Philosophy by the river

THE VENUE: Caffè Nero

It's winter so we will meet indoors for the next few months.

When we meet indoors, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend, without overwhelming any one venue. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Nero location.

We meet upstairs at Caffè Nero. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: Better an innocent in jail or a murderer free?

Thank you to Martine for suggesting this week's topic. This introduction was written by Duncan.

The legal system attempts to dispense justice fairly by punishing the guilty and exonerating the innocent. But the law is imperfect and sometimes miscarriages of justice occur, albeit rarely. A person who has in fact committed a crime may go free or an innocent person may be imprisoned.

Presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the judge or a jury. If the prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is acquitted of the charges. The prosecution must in most cases prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused must be acquitted.

The concept stems from the 1760s, proposed by the English jurist William Blackstone, to ensure that the justice system does not unjustly destroy lives, which is seen as a greater harm to society than letting a criminal escape. The guiding philosophy is that it is more important to protect the innocent than to punish the guilty. Indeed, if an innocent person is imprisoned, the guilty party remains free anyway, and the justice system has fundamentally failed. He is sometimes quoted as: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

Miscarriages of justice occur for a number of reasons:

• Unreliability of eyewitness testimony
• Forensic mistakes
• False confessions
• Perjury and false accusations
• Prosecutorial misconduct

The law is complex and access to expert advice is limited, possibly to those who can afford the best lawyers.

There is a need for the justice system to be visibly competent, to be seen to be doing something, particularly for crimes that capture the public imagination, lest we resort to vigilantism. This is particularly relevant when people are tried in the 'court of public opinion' or, nowadays, social media.

Police may become convinced a particular suspect is guilty but not have sufficient evidence to prove it. Sometimes they may plant evidence in order to secure a conviction because they believe it is in the public interest, or that there is a greater good, in convicting a particular person. In other words, they believe that the ends (or the outcome) justifies the means. This is known as noble cause corruption.

Clearly, the system is aware of these risks to justice and makes great efforts to mitigate them, but it will always be imperfect.

If the legal system is imperfect, do you prefer that it errs on the side of false positive or false negative outcomes ? Do you agree with Blackstone or do you think that the risk of an occasional miscarriage of justice is warranted if we can punish more guilty people ? In the latter case, do we need to throw away the presumption of innocence altogether, or can we get away with a little fine tuning ?

THE VENUE: Starbucks

It's winter so we will meet indoors for the next few months

When we meet indoors, we run the same event in two locations: Caffè Nero and Starbucks, so as to provide capacity for as many people who would like to attend, without overwhelming any one venue. Thus, there will be two events published, and you can choose which one to attend. Please don't sign up for both. This event is for the Starbucks location.

We meet upstairs at Starbucks. An organiser will be present from 10.45. We are not charged for use of the space so it would be good if everyone bought at least one drink.

An attendee limit has been set so as not to overwhelm the venue.

Etiquette
Our discussions are friendly and open. We are a discussion group, not a for-and-against debating society. But it helps if we try to stay on topic. And we should not talk over others, interrupt them, or try to dominate the conversation.

There is often a waiting list for places, so please cancel your attendance as soon as possible if you subsequently find you can't come.

WhatsApp groups
We have two WhatsApp groups. One is to notify events, including extra events such as meeting for a meal or a drink during the week which we don't normally put on the Meetup site. The other is for open discussion of whatever topics occur to people. If you would like to join either or both groups, please send a note of the phone number you would like to use to Richard Baron on: website.audible238@passmail.net. (This is an alias that can be discarded if it attracts spam, hence the odd words.)

THE TOPIC: Better an innocent in jail or a murderer free?

Thank you to Martine for suggesting this week's topic. This introduction was written by Duncan.

The legal system attempts to dispense justice fairly by punishing the guilty and exonerating the innocent. But the law is imperfect and sometimes miscarriages of justice occur, albeit rarely. A person who has in fact committed a crime may go free or an innocent person may be imprisoned.

Presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the judge or a jury. If the prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is acquitted of the charges. The prosecution must in most cases prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused must be acquitted.

The concept stems from the 1760s, proposed by the English jurist William Blackstone, to ensure that the justice system does not unjustly destroy lives, which is seen as a greater harm to society than letting a criminal escape. The guiding philosophy is that it is more important to protect the innocent than to punish the guilty. Indeed, if an innocent person is imprisoned, the guilty party remains free anyway, and the justice system has fundamentally failed. He is sometimes quoted as: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

Miscarriages of justice occur for a number of reasons:

• Unreliability of eyewitness testimony
• Forensic mistakes
• False confessions
• Perjury and false accusations
• Prosecutorial misconduct

The law is complex and access to expert advice is limited, possibly to those who can afford the best lawyers.

There is a need for the justice system to be visibly competent, to be seen to be doing something, particularly for crimes that capture the public imagination, lest we resort to vigilantism. This is particularly relevant when people are tried in the 'court of public opinion' or, nowadays, social media.

Police may become convinced a particular suspect is guilty but not have sufficient evidence to prove it. Sometimes they may plant evidence in order to secure a conviction because they believe it is in the public interest, or that there is a greater good, in convicting a particular person. In other words, they believe that the ends (or the outcome) justifies the means. This is known as noble cause corruption.

Clearly, the system is aware of these risks to justice and makes great efforts to mitigate them, but it will always be imperfect.

If the legal system is imperfect, do you prefer that it errs on the side of false positive or false negative outcomes ? Do you agree with Blackstone or do you think that the risk of an occasional miscarriage of justice is warranted if we can punish more guilty people ? In the latter case, do we need to throw away the presumption of innocence altogether, or can we get away with a little fine tuning ?