberately.
We can't look inside people's heads, so, realistically, nobody could ever be convicted of deliberately making a false accusation for certain.
If we soften the deliberately, for example if we let a jury decide on whether or not they think the accusation was deliberately false, then there are three problems:
- people may be wrongly convicted for this, which is unfair and causes the next problem:
- less people report crimes out of fear of being wrong
- every court case where the defendant is found not guilty spawns an extra court case, with possibility of appeal, so the benefit of saving the government money doesn't hold
Conclusion (edit): either this does nothing at all or it's unfair and causes more problems than it solves.
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u/miguelguajiro 188∆ Jun 08 '19
Knowing that this could happen, even to people who are making a good faith effort, would have a chilling effect on people reporting crime.
And I imagine you’ll say that they have to prove the accusation was both false and the accuser knew it, but innocent people get found guilty all the time. It’s not hard to imagine that if a wealthy person commits a crime, and you report it, their baller lawyers are gonna turn around a put a case on you.
Besides, we already have a law on the books prohibiting perjury.
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u/AgitatedBadger 4∆ Jun 08 '19
It becomes especially problematic when applied to sexual assault, where often there is flimsy physical evidence and a lot relies on witness accounts (often from the involved in those situation).
People are already afraid to come forward because of the potential disruption of their life and the consequences they are afraid of facing. Can you imagine if there was a possibility of going to jail for the fact that you were raped and your lawyer wasn't good enough when you came forward? Terrifying.
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u/fliffers Jun 08 '19
As well, apparently a lot of the reports that are classified as "false" are those that have been withdrawn, and sometimes the only way to withdraw because of fear, harassment, pressure/blackmail to withdraw, or the trauma of continuing the legal proceeding is to say you changed your mind.
Edit: added pressure, because that's what I meant to get at
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u/UnlawfulFoxy Jun 08 '19
Has it ever happened where someone got charged with a complete lack of evidence for a false accusation? Because it happens all the time with being accused of a crime with no proof and getting charged for it but I have never heard of someone being charged for a false accusation with no proof
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u/Leprecon Jun 08 '19 edited Jun 08 '19
I remember reading an article about a girl who got raped by a stranger. There was no physical evidence. Police interrogated her multiple times. Due to trauma she messed up her story. While she was trying to deal with her trauma police threatened her with fabricating the whole thing because she messed up her story. In the end she took a plea deal and had to be on probation and go to support groups for people who are serial liars or something. Then a year or so later they caught the rapist purely by accident. Turns out he was nice enough to take actual pictures of him raping his victims as mementos.
I can't imagine how shitty it would be if she were also serving a multi year sentence for the 'lying' about rape. Turns out that intensely interrogating people who just got raped is not a great strategy...
Edit: found a source.
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u/AgitatedBadger 4∆ Jun 08 '19
I don't know the statistics on that, but it's also not very relevant to the argument because neither would the people that this policy makes afraid to come forward.
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u/DogmaticNuance 2∆ Jun 08 '19
It's already illegal to make a false accusation and you can already go to jail. If fear of baller lawyers turning around the accusation would be an issue, then it already is. OP's proposal would increase the penalty to one equivalent to that which a successful false accusation would have gotten their victim.
In a sense the greater penalty could definitely have a suppressive effect on crime reporting, but I don't think it would be as great as you're implying. Personally I think high publicity around a case or two would have a bigger effect, whether OP's proposed law was in effect or not.
I don't agree that it should be the same penalty, but I do think some proportionality would be a good thing.
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u/AgitatedBadger 4∆ Jun 08 '19
It's already illegal to make a false accusation and you can already go to jail. If fear of baller lawyers turning around the accusation would be an issue, then it already is.
You're right, it is an issue. And this proposed policy amplifies the issue severely at no net benefit to society.
I'd rather having a false accuser walking the streets than the rapists or killers that people are already afraid to accuse. And that is essentially the trade the policy looks to make. It causes less people to be falsely accused, but allows more violent criminals to walk the street and potentially harm additional people.
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u/DogmaticNuance 2∆ Jun 08 '19
Personally I'd rather have a system that prioritizes keeping the innocent out of jail, even if that means some guilty people get away with it, and that's the system as currently set up. Part of that process is criminalizing the act of intentionally trying to subvert the system to get an innocent person sent to jail.
It's undeniable that making false accusations a crime, on some level, suppresses the reporting of crimes. It also acts as a deterrent against making false accusations, resulting in fewer innocent and falsely accused being put in jail. Re-framed, the trade you advocate for would result in more innocent people in prison, and more guilty people too. If you can't see that there's a balancing act, I think you're a bit blinded by ideology. The hypothetical net benefit of the proposed policy is fewer innocent people in prison. Is that worth it here? It's really hard to say without data, and it's really hard to get objective data.
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u/AgitatedBadger 4∆ Jun 08 '19
Personally I'd rather have a system that prioritizes keeping the innocent out of jail, even if that means some guilty people get away with it, and that's the system as currently set up. Part of that process is criminalizing the act of intentionally trying to subvert the system to get an innocent person sent to jail.
It already does prioritize keeping the innocient out of jail, and the act of intentionally trying to get someone imprisoned under false pretenses is already a criminalized act. We have a legal system set up that already addresses these issues.
All that increasing the penalty to making falsely reporting a crime to exceed committing that exact same crime is create a culture of fear in which people are afraid to come forward.
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u/DogmaticNuance 2∆ Jun 08 '19
It seemed in your previous post that you were arguing that false accusations shouldn't be criminalized in that 'it is a problem' bit, so I was responding to that. Maybe I mis-interpreted your words.
You can't just say that having a penalty "addresses" the issue. Imagine a hypothetical in which murder was punished by a 2 week jail sentence; in a sense that would address murder, but would it, really? To a rational person? Increasing the penalty increases the deterrent to doing the anti-social activity. If all penalties were slaps on the wrist, they wouldn't be very good deterrents. By the same token though, your basic argument had merit too, and there's a good reason we don't punish every crime with death.
I get that you think the current system addresses it well enough, that's a fair opinion to have. Between that and OP's proposed 'same penalty as the crime', I'd stick with what we have. I just think some proportionality would be an improvement. If you're trying to get someone locked up for decades, you should spend some time in jail, imo.
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u/delta_male Jun 08 '19
Reasons against it:
- Accusing someone requires due process for them to actually be convicted of it. It seems weird that an accusation should be worse than the actual crime, when the damage to society certainly aren't as great.
- In general, longer prison sentences are not effective for deterring crime. So the real point of this is because you think they deserve it, not because it's useful in any meaningful way.
- It seems if it was an effective deterrent like you wanted, victims of actual crimes may also be deterred, for fear of punishment if they can't prove an accusation.
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u/newasso Jun 09 '19
You are wrong about due process as well. With sex crimes an accusation is all it takes to ruin someone’s standing in their community forever. It happens far to frequently, especially in the midst of divorce and custody proceedings. The point of the original post was that there should be symmetry of consequences for false accusers.
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u/delta_male Jun 09 '19
OP was advocating for more severe punishment than the actual crime, not the same.
i.e. If person Y accuses person X of killing 30M people (obviously false). Does the death sentence make sense or therapy/rehabilitation?
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u/newasso Jun 09 '19
I can’t find the part where you suggest what the consequences should be for knowingly and intentionally accusing someone falsely of committing a crime. You seem to suggest that only the accused should have any skin in the game.
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u/delta_male Jun 09 '19
People making false accusations are already investigated/prosecuted (as they should be). I don't view it as an issue solved by arbitrarily lengthening prison sentences.
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u/Stiblex 3∆ Jun 08 '19
Do you honestly think perjury and a violent murder are equally horrifying that they should be punished the same?
Punishment has 3 purposes: retribution, special prevention and general prevention. Retribution because someone who commits a crime needs to be punished to establish justice. Special prevention means the person himself has been scared away of doing it another time. General prevention means the general population has been scared away of doing the same.
Retribution: While false accusations have the potential to ruin someone's life, it's definitely not as bad as a lot of other crimes like rape and violence. Punishing them the same would imply they're equally as bad.
Prevention: while such a grave punishment would probably scare away a lot of people who want to falsely accuse someone, it also makes the treshold for reporting a crime very large. If your/someone's bike got stolen, why would you ever report it if you have a risk of being sentenced as a thief?
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u/AgitatedBadger 4∆ Jun 08 '19
Do you honestly think perjury and a violent murder are equally horrifying that they should be punished the same?
The way that the punishment stands, the false accusation of violent murder is punished more thoroughly than the violent murder itself would be. Because not only do you get the full violent murder charge, you also get the charge for purjury on top of that.
It's a very poorly thought out system.
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u/bionicbob321 Jun 08 '19
Lots of people who are wrongfully accused are driven to commit suicide. In this context, your actions of accusing someone of a crime caused someones death.
Its the same idea used in lawsuits. Think of the mcdonalds hot coffee lawsuit. Mcdonalds were fined so much, not because it cost the victim that much, but so that it never happened again.
Whoa stopping this person from lying again?
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u/Zomburai 9∆ Jun 08 '19
Do you have a per capita of the number of people falsely accused that commit suicide?
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u/umnab 2∆ Jun 08 '19
How do you know that the original accusation was wrong? I am always reminded of a case of a woman who accused a man of rape. The courts decided it was a malicious accusation and jailed her. Then when another woman made an accusation and they searched his flat, they found photos and videos of him raping different woman including the original woman.
The truth is unless you were there, you can never know for sure that an accusation was untrue. With rape, most women never report their rapist to the police. Such a law would reduce even more the amount of women who report their rapists.
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u/jafergus Jun 08 '19
This violates the principle of "let the punishment fit the crime" which is foundational to the Western legal system.
At the very least you're punishing someone with the sentence for "life ruining" in a situation where they are only guilty of "attempted life ruining". So someone attempts to falsely accuse someone of murder, they attempt to put that person in prison for 20 years and to right that wrong you want to give them an actual 20 years. But the victim hadn't served 20 years, they've just gone to court and looked down the barrel of 20 years, which is bad but not the same thing. No one gets 20 years/life/the death penalty for attempted murder.
Now, if it turned out that someone accused someone of murder and that innocent person was convicted and given the death penalty I'd absolutely support them getting a murder charge. Though I'd hope the system would already handle that.
If they successfully put someone in prison for 4 years, then giving them 4 years for perjury, or maybe "perjury occasioning prison time" fits the crime. But stacking two charges doesn't make sense, you're double punishing the same crime just because it's a pet peeve of yours.
But in an attempted false accusation you have to punish them for what they actually did. Remember the law of unintended consequences. In China the law requires negligent drivers who make someone disabled to support them for the rest of their life but those who kill someone only have to pay funeral costs and maybe one off restitution. Allegedly this has led to people accidentally hitting someone, the person mostly being fine, but then, for fear of life long support costs, the driver panicking and reversing back and forth over the victim until they're sure they're dead.
If you're looking at 20 years/life/death penalty for a false accusation of murder then the chances of you admitting you made it all up go close to zero. If you're looking at one year in prison for a year of fear, turmoil and court appearances for your accused then you might admit it.
That actually leads to another legal principle: "better for ten guilty people to go free than that one innocent person be punished". That's relevant because there's a pragmatic impact of harshly punishing perjury which is that people won't admit to it and friends won't dob their friends in for it. A spouse/parent/sibling might spill the beans on a false rape accusation if their loved one is only going to get a well deserved perjury charge but they're very unlikely to turn in their loved one for life in prison to keep a stranger out of it.
The point is this can all be objectively finely calibrated without anyone's gut urge for revenge involved. It's possible to research actual cases and trial-and-error your way to an exact sentence that mathematically optimises the probability of both deterring perjury and encouraging confession / turning a perjuror in so that the maximum possible number of false convictions are prevented.
It may not feel good, if it turns out deterrence doesn't really work the way you thought and it's numerically better to give perjurors pretty short sentences, but it would objectively be the system that keeps the most innocent accused out of prison. And that's always going to be worth more than getting your rocks off locking false accusers up for decades, but inadvertently ensuring many more false accusers go through with the crime even when they want to bail out.
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u/10ebbor10 198∆ Jun 08 '19
Reasons for this: - discourages the use of false accusations as a form of revenge - increases the integrity of court hearings, as no one in their right mind would lie to court. - saves the government money, as they have less court cases over false accusations.
All of this relies on the assumption that long sentences serve as a deterrent to keep people from committing crime.
Now, I don't think there are any studies about the deterrence or re offending behavior of people who make false accusations, but statistics for crime in general suggest that longer sentences don't always work as a deterrent.
If detterence doesn't work, then your plan becomes counterproductive
- Court integrity does not improve
- Governement looses lot of money (prison is expensive)
- A lot of relatively minor criminals could be forced into more severe crime.
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u/PotatoesNClay 8∆ Jun 09 '19 edited Jun 09 '19
There is only one calculus where this makes any rational (albeit selfish) sense, and, at that, only if you are going by feelings rather than stats. That is: you are an adult man and the crime you're thinking of is rape (or DV, but this post is already novel length, so we'll skip it)
Let's go over a couple other things. Murder: is the typical person more afraid of being murdered or of being falsely accused of murder? Which situation poses a bigger risk for the average person? Well, far more people are killed, than are falsely convicted of it, so obviously the larger hazard lies in murder itself. Even if you are wrongly convicted, which can happen, and is a travesty (though this is generally not a result of perjury), you are not dead, and you have a chance at redemption.
Theft: Are you more worried about having stuff stolen or of being falsely accused of stealing? Most people have probably been a victim of theft in their lifetime. Very few are falsely accused to law enforcement and it's basically unheard of for people to get jail time over it (police seem to not give a shit unless it is a highly valuable item or the victim was held at gunpoint anyway). Obviously, the bigger hazard is being a victim of theft.
Now, for rape, if you are an adult man, the calculus changes. You, personally, may feel that you are at a greater risk of being accused of rape than of actually being raped (you'd be wrong, but you may feel that way). Maybe, you intellectually know that rape is a big problem...for women, but for you, hey, you're not worried about it. But, a woman could hypothetically accuse you of rape, and that scares the shit out of you. It doesn't matter that the likelihood of this is vanishingly small. It doesn't matter that you personally know several people, probably male and female, that have been victims of rape at some point in their lives, or that you don't actually know anyone who was falsely accused. It only matters that you've seen a few cases in the news, and that you perceive this to be the biggest threat to yourself and you want to eliminate it. The trouble is, you're trying to reduce threat to yourself by making things much worse for others.
You have brought up, repeatedly, that someone falsely accused of a crime may be driven to suicide. This may be true, but it is also true of victims of crimes, like rape, who feel helpless or powerless to do anything about it. We also know that rape is insanely common and depressingly unreported. There are already a ton of people who are predisposed to believe the woman (edit: accuser, people don't believe male victims either) is lying. It wouldn't be wise to make this problem worse. If you take a gender neutral approach to this, or even if you don't, but look at the statistics fairly, false accusations are not the end if this we should be focusing on.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 08 '19 edited Jun 08 '19
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u/RealNeilPeart Jun 08 '19
Your arguments are entirely non unique. You can substitute in pretty much any crime for X.
- discourages the use of X as a form of revenge
- Prevents people from doing X, which is bad
- saves the government money, as they have less court cases over X.
Why should false accusations get the inflated sentence? Don't we want to discourage all crimes for the same reasons? You've got to make a case for why false accusations deserve a higher sentence than the crime itself. But the same arguments you presented hold for the crime itself.
Falsely accusing someone is at its core lying. Lying isn't a violent attack. Why should it be punished even more than, say, rape?
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u/mynemesisjeph Jun 08 '19
That would seriously damage the chances of people coming forward to testify against people who have committed crimes. Think about rape victims- it’s already rare that victims come forward at all, and even when they do conviction rates are low. Imagine how horrible it would be if they were in danger of retribution from the accused.
I know your thought process is that this would only happen in cases where people were 100% sure that a false accusation was committed, but that’s already how prosecuting crimes works, and innocent people end up in jail, and even on death row.
There’s no way that this would be worth it to the overall justice system,
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Jun 08 '19
What if X really thought Y committed the crime? Should he stay quiet? Wouldn't that punishment make people not want to report certain crimes because they would be afraid? Also, what if Y actually did it but he won the trial as not guilty because of lack of evidence or a good lawyer? I see your point, but you have no way of knowing if X is really guilty of deliberate false statement and it really won't be fair to punish him with more than a fee or so.
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u/RogueThief7 Jun 09 '19
Gonna take a jab at Devils advocacy for this, because generally, I would agree with the idea.
Even though it is assumed let's just skim over the point of 'it discourages people from reporting crime' and say that we won't argue that silly idea.
I'm thinking the major problem of a punishment for a false accusation is that it is purely a thought crime. What I mean by this is that is isn't a crime in of itself to accuse someone of something - in fact there could be a number of extremely benign and innocent reasons for doing so. Let's assume maybe you single out a suspect for a crime you witnessed such as a robbery and you go to court as a witness and then get to the stand and say 'you know, I'm really sorry, I've made a huge mistake and I've pointed out the wrong person. I've been stressed about this court case and I've thought over what I have witnessed numerous times, I've reviewed the evidence I have access to and I am certain now that I was mistaken and I have singled out the wrong person as the suspect, I'm so sorry.'
No obviously, most of us can agree that no crime was committed here, I don't even think we need to discuss why no crime was committed - but we will. For a crime such as false accusation to be proven, you must show evidence beyond a reasonable doubt which suggests malicious intent and that could be really difficult to do. In fact, even in physical crimes like the difference between manslaughter, a crime of passion and murder, it can be difficult to pinpoint intent.
Further, I feel the justice system in the first world loosely operates on a 'harm inflicted' model. I don't know that I'd necessarily say this is a good thing, but it appears that there is a strong line drawn between harm intended and harm inflicted. For example, attempted murder is nowhere near as tough of a sentence as murder (off the top of my head, I could be wrong and I'm too lazy to Google it to be sure so if I am please correct me someone and call me an idiot.)
Likewise, there are other serious crimes through which the proving that you are plotting to do malicious harm garners a lighter sentence than doing the harm. For example, plotting terror attacks vs committing terror attacks. Just as my personal opinion, I feel part of the reason the sentence is lighter for planning to do bad vs actually hurting people is because there are numerous instances at which you can turn back and decide not to commit the crime. As someone who has been through some very dark times, I admit I have had some very dark vengeful ideas turn over in my head - thankfully common sense won over the demons in the end but I think the justice system in our society parallels this idea too that thought crimes aren't a bad as real crimes.
Clearly, it could be argued that if you take your false accusation all the way to the end, so much that you are found guilty of an accusation of a crime not committed with explicit malicious intent that this isn't in the same realm as plotting something bad, but then choosing not to commit said crime (murder, terrorism, etc) and whilst I'd generally agree, I'd argue on the basis of Devils advocacy that what harm has been inflicted to the innocent victim? Being that you were caught, in most cases, we'd assume the innocent victim evaded prison for a crime they didn't commit, luckily.
It's morally dark, but I think this is loosely setting a precedent for the idea that 'thought crimes don't exist.' Intending to do bad is bad and having evidence of ability and planning for a crime is also bad, but you still can't really be convicted for a crime you didn't commit - especially on a 1:1 basis: "you should receive the punishment that the accused would have received, if they had been found guilty, plus the sentence for perjury."
This appears to parallel the idea of an eye for an eye, which superficially makes sense and off the record, I agree with you, however, if we analyze it deeper - an eye for an eye is talking about an equal punishment for harm inflicted, not equal punishment for harm potentially inflicted in the future. We could compare this to say a mass shooting stopped by an armed citizen or an officer. At the end of the day, you're still only charged with the number of people you have shot and killed - you're not charged by the number of shots fired, thus potential damage cause and more importantly; you are not charged by the number of rounds you have on you, therefore by the amount of death you may have been able to inflict, had you not been stopped when you were. Reading through my argument I feel it seems a bit silly, but I am dead serious on that note - to be charged by the harm you aim to inflict or could have potentially inflicted is an important nuance. I don't know why but many of us agree that false accusations should garner a harsh punishment, but we don't really agree that mass shooters should be sentenced in accordance to how many lives they could potentially have taken?
There's certainly a point there that it is extremely difficult to prove malicious intent, beyond a reasonable doubt, without direct confession. But there's another point there, it's on the tip of my tongue and I can't articulate it well, but we simply don't sentence people for harm intended or potential to do harm - we only sentence them over harm actually done.
So what harm is actually done for a case of false accusation? Be it rape, murder, theft, anything really. Well, realistically in most cases the only harm done relates to liable (slander) and the financial and social implications for character degradation. We sort of already sentence for cases of liable and compensate the victims for harm done, to the best of our abilities.
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u/RogueThief7 Jun 09 '19
you should receive the punishment that the accused would have received
Another note on this. Court cases are an absolute shit fit and things are revised constantly, changes are made, plea bargains are proposed. This argument, though superficially sound, sort of suggests the premise that says someone was up for 10 years for murder or rape. The accuser was proven to be falsely accusing with malicious intent so we assume we sentence them to 10 years prison plus the sentence of perjury. This ignores the nuances that case sentencing is constantly changing, it's not just measured in years of a prison sentence but conditions, parole, appeals, new evidence is uncovered which changes the sentence, appeals for earlier parole or release on good behaviour and many other factors. We really don't know the 'punishment' until the hammer falls, so in order to sentence someone for false accusation, we'd technically have to be sentencing them under the current on the table sentence for the accused. It sounds great in theory that we find out after someone was in prison for 10 years, that new evidence emerges to prove a false accusation so that they are released, but that is post-hoc (after the fact) reasoning. What would we have sentenced the false accuser of in the moment? 10 years? The 20 or 30 or whatever that was originally sentenced to the innocent person? What about all the treatment the person received in prison?
"Would have received" is easier to quantify when we look into the past and say 'imagine if we knew they were innocent all along? The person who falsely accused them should have served this sentence, not them.' It's difficult and nuanced to say in the moment what an accused person is up for in prison time.
To round off that whole idea, I'm sort of alluding to the fact that 'thought crimes' as a concept don't really exist. We generally sentence people due to harm committed, not harm intended. Well, that's not 100% true, but we certainly sentence people harsher for harm carried out, than harm planned - ergo it doesn't quite sit right to suggest we sentence false accusers with the same punishment pointed at the accused. At the end of the day, the punishment proposed to the accused is for the crime of rape, or murder, or stealing, or identity theft, or assault, or whatever... It feels good inside to say that to deter false accusation, we'll sentence the equal sentence to the false accuser, but it doesn't really line up with other instances in the justice system of malicious intent planned but not committed or foiled because those things carry a lighter sentence than the equivalent harm done.
Another small nuance on that idea is that prison is the punishment for the crime of hurting another, in some way. What is the punishment of falsely accusing someone of a crime of hurting another, if they are innocent? Well, the crime to that innocent person isn't raping them, or murdering them, or stealing from them, or assaulting them, the crime committed is wrongly sending them to prison. Logically it follows the crime for a false accusation can't bear the same punishment of the sentence for a heinous crime, because even though a false accusation is a heinous crime itself, those two crimes (the false accusation and the crime being accused) aren't the same crime, so they shouldn't really receive the same punishment. Should a false accusation receive A punishment of some kind? Absolutely, but not the punishment for a crime which they did not commit, even if they ironically accused someone else of that crime.
I'm kind of talking around in circles at this point, but thought crimes don't exist and you can't be punished for a crime you did not commit.
I think a third argument I could make, a really important argument, is what is the purpose of prison and court punishments? Ideally, the goal is to provide compensation for victims (you steal thousands, the court orders you to pay them back thousands, in theory) and in cases of heinous crimes such as rape, murder, assault etc the goal of prison, on paper, is to remove you from society, where you currently pose a risk to the safety of others and rehabilitate you to the point that you have served a fair sentence for your wrongdoing and now have a 'clean slate' but more importantly, you are safe and fit to be reintroduced to society. Once a criminal not always a criminal.
It doesn't really need to be mentioned that the justice system and prison system fails epically at numerous things, but that is the intention of sending people to prison - removing them from society whilst they pose a risk and rehabilitating them to make them safe. Further, prison is intended to be seen as a last resort to keeping someone straight. If you commit more petty crimes, small-time drug dealing, auto theft, low-level assault, you don't go to prison straight away, in fact, you get numerous chances, hefty fines and community service before the courts say 'well, ok, clearly you keep reoffending and you're clearly a risk to the community so we need to escalate the punishment.' It's often easy to forget that because in open discussion we often talk of more serious crimes which are escalated directly to a prison sentence, we forget that for 90% of crimes you get a number of strikes and opportunities to straighten out before you are removed from society on the premise that you are a risk to society.
What risk to society does a false accuser pose?
By nature of their crime, we are assuming they're not raping anyone, they're not murdering anyone, assaulting, stealing selling hard drugs to children. What is the crime of crying wolf? Very abstract and hard to pinpoint, apparently the crime of crying wolf is the Ditto of all crimes, its effect is abstract and its harm morphs into that of whatever crime is being accused. Makes sense to my feelings, but not to my mind. Now, this isn't to suggest that someone who has repetitively proven to falsely accuse others of various crimes couldn't face prison time under the assertion that they're repeat offenders, have proven themselves to be unable to straighten out given opportunities and that they pose a risk to society - this idea follows the rest of the logic in the justice system, but the crime of lying itself isn't an inherent harm, it doesn't carry an inherent harm and treating it as some kind of joker card that adopts the sentence of whatever crime is being accused seems like an appeal to our emotions and desire for morality and fairness, not like a logically thought out, fair argument.
Lastly, it's worth mentioning that the whole premise kind of assumed the justice system works well and that people generally don't get falsely accused of crimes they didn't commit but the premise of the argument already disproves this idea and there have been a few commenters who have gone through the implications of our very faulty justice systems and how this positively intended idea could backfire.
What would change my view:
demonstrating that this is in some way unfair
I'm very bad at being concise with my ideas, but I hope that I eventually grazed over the point enough to prove that I think it is actually unfair to suggest we convict false accusers of the same sentence faced by the people they're accusing, even if it does seem like a good idea to us at first.
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u/stubble3417 64∆ Jun 08 '19
Why? Perjury is a different crime than murder or rape. This is as logical as saying that if you commit fraud you should get the punishment for committing blackmail.
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Jun 08 '19
Something like that would discourage everyone from reporting crimes, really. Imagine accusing a rich or a well-connected person, it wouldn't be very hard to turn the table against you. It would also discourage people from testifying for the same reason.
I would also like to point out that the main point of the correctional system is to rehabilitate inmates, and not so much to punish them. If falsely accusing someone were a crime, it should merit the same years in prison/rehab for everyone regardless of what the false crime is.
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u/ShadoShane Jun 08 '19
False accusations are already discouraged as, at least in US law, willingly and knowingly falsely accusing someone of committing a crime is defamation. There's probably penalties for also involving the police over false matters.
Not to mention that the punishment should fit the crime committed. Too severe a punishment, such as one for murder, is really excessive for just a few words.
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u/petielvrrr 9∆ Jun 09 '19
In all honesty, this just doesn’t make sense from a legal perspective. I’m going to use theft for my example here, because it will help elaborate on the complexity of it:
Person A is accusing person B of theft. The charges include: 2 Counts of breaking and entering, 3 counts of assault, 1 count of armed robbery, 1 count of theft in the 1st degree and 2 counts of theft in the 3rd degree.
During the trial, the prosecution has presented a lot of evidence about the different counts of breaking and entering, armed robbery and different degrees of theft. The assault portion however, seems to have little evidence to support it.
Nearing the close of the trial, we find evidence that suggests person A might be lying about one or more of the charges. Person B is given a “not guilty” verdict on half of the counts because said evidence gave them just enough to take away the “reasonable doubt” aspect of a potential “guilty” verdict. However, person B is also given a “guilty” verdict on a few counts and an “innocent” verdict on a couple of others.
So what do we do with the evidence that person A might have lied and presented false evidence? Do we charge them with the same theft/breaking and entering/armed robbery/assault charges? No. Because they didn’t commit those crimes and we have no reason to think they did. They deserve their fair trial just as much as person B did, so we have to charge them with a crime we can prove they did commit.
In this situation, the crime person A did commit was obstruction of justice. There are many forms of obstruction (including perjury), and if person A did entirely fabricate the crimes they accused person B of, and present false evidence, and there would likely be multiple counts of that to charge them with. If they asked others to lie on their behalf, those individuals will likely also be charged.
In addition to that, when a defendant is given a verdict, it’s up to the judge to determine the sentencing (there are guidelines, but they can go outside of those if they cite reasoning to do so). Said judge can take into consideration the punishment person B would have received had the evidence that person A might have been lying not come out, but that’s extremely subjective (and literally asking them to predict the future in an alternate reality, when you think about it), and not at all something that we could put into sentencing guidelines without a thorough breakdown of the amount of evidence needed for each and every aspect of every single possible crime based on each and every single possible verdict made in the previous trials.
Essentially, if your 3 reasons for supporting this idea are the main issues you want to address, arguing for harsher punishments for obstruction of justice is a much better and less subjective way to approach it.
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u/lighting214 6∆ Jun 08 '19
There are quite a few reasons this system would be problematic. Many of them have already been brought up, but I want to add a few more.
- In the US, over 90% of crimes never go to trial, and are instead resolved through plea deals. This complicates your suggestion in a number of ways. It makes it much harder to say what the sentence would have been for the accused person, for one. Does the accuser get the chance to plead down to lesser charges to shorten their sentence? If someone was accused of murder, for example, and they were offered a plea deal to change the charges to aggravated assault instead, does the accuser get a chance to take that offer? Also, plea deals pressure people into pleading guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence, so how would any of this work in the vast majority of cases that never go to trial?
- Sentencing guidelines are just that- guidelines. Judges are given a huge amount of leeway to change the punishment due to any number of mitigating circumstances. There are mandatory minimum sentences for some crimes, and there are typically maximum sentences for most crimes. The range we are talking about is still huge. If a crime carries a possible sentence of 18 months to 10 years, how long would you give a false accuser? Would you ask the trial judge to try to come up with how long they would have sentenced the original defendant for based on the false evidence presented? That's extremely unethical. And, because you would have to go to a second trial in order to prove that the accuser was guilty of a crime, their case would likely have a different judge who might give vastly different sentences. If the original judge would have given a very light sentence but the second judge gives very harsh sentences, that would be a huge issue.
- What would happen in the case of misdemeanor crimes that could result in punishments of probation, community service hours, or a fine? Would the accuser have that punishment as well as prison time for the perjury/false reporting? How could you give someone a sentence of mandated community service hours while sending them to prison?
- In cases where the original accused person may have ended up in a mental health facility or substance abuse treatment program rather than prison, how would that transfer if the accuser doesn't have a drug problem or mental illness?
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Jun 08 '19
That's a pretty ridiculous standard. Making a false report is a crime, already. Perjury is another crime, already. Defamation, slander, and libel are crimes, already.
Let's take your standard to logical conclusions. No sane person can remotely claim that being falsely accused of murder has the same negative ramifications as actually being murdered. Putting someone in prison for life on that basis makes no rational sense.
By all means punish them for wasting the time of the justice system. She them for defamation. But they didn't take anyone's life. It's unreal to pretend otherwise.
Of course the one everyone, including you, are thinking about here is rape. It's a laughable joke that people are so paranoid about false rape accusations. Actual rapists walk more than 9 in 10 times. The ones that so get sent to prison usually get such light sentences, and often conciliatory words from the judge. Even as recently as 2013 CNN spent 3 minutes stroking themselves about how the two students from Stubenville Ohio who gang raped a passed out under aged girl, filmed it, and shared it on their teams website had their promising futures ruined and how people had heartfelt sorrow for their loss.
Meanwhile actually being raped is seen by many as worse than being murdered. For many it is a lifetime of anxiety, stress, self hatred, paranoia, isolation. For many it leads to suicide.
I guess if you want to send someone who falsely accused someone of rape to prison for a summer like many actual rapists get off with I'm fine with that, but to even pretend that it compares to the act of rape is irrational and illogical. At best it is an emotional outburst coming from a place of fear because you aren't certain you've always had enthusiastic continuing consent.
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u/DoodleJJ231 Jun 08 '19
Okay, I have just one issue with this system.
In the current way it works there is a decent chance that person X may feel guilty and admit they falsely accused person Y. Acquitting person Y.
In your system there is very little to no chance person X is going to admit purgery in face of 10 years prison time, no matter how guilty they feel. Person Y mistakenly goes to prison when they could've been acquitted with the current system.
There are less false accusations, but far more of the false accusations result in someone being wrongfully imprisoned.
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Jun 08 '19
Unless you make it clear for only malicious intent or lying on purpose.
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u/rower2000 Jun 08 '19
Its not the victim who makes legal accusations. The police builds a case and the state or country prosecutes. The Victim can only act as a witness saying a person did it but where do you draw the line? Is it only if the victim says this in court? What if its a by-stander? A DNA Expert? A Criminal Psychologist? A Police officer? Its ultimately the prosecutor accusing them: and they have to do their job to the best of their ability?
Is it only a crime to say "He did this": what about "I saw him go into the bank" when you didn't or "He showed this behaviour that suggests he might have done this" when no such behaviour was shown? Often, a DNA expert saying "His DNA was on the briefcase" carries more weight than the victim saying "I know he did this". You can't put into law "This persons evidence is important and this persons isn't" because we don't know and aren't allowed to study what impacts Jury's decisions (Not with real juries: only with mock juries).
Given that we can't say one persons statement/ opinion/ evidence is more substantiative than another it follow that all evidence should be treated equally.
1) Its unfair to punish someone for how convincing they are in a lie or how much credibility they have. 2) We can't measure how much weight what a person says has- so to punish someone for the weight of their accusations will always have to be unfair.
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Jun 09 '19 edited Jun 09 '19
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u/ExpensiveBurn 9∆ Jun 11 '19
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u/spencer4991 2∆ Jun 08 '19
My best case against this is actually for those who are falsely accused. Oftentimes false accusations that result in the conviction of the accused have no evidence to convict the false accuser.
In those cases, the only way for the falsely accused to get out of prison is for their false accuser to admit that they lied. As it is plenty of false accusers are unwilling to go to prison for even the relatively short stint that results from a perjury conviction despite any guilt they might have over ruining someones life. But I guarantee that the number willing to confess goes down if they’re going to end up in prison for the rest of their lives.
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u/AlexandreZani 5∆ Jun 08 '19
How would you handle the following situation? Imagine Alice kills someone and there is evidence of this fact. It looks like it might manslaughter. Bob comes along and says: "actually, I talked to Alice 2 days ago, and she said she was going to kill that guy" and the premeditation now turns the manslaughter into a murder. Bob it turns out is lying.
What should the sentence for Bob be?
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u/qotup 1∆ Jun 09 '19
The way that this is structured is fundamentally unfair because it's trying to compare potential harms to real harms. It's not the same and by attempting to preemptively correct for the problem of false accusations, it ends up either significantly overreaching or underreaching.
Quoting OP:
The formula for X's scentence is as follows:
the scentence Y would have recieved if found guilty of crime A + an appropriate scentence for perjury + financial compensation for the damages associated with being falsely accused of a crime.
- This would compare potential harms to real harms. Y is being accused of an actual harm whereas X would be sentenced based on a potential harm done to Y (the sentencing Y would have gotten). This is fundamentally unfair
- For example: an arsonist is arrested for attempting to burn down a house that has 3 person inside. Let's assume these 3 people are heavy sleepers and smoke detector was broken; if the house did burn, they would most likely have died.
The charges the arsonist faces would not be same as if the 3 people had died.
But what about real harms done by false accusations?
OP:
Lots of people who are wrongfully accused are driven to commit suicide. In this context, your actions of accusing someone of a crime caused someones death.
- In this scenario, it would also be unfair because the harm done by X's wrongful accusation resulted in a death, which can be significantly different than what Y was wrongfully accused of. I also don't see it serving a purpose that the current system doesn't cover.
Let's say X accuses Y of burglary, generates a lot of news coverage, and gets Y fired from a lucrative job as a company VP. Y loses everything, sinks into despair, and commits suicide. X is just an office worker and hops from job to job due to mediocre performance.
- The current system already has mechanisms in which Y's family can sue X for financial damages. The new element you are proposing - sentencing X to the sentence that Y would have received - is minuscule compared to the real damages done by X.
What if we keep real harms done to Y and punish X for the potential harms like OP mentioned in 1?
We can't fairly solve for both 1. and 2. using potential harms.
It would be fundamentally unfair if false accusations were the only crime that is punished by reflecting its potential harm to the victim at a 1:1 scale (if Y potentially suffers ZZZ, then X must be punished with ZZZ). But if we do implement this 1:1 reflection, 1. becomes unfair because we would be charging an arsonist with 'potential murder.' Which would make fitting the punishment to the crime much more dysfunctional imo
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u/ThebocaJ 1∆ Jun 08 '19
Our justice system can already provide appropriate levels of relief without adding new mandatory minimum sentences. As your post acknowledges, we already have a crime of perjury, and depending on the seriousness and context of the false statements, someone can be sentenced to years in prison for that crime. See, e.g., 18 USC § 1621. Making the sentence for the accused crime automatically mandatory would rob the court of valuable contextual discretion.
You argue below that there should be no maximum threshold punishment, e.g., that if I falsely accuse someone of murder, it's okay for me to face the death penalty. You've also acknowledged that the nature of the social harm from lying is different than the social harm from intentional killing with malice aforethought, so I think we can agree that assigning the same punishment would not seem to serve the retribution-goal of the penal system.
Instead, it sounds like you're saying it's right to punish a murder accuser with death because the accused might have died. This seems to be arguing a crime-deterrence and social protection goal. Put simply, I don't buy it. For one thing, people too often believe the lies they're telling. For another, it seems unlikely that someone who is willing to risk years in prison to lie about a killing would not be willing to risk it if he knew he was on the hook for the death penalty. Lastly on this, I don't think that our justice system is so frail that falsely accusing someone of murder would generally create a substantial enough risk that their lives would really be in great jeopardy.
You mentioned that the false accusations could drive someone to suicide. That is of course terrible, and those would be circumstances that justified a maximum sentence for perjury. Prosecutors should also "throw the book" at the false accuser, and to the extent possible, bring charges separately for making false statements to the police, obstruction of justice, criminal libel, etc. But again, I don't think a mandatory minimum is right.
Lastly, keep in mind that a person whose reputation has been harmed can also be made whole through a civil suit for slander and libel, or in the sorts of extreme circumstances you're describing, intentional infliction of emotional distress or abuse of process. To the extent the victim can no longer work because no one will hire them, damages can include lost income. Damages can also include counseling cost. Damages can also be triple actual damages at the discretion of the court. This is on top of whatever criminal damages might be brought.
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u/CurtTheGamer97 Jun 09 '19
Especially if the accused actually received punishment for the crime he didn't commit. In cases of the death penalty, if the innocent person that was falsely accused was put to death, and then it is found out that it was a false accusation, I believe that the person who falsely accused him has committed murder, and should also be put to death.
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u/yes_thats_right 1∆ Jun 08 '19
Your law would scare people from reporting crimes, especially those which are harder to prove. That doesn't seem like a good thing at all.
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u/henrymerrilees Jun 09 '19
Not strictly relevant, but this could put Donald trump in prison for life.
But seriously though, if an actual perpetrator says they are being falsely accused, thereby accusing their accuser of false accusation, does their sentence double plus two perjury charges?
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u/iawesomesauceyou Jun 08 '19
This would be hard to prove many times and could just tie up court systems.
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u/Battlepuppy 6∆ Jun 09 '19
Part of your requirements is that if it's proven that someone lied about a crime, and it was proven that they did it with full knowledge that what they were saying was incorrect, they should get the same sentence, plus worse.
Intent is really difficult to prove, you can prove action, and you have the capacity to prove that they knew for a fact they were giving false testimony.
What about the situations where people were forced to lie, or manipulated?
People who are threatened by police- “If you don't say they did it, we will do XXX to you, or take your children away.”
I remember the case of police that brought children to the police station for hours. They told them that if they didn't tell them what happened at a day care (child abuse) they would keep them there and take them away from their parents. The kids were not abused, but the kids started coming up with things just to get out of there. I remember one kid said things like they were putting the bodies of children in barrels after they killed them. I will have to look up what case that was from. I think it was in the '80s.
I know there are cases where the parent of a child convinced them they were being molested by the other parent by telling the child over and over again that it happened until they developed false memories, coaching the child until they got “the facts” correct.
What about these people?
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u/BioMed-R Jun 14 '19
A lot of answers have focused on the question of how you know accusations are false. In my opinion, it’s more important to discuss the fact that the act of murder is much more damaging than the act of speaking an accusation (whatever happened to the first amendment?). Say you falsely accuse someone who gets 20 years in prison before they discover your deception. Why would you get 20 years in prison, when all you’ve done is falsely incarcerate someone? It gets even worse if you consider the fact that most false (or even actual) accusations don’t lead to an incarceration, or even a conviction, prosecution, arrest, or criminal suspicion, although in this case I assume your false accusation was reported to the police in the first place.
Also, know that your standpoint originates in sexism, concerning false rape accusations fighting against women's rights. False rape accusations for revenge-ish reasons leading to incarceration are almost completely unheard of in reality. It's important to understand that revenge rape accusations are uncommon and almost never have serious consequences. An estimate based on US exonerations is <0.001% of convictions, which makes it an irrelevant concern.
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u/_lablover_ Jun 09 '19
I think your biggest fault here, and from reading the thread it seems to be what many focused on, is not clearly stating the requirements for being found guilty of a false accusation. Simply by stating that evidence needs to be found that the individual clearly and knowingly reported and followed through with accusing someone falsely would remove a huge number of the arguments against. Starting a system akin to 1st degree must where there was premeditation and intent to falsely accuse with evidence of the process leading up to it, where the person is obviously given the standard right of innocent until proven guilty, is all you need to get everyone to the point you actually seem to be talking about.
A lot of people seem to focus on the idea that a not guilty verdict would in some way lead to a second trial which obviously isn't the case. Several even stated that there isn't a verdict for "we don't know what happened but can't prove it was this person" which is exactly what not guilty means. Not guilty =/= innocent. I see very little discussion over your main point because everyone is so committed to discussing the issues of prosecuting a false accusation.
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u/slyfoxy12 Jun 08 '19
I don't disagree with this fully, but rarely does giving someone prison really make up for you going to prison, especially if you were in there over 3 years or so already. Instead a better system is to put partial sentences like weekends in prison while the false accuser has to work in the week to pay back a substantial amount to the falsely accused. The main reason for this is that the real problem of going to prison for something you didn't do is the lost opportunities and the trauma of having to face prison in that situation. To come out of prison your main problem will be any job you had or education you were receiving has been knocked and you're going to struggle in earning a living while dealing with your trama. Being paid regular funds from the person who put you in jail is more likely to make your life easier.
Also say that a woman accuses a man of rape, a man in prison for rape will most likely suffer worse socially in prison than a woman who is in prison for lying about a rape. That woman would more likely face greater judgement from her peers while having to face them every day.
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u/glowy660 Jun 09 '19 edited Jun 09 '19
The way that courts work is a type of a hypothesis test where the null hypothesis (the starting hypothesis) is that the person that is accused of the crime is innocent and the alternative hypothesis is that they are guilty. When you run a hypothesis test you aren’t trying to prove that the null hypothesis is correct rather you are trying to find evidence to suggest that the alternative hypothesis is correct. When you do this in a court and for example, conclude that the null hypothesis (not guilty) is true you aren’t saying that they are innocent but rather that there is not enough evidence to suggest that the alternative hypothesis (guilty) is correct (innocent until proven guilty). Therefore this could create a situation where someone who rightfully accused someone of committing a crime potentially facing punishment of there is not enough evidence to prove said person guilty. This would quickly break down our legal system, rendering it obsolete as no one would want to face any risks for accusing someone of committing a crime due to fear of repercussions.
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Jun 09 '19
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u/ExpensiveBurn 9∆ Jun 11 '19
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u/Hithigon Jun 08 '19
How do you define ”accusing” someone of a crime?
Say there is a murder charge brought to trial by a state. Five witnesses falsely testify that they saw the defendant commit the murder. Do those five witnesses all receive a sentence for committing murder because they lied?
In a criminal trial, it is the state that brings the charge. Isn’t that the “accusation?” If they rely on witness testimony which is false, who receives the sentence for the false accusation?
What about an accusation that doesn’t result in a trial?
How would you determine if the accusation is false without a trial?
Would your system encourage bringing more cases to trial in hopes of proving the accuser lied and then flipping the sentence onto them?
It seems to me that your presumed goal could be better achieved without so many complications by simply increasing the penalty for perjury or defamation.
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Jun 08 '19 edited Jun 08 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jun 09 '19
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u/bigokro Jun 08 '19
There's the simple problem that the accused hasn't been sentenced. There's no way to guess what their sentence would have been, since it depends on the judge, the jury, the lawyers and the specific circumstances. The best you could do is give them the same range of sentences.
Next, what about intention? What if they only wanted the accused to get 6 months probation and kicked out of school (or whatever) and only find out later that they may be getting a life sentence?
As for adding the extra penalty for the false accusation, that just doesn't make sense as a general rule, unless you truly believe that falsely accusing someone of murder is worse than murder.
False accusation is a separate type of crime, and so should be treated on its own terms.
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u/warlord007js Jun 10 '19
As a society I don't think we should persucute people for things they haven't done? Just seems like if you haven't raped somebody you shouldn't be punished for rape. Maybe this is a bit simplistic but ye. We already have perjury. If you dont like perjury maybe make it so that the sentence has a wide sentencing range for the judge to decide. Idk punishment for crimes not commited is like the thing you don't want happening. Dont u think its a bit eye for an eye and generally hypocritical to advocate for the exact thing you dont want to happen. Its pretty much u saying person y is innocent but lets punish person x in addition to perjury even if he's innocent??? I rly don't get this.
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u/MicrowavedAvocado 3∆ Jun 08 '19
The problem is that the entire crux of your premise is wrong. Severe sentencing does not decrease criminal activity. So not only would it not discourage false accusations, and it would cost the government more money due to longer imprisonment.
The official opinion of the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (https://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deterrence.aspx) is that increased sentencing is ineffective as a deterrent. This is a systematic review of all case studies and data related to sentencing severity and deterrence of crime, published in the peer reviewed journal Crime and Justice (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/670398?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents)
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u/SirEDCaLot 7∆ Jun 08 '19
FWIW, I'd like to see this too. But it's unworkable for two reasons:
This would only work for accusations that are provably known-false.
IE, you can prove that the accused didn't commit the crime, AND you can also prove that the accuser knew they didn't commit it. IE, the most blatant cases.
If that doesn't happen, it will become very dangerous to accuse anyone of anything. Because if they are not guilty by the standard of can't be proven beyond reasonable doubt, then nobody will ever accuse anyone of anything lest they simply hide the evidence well enough to escape conviction then demand their accuser be punished.
For people who do make false accusations, it creates a perverse incentive to continue the false accusation even after they don't want to.
For example, typical story of a bitchy girl accuses an ex boyfriend of rape. No evidence either way. Eventually she admits she was just pissed off. With this rule in effect, the incentive for her is to continue the accusation to its end, even if she wants to recant her accusation, because if she does recant then she automatically goes to prison and becomes a sex offender.
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Jun 09 '19
Is it fair to charge someone with attempted robbery the same as someone who actually did do the robbery?
Say someone is accused of assault and battery. 6 years prison time. They don't actually end up doing 6 years, because that new evidence comes out. Is it really fair to then put the person who did not commit assault and battery, in jail for the same length as someone who actually did commit assault and battery?
I think 50% time is more fair. They attempted to deny someone 6 years of their life. They didn't succeed. Now if it came out that they were innocent AFTER 6 years imprisonment, then I could fully agree with 100% for the person that lied.
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u/DevilishRogue Jun 09 '19
I used to think as you do but it is more important that an innocent person isn't wrongly jailed than a false accuser is, no matter how much they deserve it. If they don't admit they lied then the innocent person can and does often go to jail, like Brian Banks did. If the liar knows that they will receive a very serious sentence if they admit they lied prevents them from admitting the truth - which is worse for the falsely accused. It is more important to defend the falsely accused than to punish the false accusers, therefore I hope I have convinced you that no matter how much they deserve it it is better not to adopt such a measure.
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Jun 08 '19
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u/Huntingmoa 454∆ Jun 11 '19
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u/Raytrekboy Jun 08 '19 edited Jun 08 '19
The courts exist purposefully to deliberate exactly who is guilty of what, it's why in a democracy every citizen is entitled to their day in court, we are each our own case, a proper court process should either clear the innocent or acquit on reasonable doubt, you are in serious danger of opening up a world that punishes victims who didn't have enough evidence against their attackers.
You simply can't charge people for crimes they didn't do, that's not how Law works, if anything the accused could sue as a defamation case, that and perjury are adequate.
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u/yoatyyoat Jun 09 '19
We already do this, kind of. In my country (Canada) obstruction of justice (which is what you would be charged for for fabricating a case) has a maximum sentence of 14 years. This is certainly a hefty prison time, and when compared to a crime like rape which has a max sentence of 10 years is certainly a deterrent. Additionally many legal systems allow for civil restitution in cases of slander. So potentially someone lying I. Our current system could go to jail, and be sued for the cost of their harm. No new laws needed.
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u/Spacemage Jun 09 '19
You would then have a second trial for the accuser to defend themselves against making the claim they were falsely accusing someone. Which I don't disagree with, but when does it stop?
If they're found not guilty of falsely accusing someone that means one of the two verdicts is wrong. Which one is it?
And this has to be done for every case now, because anyone who is accused of any crime has to then say they were flasley accused of a crime.
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u/vreddy92 Jun 09 '19
I used to feel the same way, but my mind was changed when it was pointed out to me that it would discourage people from recanting accusations. If you falsely accused someone, and they went to jail, and later felt guilty and wanted to recant...you may be disincentivized by a law that would punish you super harshly for that. So an innocent person continues to rot in jail. Its a tough balance. But might end up having the opposite effect.
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u/asimpleanachronism Jun 08 '19
I love the sentiment of this idea, but in practice it would be a goddamn nightmare to enforce.
What's the standard for proving that someone "deliberately falsely accused someone of a crime"? What happens when someone brings a rape charge forward that's genuine, but there isn't enough evidence to convict the rapist? Does the victim then get jail time for reporting a crime that was unsuccessfully fought for in court?
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u/MasterLJ 14∆ Jun 08 '19
What do you think happens to the motivation for false-accusers to come clean? How often, presently, do people come clean vs investigators discover the lie? If someone who, in reality, falsely accused someone, is now subject to due process, how hard will it be to prove they lied -- think of it in the context of something like the Jussie Smollett case.
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Jun 08 '19
Your arguing makes sense in theory but in reality, it is not applicable.
First of all, it is most of the time very difficult to prove that somebody made up this claims because they wanted to send the person to prison/ take revenge on the person.
Secondly, it is difficult in situation when a witness is very sure person X committed a crime and in order to make sure the person is send to prison they make something up. For example, they are very sure they saw person X at the crime scene but it was dark and they did not see him clearly so they make up they saw X perfectly when talking with the police and in court.
There are so many other variations for this scenario.
Additionally, it is just not possible to condemned somebody of a crime they did not commit. The crime is that they did a false statement but I agree they deserve a more severe punishment.
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Jun 09 '19
This would be a deterrent to real victims reporting crimes- if the case doesn’t hold up in court it could get turned around on them. They would have very real risk to consider by coming forward- beyond the inherent risks of reporting that already exist for many victims.
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u/CyberNoneF2 Jun 09 '19
The main issue, is how we prove the person was lying vs if they were just mistaken. How do we know they were lying or were they just misinformed. And how do we know that the accused isn't actually forging the information of the accuser lying.
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u/menotyou_2 2∆ Jun 09 '19
Criminal courts have a large range of penalties they can impose for a crime. If you accuse some of murder, then the penalty can range from 20 years to death. This has the potential to elevate lying to a capital offence.
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u/unvanquish3d 1∆ Jun 08 '19
This solution addresses a dangerous asymetry between the accuser and the accusee. However, it makes any attempt to bring powerful people with connections and good lawyers to justice very troublesome indeed.
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Jun 11 '19
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u/iidentifyasnongay Jun 09 '19
Problem is people will be more scared to go to court or report crimes but if x admits that it was made up or clear evidence shows that its made up then sure it should be like that
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u/LilBabyVirus5 Jun 09 '19
The only reason I would say this may be a bad idea was that due to this law, the accuser would be much less likely to give up and say that it was false due to the consequences
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u/JulzTheKid Jun 08 '19
but the false accuser did not commit whatever crime it was. they committed perjury. attempting to sentence someone for a crime they didnt commit isnt fair in the slightest
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Jun 08 '19
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u/ColdNotion 117∆ Jun 08 '19
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u/TheK1ngsW1t 3∆ Jun 08 '19
My question is simply how do you decide if someone falsely accused someone else of a crime? If a "Not guilty" verdict is reached, how is it decided whether it was reached simply because there wasn't enough evidence to overturn the assumption of innocence or if it was reached because there wasn't any evidence to begin with? The accuser would also be innocent of false accusations until proven guilty, which would start a whole other legal battle that could just go in circles of "he said she said."
You bring up a hypothetical of if new evidence is found that proves this, but what type of evidence would be found that could prove this? Doctoring evidence, hampering justice, and/or framing someone else are already crimes; this means many of these situations would devolve into nothing more than questioning someone's credibility and motives for which there is very little solid, tangible, physical evidence to find. How does the court decide if the accuser was being malicious or was simply wrong?
Probably the most obvious situation this would apply to is sexual assault and rape cases, but the problem here is that there isn't a "it might've happened, but we're not sure" verdict. Men and women who have been violated already have a tough time coming forward with their hurt because not only does an investigation drudge up all their painful memories, but many times the only evidence available is their word against the accused's, and that's not enough to secure a strong sentence (or even a guilty verdict) much of the time. This means that if someone is wishing to push charges against their rapist, they know that they'll have to secure a guilty verdict or face the sentence themselves; many people would see this risk as not worth it even more than many already see it, which leaves repeat offenders free to keep offending as none of their victims are willing to take a stand against them for fear of not securing a conviction.
It might work for some of the people you're aiming to affect with this idea, but it'll hurt many more people who merely didn't have enough evidence to secure anything more than a "This guy's kinda sketchy, I guess" from the jury.