Hi all, I'm troubled by a few philosophical questions which
I cannot seem to find direct answers from google.
1) What are the chances that the law or criminal investigations
wrongly convict someone?
Many times, criminal investigations use techniques to deduce
the sequence of events of a crime but my wonder is, that many
things that occur may not be rationally deduced. I mean, for
example if A's hair is found on a murdered body at a crime scene,
while it suggests that A is the murderer, the truth however can be
bizarre and unexpected. what if the reality is A's hair was carried
by wind and landed precisely at the most suspicious spot? And
if the crime scene does not yield any further evidences, while A
coincidentally has no alibi, then A may be convicted for over 20
years for something he genuinely did not do. Yet if A genuinely is
the murderer, we risk sending a dangerous person scot free,
endagering society and the law would seem weak and powerless in the
eyes of potential criminals.
Yet I understand that criminal investigations procedures
like genetics and fingerprinting often have a
very low margin of error, so while cases of wrongful
conviction do occur, 99% and above cases are duely punished. But my
worry is that from the wrongfully convicted's perspective, 20years
of jail for something one did not do is really unfair.(think: what
is that person is oneself?)
Of course the situation of A described above lends
itself to many permutations which may be more sensible. Therefore
can someone give me an overview of how the justice system deals
with this sort of "gray-area"?
Thanks in advance!