That sounds like a troubled, mentally unwell person?
Let’s say someone who’s mentally unwell wrote notes to confess to crimes, is it enough to convict them based on that evidence alone? And if so, should it be?
In the US, at least, a confession is always considered sufficient evidence. It probably shouldn't be, since interrogators have managed to get people to confess to crimes that evidence was later found to exonerate.
This is not true. Many states have what is called a corpus delicti rule, which requires that a confession be corroborated by other evidence in order to sustain a conviction. I am inclined to assert that this is actually the law in most US states, but I haven't researched it.
IANAL, but I thought corpus delicti only means there needs to be evidence that the crime has been committed, not that the crime has been committed by the person confessing to it.
So if they find a body with multiple stab wounds and I go in and say I stabbed the person, I can be convicted. If I say I murdered Audrey Farber, and the police can't even find a record of an Audrey Farber gone missing, then I can't be convicted because there's no evidence than an Audrey Farber was murdered at all.
> That sounds like a troubled, mentally unwell person?
You mean you don't know for sure? Do you want the investigators to stop investigating if a suspect "sounds" mentally unwell? Should prosecutors refuse to prosecute if the suspect "sounds" mentally unwell?
What I'm saying is ... why, in this particular case, should that make any difference to the prosecution or investigation? We already find mentally troubled people guilty, we just sentence them differently.
So, yeah, the sanity/insanity of an individual makes no difference to whether they are guilty or not, it only changes the specific nature of the charge (i.e. premeditated vs culpable) and the sentencing (asylum or prison).
Someone is is genuinely mentally unwell in a way that results in them harming other people must still be kept away from society!
IOW, people who are dangerous to others need to be locked up. Whether they are insane or not is not relevant to keeping them locked up, it is only relevant to where they are locked up, and how they may be rehabilitated.
> Let’s say someone who’s mentally unwell wrote notes to confess to crimes, is it enough to convict them based on that evidence alone?
No one is currently convicted on the basis of a confession alone[1]. Normally a confession just means that the investigation into the confessor is more thorough than it would ordinarily be.
Is it perfect? No, but it is a lot better than you appear to believe.
I think if you thought about it for more than a few seconds, you'd realise the questions you are asking have obvious answers.
[1] Have you any idea how many people claimed to be famous serial killers? it happens more often than you think. It's also why specifics of a crime may not make it to the news, because the police use those specific details to identify those confessors who are not the perpetrator.
I think that point is it should be taken into account.
> Someone is is genuinely mentally unwell in a way that results in them harming other people must still be kept away from society!
That is extremely poor and dangerous argument for putting them in jail in bad evidence. But yeah, when innocent people get into jail, it is fairly often on arguments like this.
> No one is currently convicted on the basis of a confession alone[1]. Normally a confession just means that the investigation into the confessor is more thorough than it would ordinarily be
Bases in innocence project, people who were provably not guilty were sentenced to death on confessions. And there is literally zero reason to think it is stopped happening.
>> Someone is is genuinely mentally unwell in a way that results in them harming other people must still be kept away from society!
> That is extremely poor and dangerous argument for putting them in jail in bad evidence.
Who made that argument?
Here's what I said:
>> the sanity/insanity of an individual makes no difference to whether they are guilty or not, it only changes the specific nature of the charge (i.e. premeditated vs culpable) and the sentencing (asylum or prison). Someone is is genuinely mentally unwell in a way that results in them harming other people must still be kept away from society!
Why on earth would you snip away my text about ASYLUM, and instead warble on about putting those people in JAIL?
I'm genuinely curious about the motivation to pretend that my argument is different to what I said, and then argue against your pretend version of my argument.