Comment by eddieroger 4 days ago
From your link:
> The defendant, Preston Thorpe, appeals his conviction for possession of a controlled drug with intent to sell
He may have done other things, but his conviction was for possession with intent, and that seems to be why he's locked up. It doesn't make anything else he's done acceptable, but in America he's innocent until proven guilty, and it doesn't seem he was found guilty of assault.
I feel ok that there's a distinction between legal rulings and other circumstances of the case that I as an internet person can use my judgement to understand.
Just because someone is guilty or not doesn't separate other facts of the case.
In an extreme example: I'm ok with the court letting someone off who murdered someone, because the police didn't follow proper procedure wrt evidence/confessions/witness testimony. Our legal system should be held to the highest standard when convicting someone of a crime. That doesn't stop me from believing that the defendant actually did the crime or not.
There was no crime reported by the girlfriend. The allegation of abuse was made by the girlfriend's mother, who was not present. As far as I can tell, there were no charges of assault or battery, even after the police interviewed the girlfriend for their report. There's really no basis for forming any kind of judgement here, legal or otherwise.
Sure, but bjorkandkd unpromptedly accused Preston of being a liar, which is just incorrect as far as I can tell.
Everyone is of course free to make up their own mind, but when making public accusations I would at least expect an honest effort to keep those accusations factually correct.
"Prosecutors said Thorpe was on parole for other drug convictions when he was arrested last year and also had two suspended sentences for drug offenses over his head."
https://www.wmur.com/article/man-facing-carfentanil-charge-r...
We're allowed to form judgments about people based on evidence that wouldn't be sufficient to convict them of a crime. The consequences of me forming the opinion that this guy is a domestic abuser are far lower than the consequences of a court doing so. And of course, even courts use a much lower evidential standard than 'innocent until proven guilty' when deciding civil cases. Making a derogatory comment about someone on the internet is much more analogous to a civil court finding against the plaintiff than it is to a criminal court giving someone a jail sentence.
In any case, HN is very selective about this high evidential standard. People will make a lot of effort to give probable domestic abusers the benefit of the doubt, but pick one of HN's official enemies and suddenly any little scrap of evidence is considered quite sufficient!
I agree with this sentiment but I'm also willing to explore/consider the possibility that "innocent until proven guilty" isn't strictly only useful as an esoteric legal construct, but a philosophy that could potentially have applicability to an individual's worldview.
That being said I wouldn't have much patience for a "merely" accused murderer or child predator in my personal life, just as I also don't have much patience for a doctor who refuses to prescribe me antibiotics because the chance they could help me is "only" 1%. I don't really care that it's socially irresponsible when it comes to my personal assessment of risk.
I agree that it is nice to keep in mind as a general philosophy, however I also think it's important to keep in mind that the people who originally wrote "innocent until proven guilty" were all treasonous sepratists, and their philosophy may or may not always align with my own.
He’s not just saying he was locked up due to drugs. He’s saying that “all” his “poor decisions and lifestyle choices” in his twenties were related to drugs.
In a generalized sense, sure. There's both a strong correlation and a proven causation that drugs and domestic abuse go hand in hand across the prison population.
However, on any individual case the same is not true, because that moves from talking about averages and general cases into specifics, and the burden of proof changes significantly. While there is a connection on average, that isn't enough to say any specific drug abuser commits domestic abuse. For that, ideally, you need criminal charges proven in court. That's missing here.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is only for the justice system. You are deliberately avoiding the fact that the entire reason the cops showed up was to respond to a domestic violence call. People do not need an entire court trial to determine that the woman's arm was swollen and her face was bruised because her partner hit her.
> ...in America he's innocent until proven guilty...
...in a court of law. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments.
>Innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments.
That's not a good thing.
Edit: I cannot really believe that this, of all comments, is controversial. Living life treating everyone as guilty until they prove themselves innocent is... just shitty, let alone exhausting. Do people forget about how many times reddit and other ruined innocent people's lives?
Sometimes HN amazes me with new technology, interesting conversations, etc. Sometimes it amazes me when people are arguing that we should go through life treating people as guilty first, until they are proven innocent. I think I'll go back to not participating for awhile.
>Living life treating everyone as guilty until they prove themselves innocent is... just shitty
There's no scenario here where this guy is innocent. The distinction here is whether he's a wife-beating drug dealer or just a drug dealer. There's some evidence to suggest the former but not really enough that you can definitely state it.
Personally, I'd give a convicted drug dealer less benefit of the doubt than the average person.
On one hand, I agree that internet comments tend to judge people unfairly, and “treating people as guilty first” probably leads to an unhealthy society (considered “unhealthy” by its own members).
On the other hand, GP is objectively right ("innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments"). I also think that it’s better for random people to be able to post their terrible judgements than any feasible alternative, because such an alternative probably leads to good judgements also censored. We can mitigate (not eliminate) bad judgements, e.g. by educating people better and shaming those who shame others more; and we can minimize mob justice’s effect on critical government functions like welfare and prison sentencing, e.g. by running them on mostly objective procedures and with staff who aren’t influenced by mob opinion.
Targeted harassment and doxxing (and swatting, getting people fired/divorced/ruined when they don’t deserve to be, etc.) is different (and to be clear, IMO very bad). People posting opinions in a way that the target can block (which they can usually do with blocklists and word filters) is fine. The main point I’m trying to make is: if opinions in random internet comments lead to targeted harassment and real-world consequences even when the opinions are “bad” (e.g. bigoted, hypocritical), it's less effective to try and prevent the internet comments' existence, than to reduce the factors causing them to influence the real world and create factors preventing influence.
The point is that people should be able to use their own judgement on a wide variety of issues and not be forced to delegate their decision making power to the courts/third parties.
There's a difference between "we want to lock this person up and take away their liberty, so we should be basically certain" versus "look man he's been done for drugs and she ended up with a broken arm, I don't trust this person".
Why? Different fora have different standards of proof. For example, in civil cases (even in America) the standard of proof is 'preponderance of evidence', not 'innocent until proven guilty'.
Why should internet comments follow criminal law, and not eg civil law, or some other standard?
The options are you assume people are innocent unless proven guilty, or guilty unless proven innocent.
Going through life treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent sounds like an exhausting and negative way to treat everyone, and harms more people overall.
Because the report only contains statements of fact related to the police report and the police interaction.
There's no actual confirmation in that report that her arm was actually broken or that she was actually beaten. There's no medical examination that happened here that is cited.
That would still be required in a civil trial with preponderance of evidence. What if she was on drugs and did it to herself? (Not saying that's what happened). We don't know what happened from this document and that has nothing to do with this charge or his appeal.
Yes, it is. The courts are flawed, the courts get things wrong all the time. Many innocent people are found guilty. If we must apply the legal standard to internet comments, must we condemn people we believe to be innocent? The legal standards exist for the system, not for people. Saying that the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" should apply outside of the legal system is lazy and avoiding making decisions for yourself about how you treat people.
People proven guilty are not necessarily guilty. People proven not guilty are not necessarily innocent. The legal standard exists because a system needs standards.
>The courts are flawed, the courts get things wrong all the time.
Is your assertion that random internet commenters get it right more than the courts...?
>"innocent until proven guilty" should apply outside of the legal system is lazy
How is guilty until proven innocent less "lazy"?
My assertion is that "innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard that applies to the courts because a system needs standards. People have the luxury of being able to use their judgement. My assertion is that choosing to defer to a legal standard (not proven guilty therefore innocent) is choosing to opt-out of your wonderful human ability to form a judgement based on a lot more than just one single data point.
The person you love comes to you and tells you that they've been attacked by your shady friend. Do you defend your friend from the accusation because "they're innocent until proven guilty" or do you use your judgement and decide that the person you love is telling the truth because you have a lifetime of trust in them?
> Saying that the standard of "innocent until proven guilty" should apply outside of the legal system is lazy and avoiding making decisions for yourself about how you treat people.
Then how do you explain laws against slander and libel?
You can't label someone guilty of a crime just because you feel it to be true.
"People proven guilty are not necessarily guilty. People proven not guilty are not necessarily innocent. The legal standard exists because a system needs standards."
so you saying that court is useless because its not perfet???? its easy to complaint about something but give NOTHING to improve it
You would not do better than people in charge because EASY to say something is wrong but you dont have ANSWER that improve this current standards
Indeed. I quickly searched and found this article:
https://archive.is/yiiBF
The original link does not say that the girlfriend reported the broken arm to the police. The police were called by her mother, who made the allegation against Thorpe. The article above says:
> According to [Thorpe's lawyer]’s appeal, Abogast told police she had fallen three days before Thorpe’s arrest and doctors at Elliot Hospital said her arm was broken in three places.
The original link says that she had scars and scabbing on her face, but this link says that Thorpe also had scars and scabbing, which the police noted in their report as consistent with drug abuse.
I'm not one to disbelieve women when they report abuse. In this case, the alleged victim didn't report any abuse, a third party who was not witness to any alleged crimes did. It's also very unusual to have your arm broken in three places, call your mom to say what happened, and then not seek any kind of treatment. I feel sad for everyone involved, because it's clear to me at least that the drug issues were the crux of the matter (which is corroborated by the actions and findings of the state). Without a statement from the girlfriend or a finding by the state, any suggestion of domestic abuse is unwarranted speculation.