News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on What happens after a defendant is found not guilty by reason of insanity?. Parent comment

Re:What happens after a defendant is found not guilty by rea... by cscheid on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @04:48PM (#15352177)
> It's the extreme end of the situation, to be certain, but extremes are a great place to examine any system.

Although there's some dissent, in law the typical expression you hear is the opposite: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_cases_make_bad_law

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What happens after a defendant is found not guilty by rea... by kelnos on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @06:03PM (#15352748)
I think that's a good point. We shouldn't judge a process based on the rare, outlying cases. We can't expect all of law to be perfect and do the right thing every time. Certainly there are levels of incorrectness that we don't want to live with, but we should expect that sometimes a guilty person will go free. And personally I would much rather a guilty person go free than an innocent person be imprisoned or executed.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:What happens after a defendant is found not guilty by rea... by turbulents on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @05:07PM (#15352365)
The converse (bad law makes hard cases) resonates more with me--glad it's mentioned in the article.
[ Parent | on HN ]