Reply #27: I was once asked a challenging question about the death penalty.

[IdaBriggs]

If 99 out of 100 people who were / are executed are actually GUILTY, would you release them all from prison to save the one innocent man?

I was asked this question many years ago, and I have watched my answers change over the years. Originally, my answer was "free them all -- save the innocent!" Later, as I came to realize that my DUTY was to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, I reconciled myself to that one innocent man either being executed, or spending his life unfairly behind bars. I want the system to work fairly, and believe that striving to "fix" the problems so we can identify the "truly" innocent versus the "truly" guilty to decrease those odds from "one in a hundred" to "one in ten thousand" instead.

Does it always work? Probably not. Nor do I know the "real" percentages of guilty versus innocent people convicted of heinous crimes. Is it closer to 50/50? A thousand to one? 95% accuracy? At what point is the "wrongly convicted innocent man" ratio going to be high enough for me to shout ENOUGH?

As I said, my answer changes over the years, but when it comes to pedophiles and child molesters, my current experience is "personal knowledge" of about thirty or so different cases, where only ONE perpetrator (who molested his thirteen year old step-daughter) spent ANY time in jail -- in this particular case, ten days. The rest of the survivors I know have NEVER seen "justice" in the court systems.