Man who has been in prison 28 years unlikely to be released unless he admits to murder

In logic, I believe that would fall under the category of an equivocation fallacy.
By making that statement, you are obviously insinuating that, since a trial found him guilty, that it's okay to require to him to admit to the crime and express remorse to be able to get an early release from prison.
But you seem to be logically confusing being found guilty with actually being guilty. Those two are not exactly the same thing. You seem to assume that because he was found guilty, we should assume he is guilty, for all law enforcement purposes and considerations of prison time. That is where your (along with many other people's) error in thinking is. Yes, perhaps we should assume he is guilty when deciding his initial prison sentence. But not when deciding whether admitting to the crime and expressing remorse should be required to get an early release.
To phrase it one way, what we base an assumption on should be very dependent upon what type of decision that assumption is going to be used for. A lot of people seem to miss that subtlety.

So in other words, you are 100% okay with the justice system using legal coercion to make someone lie about committing a crime, requiring them to admit to a crime in order to spend less time in prison, even though there's a chance they might not have done the crime.

If that's what you believe, then there is NO WAY you can claim that if someone pleads guilty and admits to a crime that that automatically means they committed the crime. You see that don't you?

A lot of people in society seem to have huge logical inconsistencies in their views about this. Apparently they've just never bothered to really think about it, how the different pieces of the puzzle can actually fit together.

 

True. However, one thing they do take strongly into consideration is the criminals remorse, and if they are likely to repeat the crime in the future. If they show no remorse, then they might well simply let them stay in jail and serve out their entire sentence.

I was the victim of a violent attack in 2007, and every few years I would get a letter from the parole board informing me that the guy was coming up for parole again. And if I wanted to make any kind of statement to the board. And the first few times, I did make one. Stating that it was too soon, and what I knew of his past prior to the crime he likely had not changed.

And the funny thing is, the last time he came up for parole they said they wanted me to call them. Seems his parole hearing was cancelled, as he was involved in a violent attack while in jail and therefore was not eligible. It was to tell me I would not need to write a statement as his hearing was revoked. And it seems that in the last 15 years in jail he has accumulated a slew more charges. And he might be one of those cases of a 16 year old going into the system, and never leaving until he is middle aged. And I am perfectly fine with that, as he was a thug before he attacked me, I was one of over a dozen he attacked in a similar way, and he has not changed since he was incarcerated.

Kinda strange to think that before much longer he will have served that entire 25 year sentence, and will likely remain in jail for things he has done since he has been locked up. Including multiple attacks on guards and other inmates, drug and alcohol offenses, and others.

 

So in other words, both of you concede that if someone hid the body, but they were not actually the one who committed the murder, they may just have to lie and say they committed the murder, that that is what they should do, to tell a lie, in order to get a release from prison.

I suppose you see nothing wrong with our society building a justice system that requires you to lie.
A system that gives you less punishment if you say you committed a crime that you didn't do.

 

I didn't know you were in the habit of building strawman that were completely unrelated to my post, but here we are....

 

Is it a strawman? Isn't what you said tantamount to what I stated?

Because the statement you made seemed to be implying your approval, like you don't see anything wrong with the parole board doing that.

 

"This man has already spent 28 years in prison for a murder, which he claims he did not commit."

The parole board is not a court of law.

 

Which has absolutely nothing to do with what is being discussed.

If you are going to make a strawman statement, at least make it one that actually makes sense.

And no, in that case they would absolutely not confess to murder. Being an accessory after the fact is not a capitol offense. And in most circumstances gets them from 3-5 years in a state prison. Why in the hell would somebody plead guilty to murder, when what they did even if convicted is not all that serious of a punishment?

 

You seem to have a myopic sense of logic.

I'm going to ask you to see how the two connect.

The court of law looked at evidence and made the decision that this man is probably guilty and should be punished.

If the parole board just makes a blanket full out assumption that the man committed the crime because the court found him guilty, then there can be a flaw in that reasoning.
That is faulty logic. It is confusing two things together that sound similar but have a subtle but important difference.

When the court found him "guilty", in this case it means the court believes he is probably guilty and should be put in prison.
If the parole board just makes the simple easy assumption that he is guilty, and they do not consider the small possibility that exists that he might not have done the crime, then if they require him to express remorse, they risk the possibility of coercing him to lie, making an innocent man say that he committed a crime.

 

No I don't have a "myopic sense of logic"..... I simply understand that a parole board is not a court of law.

He should either be appealing to the clemency board or asking for an appeal in a court of law.

 

Somewhat related to the topic of accepting responsibility....

I recently learned that someone that I sort of know just did about 14 years in prison several years ago for having sex with a 12 year old girl when he was in his early twenties.

He told me that he was strung out on pills and meth at the time. I've done a lot of drugs myself and had some delusional thoughts but having sex with a 12-year-old girl was never one of them.

So this tells me even after 14 years in prison that he still doesn't take responsibility for what he did. If it was up to me I think he still belongs in prison.

Parole boards do not want to hear that someone is innocent. Prison is full of people who claim to be innocent.

 

I think you are confused and do not understand the story.

This man was convicted of committing murder. Now, apparently in the state where this happened, a person who is found guilty of murder has the possibility of not being sentenced to life in prison, depending on the situation. This man just had to spend a very long time in prison but had the chance of eventually being released.

The thing is, after being sentenced by the judge, the parole board will end up having some input into how long this man has to stay in prison. (That's common in many states)

So now the parole board wants him to make the admission, on public record, that he committed the crime.
He has already been in prison 28 years. If he does what they want, he has a chance of being released soon. If he does not admit to doing the crime -- a murder he might not have committed -- then his chances of being released are not so good.

Now, someone like you might argue someone like this who is convicted of murder should never be released from prison. But that's besides the point I am trying to make. It might not be murder, it could be some other crime that has a very long prison sentence. The same issues would still apply.

He has admitted to hiding the body, but that's not the crime he was convicted of and is not the crime they expect him to confess to.

Why might he confess to a murder he did not commit? Because he has already spent 28 years in prison for allegedly committing that murder, and if he does not "confess", he'll likely spend another 10 years or the rest of his life in prison. Whereas if he does say he committed the murder, he has a good possibility of being released.

 

If I'm understanding what you're saying, you're saying that some other decision-maker in the system (either a clemency board or appeals court) should make the decision to let him out early, rather than parole board.

That if the parole board would make the decision to let him out early, then a clemency board or appeals court should also be willing to let him out early, after consideration of the situation, without requiring him to express remorse.

You may be theoretically right, but that is often just not the way the world works.

You are assuming that all decision-makers are completely logical and precisely consistent.

It sounds like he has already exhausted his appeals. A new appeals court is not going to listen to him. His only chance now is the parole board.

Logically, if the parole board has already looked at his case and decided they are not going to release him, then they should just tell him upfront, and not create a situation that pressures him to make a confession. Perhaps that is how things should work, in a perfect world.

But bureaucratic processes are often not entirely logical and fair. No doubt they're just going to apply the usual process to him. And unfortunately that process will put pressure on him to admit to the crime. He doesn't even know for sure whether he has any chance of being released. It's quite possible he could confess to a crime that he did not commit, put on a show of remorse, and still never be released from prison.

All he knows is that if there is any chance the parole board might decide to release him, his chances are much better if he says that he committed the murder.