Also from Bedau. Obvious, but sometimes the obvious is overlooked. How could anyone be so naive as to believe, in a system in which people get fried on the testimony of convicts who get rewarded, for example by escaping execution themselves, for their helpful testimony, that the innocent won't be put to death as a result of perjury?:
Several factors help explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never miscarry: overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, faulty police work, coerced confessions, the defendant's previous criminal record, inept defense counsel, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence, and community pressure for a conviction, among others. And when the system does go wrong, it is volunteers outside the criminal justice system – journalists, for example – who rectify the errors, not the police or prosecutors.
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