From: Kirill Lokshin kirill.lokshin@gmail.com
On 12/5/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
People also falsely confess to crimes; there have been many famous cases
of
this which have actually been later overturned (and one must assume even more cases which have not been overturned). If we start trying to
second
guess legal systems, then all we'll be left with is original research to determine if someone is a criminal.
Jay.
The problems is that you're trying to apply a fundamentally 20th-century view of legal systems across the board. Only recently have the majority of criminals begun to appear before courts; in earlier periods, it was quite common for them to simply be killed, or to kill themselves.
What about cases like [[Marcus Junius Brutus]]? There is little, if any, doubt about his role in Ceasar's death; should we then refrain from adding him to the Assassins category merely because he was never convicted in a court?
I hate to make a slippery slope argument, but they are not always invalid. If we start with "obvious" criminals who were merely never convicted of anything, soon we end up with Categories of Criminals that include Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Henry Morgentaler, etc.
Jay.