There are sometimes sitautions where someone's guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt; I don't imagine prosecutors would be particularly afraid to pursue the death penalty for someone like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik (who got 21 years in jail for the murder of 77 people).

Whilst that's the maximum permissible sentence in Norway it's worth highlighting that it can be extended indefinitely if he is considered still a risk to society - the requirement to review the need to continue detaining him (on a semi frequent basis) being considered a human right.

Based on his activity since being convicted I doubt he'll be released for significantly longer than his minimum sentence.

That doesn't sound like much of a "human right" to me, if a maximum sentence can be extended by a parole board.

What if it was rephrased as an indefinite sentence, but a minimum of 21 years?

(If the law doesn't permit a longer minimum, then 21 years is the "maximum sentence" in that there cannot be a longer mandatory period imposed.)

Yeah- I mean I get that's what happening here. It's just weird to me to consider it a "right."

I just don't see how it's fundamentally any better than the US system of minimum and maximum sentences, with some possibly some provisions for early parole reviewed every year or two after some portion "X" of the sentence has been served.

You could punishes judges even for harsh senteces (of people later exonerated), doesn't have to be just about the death penalty.

And to make it more balanced, you could also punish them for exonerating someone later found guilty (with the available evicence at the first trial re-examined).

Just rough ideas, which might not work at all, but still, as it is judges have no skin in the game (not even their reputation, sometimes it's even the inverse: some judges purposefully give harsh senteces, e.g. to blacks to score political points they'll later exploit).

No one would ever want to be a judge then. And your second paragraph is very much in conflict with the tenet that everyone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

>No one would ever want to be a judge then.

I doubt that. People can be punished if they fail badly, or even die if they make a mistake in all kinds of jobs, and they still do them.

>And your second paragraph is very much in conflict with the tenet that everyone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Well, if there really wasn't a "reasonable doubt" (as deemed on a second look) and the first judge decided it was, then it's on them...

Well, GP didn't say what the punishment might be. Could be say X strike(s) and you can no longer preside over such cases.

(Just devils' advocate, I live in a country without it or a need for it.)