Prosecute an innocent person. Definitely. I tend to treat everyone as guilty until proven innocent anyway, which is why I vastly prefer to prosecute than defend, if given the choice.
Of course, ideally I'd rather not prosecute the innocent, but sometimes the best way to ensure that the innocent get to clear their name is to prosecute them. Once the accusation is out there, it has to be refuted by an acquittal, or there will always be an element of uncertainty as to their innocence. Whereas I honestly can't see any point to defending a guilty person at all. (Well, unless the guilty person is *me*... but even then, I never make the argument that I didn't do what I did, just that doing it wasn't really wrong.)
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branchandroot
Re: Also,
Date: 2009-06-16 09:14 pm (UTC)Of course, ideally I'd rather not prosecute the innocent, but sometimes the best way to ensure that the innocent get to clear their name is to prosecute them. Once the accusation is out there, it has to be refuted by an acquittal, or there will always be an element of uncertainty as to their innocence. Whereas I honestly can't see any point to defending a guilty person at all. (Well, unless the guilty person is *me*... but even then, I never make the argument that I didn't do what I did, just that doing it wasn't really wrong.)