Abstract
This chapter challenges the almost sacrosanct belief in in dubio pro reo, and explains how the interests of an accused must be traded-off against the interest of possible future innocent victims, if societal happiness optimisation is the goal of community. Divine justice is unachievable for human society, and letting the benefit of the doubt reign supreme in relation to likely recidivists leads to divine injustice towards future victims, who will have been denied the benefit of effective societal protection as a result.
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- 1.
Reductio ad absurdum constitutes a particularly twisted application of relativity, because relativity is used to show the invalidity of a certain line of relative reasoning. However, all paradoxes are ultimately failures of relativity or of its application.
- 2.
Punishment and responsibility, 158 ff.
- 3.
Taking rights seriously.
- 4.
Epipsychidion.
- 5.
You only really understand the distortions of Picasso if you take to heart his explanation of disproportionality as a result of visual priority, i.e. if you look at someone’s eye, your focus on the eye will mean that the eye is magnified relative to the brow.
- 6.
The selfish gene.
- 7.
In an uncertain world.
- 8.
Anarchy, state, and utopia.
- 9.
Freedom and resentment.
- 10.
The prohibition of “consorting with known criminals” is a small step in this direction, since it punishes the likelihood that consorting with known criminals will lead to actual crime. It is, however, a very small step only, because it normally operates merely as a probation condition.
- 11.
Preventive detention after trial, which is a mode of sanction in many jurisdictions, is not relevant for the discussion of relaxation of in dubio pro reo, even if it aims at preventing repeat offences because it presupposes that guilt has been established, respecting in dubio pro reo.
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Hulsroj, P. (2013). In Dubio Pro Reo. In: The Principle of Proportionality. SpringerBriefs in Law, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5775-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5775-2_1
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