Just because a crime was committed (any crime, not just rape) but a person was not convicted does not mean a travesty of justice occurred. You see that don't you? I mean, you do still require the state to present evidence sufficient to convince the jury of guilt, don't you? You're not arguing that we should take the word of anyone and everyone who claims to be the victim of a criminal wrong, do you? (The reason I ask is that some feminists believe exactly that in rape cases. And of course you've never answered my question about the issue of corroborating evidence which I find a bit suggestive. Should I?) The vast majority of those cases you allude to don't result in guilty verdicts because there's not enough evidence to get an indictment, bring them to trial or convict the accused. Your post is alarming. It suggests that you have little regard for the rights of those accused. It further suggests you want the state to have considerably greater power to imprison the innocent. I hope that neither is the case, but you seem perilously close to both.

I have several attorney friends who do criminal defense work. They describe the criminal "justice" system as a conveyor belt that begins at arrest and ends in jail. That is their view of the inevitability of the process. There are thousands of innocent people in jail this very minute because of that inevitability. The fact is that the deck is stacked against defendants. You want to stack it further. From a civil libertarian's point of view, I find that dangerous. Your affection for state power concerns me.

But please, I've asked you once and I was serious. What's your view of the corroboration issue?

As a practical matter, defense attorneys never ask their clients if they did it. The reasons are many, but mainly, doing so creates mistrust between the attorney and the client. But if the client blurts it out, it tends to dictate the direction the defense takes, i.e. the defendant doesn't take the witness stand.

Yes, of course defense attorneys often believe their clients to be guilty. Mostly they assume it. That's a far different matter from "knowing" it though, don't you agree?

As to lie detector tests, the only time defense attorneys ask their clients to take them is when they believe strongly that they are innocent. If they pass the test, they take it to the prosecutor as support for a Motion to Dismiss.

But you're not answering my question about corroborating evidence in rape cases. I've answered your questions; please answer mine.

The deck is stacked against criminal defendants in a huge number of ways regarding admissibility of evidence, trial procedure, etc. But the main way is that, while the law presumes the innocence of the defendant, the jury does not. It is the rarest of jurors who does not harbor a strong notion that, if the defendant weren't guilty, he/she wouldn't be accused and sitting there in that courtroom. An attorney can try to commit them to put those feelings aside, but it's a rare juror who does. That's the main reason so many people are in jail on such slim-to-nonexistant evidence.

As to the presumption of innocence, it means one thing: the state has the burden of proof at trial. What that means is that the prosecution must produce evidence of guilt. If it fails to do so, the defendant goes free. The defendant does not need to prove his/her innocence. The defendant does not need to put on any evidence at all. That is why the prosecution always goes first at trial. Therefore, the jury is instructed that if the state has not produced enough evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury must return a verdict of not guilty. That's the nut of what 'presumption of innocence' means. Don't take it beyond that.

Corroborating evidence? Anything for me on that?

I don't get your point. I do indeed have a high regard for juries, but I understand some of their prejudices too. As I've said, they're not perfect, but I don't ask them to be.

Juries are not any stupider than run of the mill people. In fact, given their demographics, they're probably a bit smarter. But they do have their prejudices and preconceived ideas, and those do sometimes result in an innocent person going to jail. The vast majority of prison inmates are guilty, though, as I'm sure you know.

But my experience with juries is that they take their jury service very seriously and try to do a good job. Most succeed.

Again, though the deck is stacked against criminal defendants. That's why the innocent go to prison along with the guilty. The reason that there are so many innocent in prison is that there are so many criminal trials in this country. Even a small percentage of jury screw-ups means a lot of innocent people in jail. That's not too hard to understand, is it?

Still waiting on your take on corroborating evidence in rape cases.

You're just not trying.

If you want to answer my question about corroborating evidence in rape cases, I'll continue, but your posts are becoming silly. So absent a coherent answer to my question, I'm done with you.

this is another example of abortion trumping every single other issue. It's gotten to be the one and only reason people who claim to be liberal give for mindlessly supporting Democratic candidates who are anything but liberal but who give some sort of support to abortion rights. You know the argument: "You have to vote for (fill in name of conservative Dem candidate here) because he/she would appoint pro-choice judges." It matters not at all to these people that the putative candidate is pro-war, anti-single-payer, pro-torture, anti-civil rights/liberties, does nothing on climate change, can't imagine how to make Social Security soluble except by cutting benefits, isn't interested in campaign finance reform, etc. Abortion trumps all.