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--- court [2024/06/22 13:07] – ultracomfy
+++ court [2025/04/09 20:06] (current) – ultracomfy
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+~~Title:Court~~
+<WRAP column right 18%>
+{{page>Templates:Philosophy}}
+</WRAP>
 The <fs xx-large>Court</fs> is the arbiter of an institutionalzed government. Conceptually, a good court interprets the [[law]] and applies it to the real world. Philosophically, courts are intended to act as an impartial referee in establishing and then judging facts relating to events of possible breaches of law. Like in a good [[democracy]], fighting here is meant to happen with words and arguments, therefore courts are generally weapons-free zones.\\
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 A court works on the premise that it is the institution of a government to establish facts of a potential crime. For that it weighs evidence, witness hearings, the defendant and all other procurable thing that are helpful to establish the facts. The goal is to get as close as possible to an estimate of the truth, assuming there is such a thing as a shared reality between humans. For this, the [[qualifier]] //reasonable doubt// is used. In a world where we are seperated from reality by virtue of our limited senses, there is no so thing such as a brute fact (except of course for my own existence, which is proven by my existence). In practical terms for the real world, it is not possible to find "absolute evidence" for a crime. There is always the possibility that every single DNA scanner misattributes the criminal's DNA, there's always the possibility that every surveillance camera recording your murder was somehow glitching, or other conspiratorial ideas that can pull evidence into question. However, these are not //reasonable doubts// which is where the term reasonable doubt comes from. Reasonable doubt is the legal standad of proof and an intentionally high burden of proof to overcome. The idea is that all persons are presumed to be innocent (commonly known as "Innocent until proven guilty") and it is up to the prosecution to establish undeniable proof of the guilt of the defendant. Well, **reasonably** undeniable, of course, since everything can be denied //technically//.((The individual facts of a crime are called "Elements" and must all be successively proven for a sentence. The chain of proof must be unbroken and proven beyond a reasonable doubt.)) Of course, the problem with this is still that no evidence is absolute evidence and therefore any court may end up wrongly sentencing a person who was innocent. Reasonable doubt and Presumed Innocence are maxims intended to make sure that such things never happen. Any court, where uncertain about the innocence of a defendant, will always prefer to let them go rather than run the risk of sentencing someone who could as well be innocent. Courts acknowledge that, from an philosophical perspective, there's nothing worse a court can do than punishing the innocent.((Blackstone ratio: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."))\\
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-So, zoom out a bit, the government works on the premise that a court is there to establish facts, as best as it can, anyway. Therefore, anyone suspected to be in violation of the law will be brought to a court where they will have a trial. The idea is that "the truth will always come out", and if you are innocent you will be able to walk away from the court. This is why a police officer can arrest you even if you have done nothing wrong. Sure, a police officer's power to arrest a person is limited, but since the truth is meant to be determined in court, you do not get to resist an arrest. To decide whether an arrest was warranted or not is upon a judge to evaluate in a trial, not on you in that situation. To be placed under arrest is almost always lawful((Except in exceptions, imagine some weird life or death scenario.)) and by resisting or avoiding that arrest - even if you have done nothing to warrant it - constitutes a crime in of itself. Again, if you are innocent, let yourself be arrested to see the court, have your innocence proven, then file lawsuits against the PD for an unlawful arrest. That's the philosophy, anyway. That it's impractical to actually do it like this - because lawsuits tend to be too expensive for the normal person - is obvious, but philosophically this is a reasonable approach to policing.
+So, zoom out a bit, the government works on the premise that a court is there to establish facts - as best as it can, anyway. Therefore, anyone suspected to be in violation of the law will be brought to a court where they will have a trial. The idea is that "the truth will always come out", and if you are innocent you will be able to walk away from the court. This is why a police officer can arrest you even if you have done nothing wrong. Sure, a police officer's power to arrest a person is limited, but since the truth is meant to be determined in court, you do not get to resist an arrest. To decide whether an arrest was warranted or not is upon a judge to evaluate in a trial, not on you in that situation. To be placed under arrest is almost always lawful((Except in exceptions, imagine some weird life or death scenario.)) and by resisting or avoiding that arrest - even if you have done nothing to warrant it - constitutes a crime in of itself. Again, if you are innocent, let yourself be arrested to see the court, have your innocence proven, then file lawsuits against the PD for an unlawful arrest. That's the philosophy, anyway. That it's impractical to actually do it like this - because lawsuits tend to be too expensive for the normal person - is obvious, but philosophically this is a reasonable approach to policing.
 ====== Types of Court ======