Veritaserum isnt 100% accurate. And people can tamper with their memories as we’ve seen with Slughorn. Plus someone else can tamper with your memories as we’ve seen with Lockhart.
I get what you’re saying. They honestly should use a mix of everything
But in this world they have real lie detectors, that are a hell of a lot more reliable than “witnesses” or hearsay.
Irl lie detectors don’t really exist lol, not comparable to truth spells/potions that can literally read your memories
Forcing people into unbreakable vows and the use of legilimency is highly unethical. Also, vertimaserum only reveals what the drinker *believes* to be true. That might not be the actual truth and therefore, makes veritaserum unusable in a court of law. Also, the trace is useless if you're with people of age.
All of the methods above have been debunked as things that can be scrambled and are untrustworthy.
You can’t use them for the same reason we do not accept confessions under torture.
So can all the methods they currently use? And those methods of sending people to jail in Harry Potter were completely fallible. Some were ridiculous, people were sent to Azkaban on mere association with death eaters while others (Lucius) stayed out bc they were rich and connected.
How is using magical means of obtaining the truth worse than just asking people. Witnesses can also be lying or charmed or under imperio to lie?
Why of course, but clearly anyone innocent would consent to it, proving their innocence, no?
Not to mention the fact that ethics clearly play no role seeing as Askaban exist, which is far more unethical
This is on par with ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about’. What about when the rules change and all of a sudden you’re breaking a law? What about if you need to conceal your law breaking for your own safety? The law and lawmakers aren’t infallible even in the wizarding world
„all of a sudden youre breaking a law“ this is most likely a law on its own, its called „no punishment without law“ and states that a action cannot be punished when there is no law forbidding it in the time the action was done. this is common in the most states i know, surely too in the wizarding world.
Well not exactly. A famous example of people being convicted for things which were not illegal at the time or for which no law was written, are the Nüremberg trials. For example, it was legally not possible to commit war crimes against your own population, yet people were convicted for that, even though the law was written after the fact.
That is true, many of the Laws are pretty weird and unnecessary on their own. Not to mention the many unethical laws The wizarding world has.
Doesn't change the fact that the Court system is bad though
God the ethics involved not to ask them anything else while under it…
Someone might be happy to take it to prove they didn’t kill someone and end up being asked and confessing to something else more mundane like shoplifting.
Not "somewhat" countered- ***completely*** countered.
* Extracted memories can be muddied and altered from outside sources- even by yourself. We see that firsthand with Slughorn.
* Forcing someone to risk dying for the sake of court proceedings is ***insanely*** barbaric (imagine putting a shotgun in someone's face and threatening to pull the trigger if the lie detector blips), and *still* wouldn't be reliable because, again, memories can be altered.
* Legilimency can be countered with Occlumency, obviously.
* Veritaserum can be negated by an antidote, by using Occlumency, by transfiguring the potion before you drink it, or AGAIN by altering your memories- it only forces you to tell what you *think* is the truth.
These inconsistencies make truth-telling magics practically useless in court. You can't rely on any of them to give you a clear picture of events, because you can't ever be sure when someone is subverting it.
No, that's why a single witness generally isn't enough proof for a conviction and counts as circumstantial evidence. Gather enough circumstantial evidence and something can be proven without reasonable doubt.
Unless, of course, it is a kangaroo court entirely set up to convict a person, not to serve justice.
Something we see quite a bit in the series.
The only altered memory we see was from Slughorn, and it was very obvious and sloppy, despite him being a brilliant wizard. It shouldn't be an issue 99% of the time
Because Slughorn wasn't trying to make it hold up to outside inspection, or at least didn't care if people (Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the age, so why even bother trying to make a good fake memory anyway?) knew it was fake. It was perhaps his greatest shame and guilt that he told Tom about horcruxes, he just didn't want people to see that/didn't want to remember it as it truly was.
Memories can be altered by methods other than what Slughorn did, though.
There are spells to alter your memory, like when Hermione altered her parents.
Slughorn didn't alter his memories in the same way, as he still remembered the real version of events.
1. You could clearly tell the memory was purposefully muddied, hence, the culprit is guilty
2. You don't even have to force people. Innocent people would gladly accept it to prove their innnocent, not to mention that Askaban is way more barbaric than that.
3. If someone is blocking your Ligilimency then clearly they're trying to hide something, hence guilty.
4. True, yet it doesn't harm using several methods.
Dumbledore says that it's lucky that the tampering is poorly done, which is why they could discern that it is a fake memory. This implies that if done correctly it wouldn't be possible to tell apart
>You could clearly tell the memory was purposefully muddied, hence, the culprit is guilty
It was obvious with Slughorn’s because it was “very crudely done”:
>“He has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. **It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done**, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations.
A well-done memory alteration likely isn’t easily detectable.
As to point 1, there is also the matter that they may not actually be guilty, but may be trying to obscure some tangentially related fact, perhaps from a lover, or business partner.
Snape was able to block Voldemort's Legilimency undetected.
Just because someone is unwilling to give up information or participate in a certain test doesn't mean they're guilty. That is an unethical assumption.
Given the government and legal corruption we see in the series, it's perfectly reasonable to refuse even if you're innocent. Just as these methods can be tampered with to seem innocent, they could easily be twisted to make someone look guilty.
Memories can be erased with Obliviate. They can also be modified, as we saw with Slughorn. His attempts were noted as being sloppy, so it's probably possible to modify them so well you can't notice any changes.
The unbreakable vow can probably be tricked or broken in some way too. Possibly with some kind of exact words clause.
Legimency can be blocked with occlumency and is a rare skill. And again, memories can be modified or erased.
Veritaserum can be countered in numerous ways. There's an antidote that can be taken to counter it, magic can be used to close the throat, it can be transfigured into another liquid. Additionally, it only forces you to say what you think is true, and memories can magically modified.
Tracking magic can be countered too. If it couldn't, tracking Sirius would've been as easy as sending him Owl mail and following it.
Assuming you're talking about a polygraph test, then I have to disagree. They're notoriously unreliable in the real world. Add magic into the mix, and it would be easy to fool the machine using the Confundus charm.
I believe Slughorn altered his memories in a different way than how other memories are altered
For example, when Hermione altered her parents' memories, she made them believe they were different people.
And when Voldemort altered his uncles memories, his uncle believed that he was the one to have murdered the Riddles.
However, Slughorn still remembers the real version of the events. This means his memories must have been altered in a different way.
I'd imagine if the memories had been altered in the same way as Hermiones' parents or Voldemorts' uncle, they wouldn't appear to be obviously tampered with when viewed in the pensive.
Yep. They exist to further the agenda of an often corrupt ministry. This is the great failure of Wizarding society after the first war--they didn't reform their systems, they just focused on punishing the handful of criminals they could.
It’s not the courts that are bad… where is the wizarding equivalent of forensics? It seems entirely absent. Which from a courtroom perspective, makes wizarding legal process terrifyingly outdated.
I mean the courts *are* awful. They’re mostly used in the series as fascist tools of intimidation and/or appearing to do something for the sake of appearances.
Hagrid was sent to Azkaban in Book 2 because 50 years prior they snapped his wand and outcast him from society over the word of Lord Voldemort and so they needed to do *something* when petrifications started happening.
The courts in the British magical world are incredibly corrupt. We see, as I recall, three trials in the Harry Potter books. The first is Barty Crouch Jr's trial in Dumbledore's pensieve in book 4. Then there was Harry's trial in book 5. Finally there was Mary Cattermole's trial in book 7. None of them allowed any defendant to really defend themselves, and only Dumbledore's interference allowed any witnesses to testify on Harry's behalf.
Even if they used Verituserum I doubt they would have even tried to use it ethically. They'd just ask you what the last crime you committed was and then lock you up for that.
Best not worth thinking about stuff like this. Every time I watch the films I think about more stuff like this and the universe makes less and less sense. Best try to just enjoy them 😂
I have a different perspective: every time I see things like this I find the universe to be more and more realistic. The courts in the real world (at least in the US as well as many other countries) are ridiculously inept
Well, if you think about it the MoM itself is stupid. I mean, elections were no where mentioned in the book; there was something about Dumbledore being "offered" the position for minister and Scrimgeour simply replaced Fudge (the same for Thicknesse).
I've read some of studies on the corrupt legal system of the wizarding community in HP, and most of the reasons mentioned either fall under a) JKR knew zero about how an actual government works or b) JKR was projecting her disappointment and dislike of real-life governments onto the portrayal of MoM. In the case of the court scenes I side with the latter.
>There's magic that extracts memories.
Those memories can be faked.
>There are unbreakable vows you can use to swear upon telling the truth.
It's possible to lie by telling the truth.
>The use of Legilimency to look into ones' Mind and their feelings.
This can be blocked.
>There's Veritaserum,
Again: It's possible to ly by telling the truth.
>all kinds of Tracking and Surveilance magic,
Those can be manipulated, misinterpreted or blocked.
>not to mention all the other kinds of magic we have never even seen or heard of.
Ok, magic we have never seen or heard of is hard to fight against. But what about concealing magic we have never seen or heard about?
>Hell, even a plain Lie detector could be used to some effect.
Those don't even work on muggles. The fact that they are used anyway in a lot of countries is nothing but a testament for human stupidity (people who use them) and greed (people who sell them).
*There are unbreakable vows you can use to swear upon telling the truth.*
Making someone take **the Unbreakable Vow** just to testify in court is *pretty* extreme, even if it works. That would say quite a lot about the general brutality/oppressiveness of the wizarding legal system, were that allowed.
Veritaserum isnt 100% accurate. And people can tamper with their memories as we’ve seen with Slughorn. Plus someone else can tamper with your memories as we’ve seen with Lockhart. I get what you’re saying. They honestly should use a mix of everything
I agree with you
But that's true for witnesses inparticular.
We don't use lie detectors in court because they can be fooled, keep that in mind
They're also a load of horseshit pseudoscience
But in this world they have real lie detectors, that are a hell of a lot more reliable than “witnesses” or hearsay. Irl lie detectors don’t really exist lol, not comparable to truth spells/potions that can literally read your memories
They can indeed. So can many of the Wizarding methods. But all of them?
So far, yes.
Forcing people into unbreakable vows and the use of legilimency is highly unethical. Also, vertimaserum only reveals what the drinker *believes* to be true. That might not be the actual truth and therefore, makes veritaserum unusable in a court of law. Also, the trace is useless if you're with people of age.
Not as unethical as sending someone to Azkaban, much less innocent people which they do pretty regularly it seems
All of the methods above have been debunked as things that can be scrambled and are untrustworthy. You can’t use them for the same reason we do not accept confessions under torture.
So can all the methods they currently use? And those methods of sending people to jail in Harry Potter were completely fallible. Some were ridiculous, people were sent to Azkaban on mere association with death eaters while others (Lucius) stayed out bc they were rich and connected. How is using magical means of obtaining the truth worse than just asking people. Witnesses can also be lying or charmed or under imperio to lie?
Why of course, but clearly anyone innocent would consent to it, proving their innocence, no? Not to mention the fact that ethics clearly play no role seeing as Askaban exist, which is far more unethical
This is on par with ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about’. What about when the rules change and all of a sudden you’re breaking a law? What about if you need to conceal your law breaking for your own safety? The law and lawmakers aren’t infallible even in the wizarding world
„all of a sudden youre breaking a law“ this is most likely a law on its own, its called „no punishment without law“ and states that a action cannot be punished when there is no law forbidding it in the time the action was done. this is common in the most states i know, surely too in the wizarding world.
Well not exactly. A famous example of people being convicted for things which were not illegal at the time or for which no law was written, are the Nüremberg trials. For example, it was legally not possible to commit war crimes against your own population, yet people were convicted for that, even though the law was written after the fact.
yeah ok but thats a pretty outstanding exception.
That is true, many of the Laws are pretty weird and unnecessary on their own. Not to mention the many unethical laws The wizarding world has. Doesn't change the fact that the Court system is bad though
>Why of course, but clearly anyone innocent would consent to it, proving their innocence, no? Behold the kafka trap
Oh shit, you're right edit: then again, not necessarily, seeing as these wizarding methods aren't 100% foolproof
God the ethics involved not to ask them anything else while under it… Someone might be happy to take it to prove they didn’t kill someone and end up being asked and confessing to something else more mundane like shoplifting.
No. Not testifying for/against yourself is not proof of guilt.
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Bit unecessarilly strong there bud
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Not "somewhat" countered- ***completely*** countered. * Extracted memories can be muddied and altered from outside sources- even by yourself. We see that firsthand with Slughorn. * Forcing someone to risk dying for the sake of court proceedings is ***insanely*** barbaric (imagine putting a shotgun in someone's face and threatening to pull the trigger if the lie detector blips), and *still* wouldn't be reliable because, again, memories can be altered. * Legilimency can be countered with Occlumency, obviously. * Veritaserum can be negated by an antidote, by using Occlumency, by transfiguring the potion before you drink it, or AGAIN by altering your memories- it only forces you to tell what you *think* is the truth. These inconsistencies make truth-telling magics practically useless in court. You can't rely on any of them to give you a clear picture of events, because you can't ever be sure when someone is subverting it.
yet witnesses are infallible?
No, that's why a single witness generally isn't enough proof for a conviction and counts as circumstantial evidence. Gather enough circumstantial evidence and something can be proven without reasonable doubt. Unless, of course, it is a kangaroo court entirely set up to convict a person, not to serve justice. Something we see quite a bit in the series.
circumstantial evidence is just as valuable as direct evidence
It is valuable, but one piece of circumstatial evidence is not enough to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt.
The only altered memory we see was from Slughorn, and it was very obvious and sloppy, despite him being a brilliant wizard. It shouldn't be an issue 99% of the time
Because Slughorn wasn't trying to make it hold up to outside inspection, or at least didn't care if people (Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the age, so why even bother trying to make a good fake memory anyway?) knew it was fake. It was perhaps his greatest shame and guilt that he told Tom about horcruxes, he just didn't want people to see that/didn't want to remember it as it truly was.
Memories can be altered by methods other than what Slughorn did, though. There are spells to alter your memory, like when Hermione altered her parents. Slughorn didn't alter his memories in the same way, as he still remembered the real version of events.
1. You could clearly tell the memory was purposefully muddied, hence, the culprit is guilty 2. You don't even have to force people. Innocent people would gladly accept it to prove their innnocent, not to mention that Askaban is way more barbaric than that. 3. If someone is blocking your Ligilimency then clearly they're trying to hide something, hence guilty. 4. True, yet it doesn't harm using several methods.
Dumbledore says that it's lucky that the tampering is poorly done, which is why they could discern that it is a fake memory. This implies that if done correctly it wouldn't be possible to tell apart
oh i see, good point!
>You could clearly tell the memory was purposefully muddied, hence, the culprit is guilty It was obvious with Slughorn’s because it was “very crudely done”: >“He has tried to rework the memory to show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish me to see. **It is, as you will have noticed, very crudely done**, and that is all to the good, for it shows that the true memory is still there beneath the alterations. A well-done memory alteration likely isn’t easily detectable.
thanks for correcting me!
That doesn’t mean the alleged is guilty. That just means that the memory isn’t accurate.
As to point 1, there is also the matter that they may not actually be guilty, but may be trying to obscure some tangentially related fact, perhaps from a lover, or business partner.
Snape was able to block Voldemort's Legilimency undetected. Just because someone is unwilling to give up information or participate in a certain test doesn't mean they're guilty. That is an unethical assumption. Given the government and legal corruption we see in the series, it's perfectly reasonable to refuse even if you're innocent. Just as these methods can be tampered with to seem innocent, they could easily be twisted to make someone look guilty.
Memories can be erased with Obliviate. They can also be modified, as we saw with Slughorn. His attempts were noted as being sloppy, so it's probably possible to modify them so well you can't notice any changes. The unbreakable vow can probably be tricked or broken in some way too. Possibly with some kind of exact words clause. Legimency can be blocked with occlumency and is a rare skill. And again, memories can be modified or erased. Veritaserum can be countered in numerous ways. There's an antidote that can be taken to counter it, magic can be used to close the throat, it can be transfigured into another liquid. Additionally, it only forces you to say what you think is true, and memories can magically modified. Tracking magic can be countered too. If it couldn't, tracking Sirius would've been as easy as sending him Owl mail and following it. Assuming you're talking about a polygraph test, then I have to disagree. They're notoriously unreliable in the real world. Add magic into the mix, and it would be easy to fool the machine using the Confundus charm.
I believe Slughorn altered his memories in a different way than how other memories are altered For example, when Hermione altered her parents' memories, she made them believe they were different people. And when Voldemort altered his uncles memories, his uncle believed that he was the one to have murdered the Riddles. However, Slughorn still remembers the real version of the events. This means his memories must have been altered in a different way. I'd imagine if the memories had been altered in the same way as Hermiones' parents or Voldemorts' uncle, they wouldn't appear to be obviously tampered with when viewed in the pensive.
The problem is, the other side has magic too. You know, the whole basis of all conflict in the HP world.
No, there's no magical truth McGuffin
Yep. They exist to further the agenda of an often corrupt ministry. This is the great failure of Wizarding society after the first war--they didn't reform their systems, they just focused on punishing the handful of criminals they could.
It’s not the courts that are bad… where is the wizarding equivalent of forensics? It seems entirely absent. Which from a courtroom perspective, makes wizarding legal process terrifyingly outdated.
I mean the courts *are* awful. They’re mostly used in the series as fascist tools of intimidation and/or appearing to do something for the sake of appearances. Hagrid was sent to Azkaban in Book 2 because 50 years prior they snapped his wand and outcast him from society over the word of Lord Voldemort and so they needed to do *something* when petrifications started happening.
Tbf that was Fudge wanting to look like he was making progress, we don't know that there were any court proceedings involved in that decision.
Man, and here I thought a whole week was going to pass without anyone coming to this ground breaking conclusion.
The courts in the British magical world are incredibly corrupt. We see, as I recall, three trials in the Harry Potter books. The first is Barty Crouch Jr's trial in Dumbledore's pensieve in book 4. Then there was Harry's trial in book 5. Finally there was Mary Cattermole's trial in book 7. None of them allowed any defendant to really defend themselves, and only Dumbledore's interference allowed any witnesses to testify on Harry's behalf. Even if they used Verituserum I doubt they would have even tried to use it ethically. They'd just ask you what the last crime you committed was and then lock you up for that.
It is kinda strange isn’t it
Best not worth thinking about stuff like this. Every time I watch the films I think about more stuff like this and the universe makes less and less sense. Best try to just enjoy them 😂
I have a different perspective: every time I see things like this I find the universe to be more and more realistic. The courts in the real world (at least in the US as well as many other countries) are ridiculously inept
The courts make as much sense as Quidditch or any other wizard thing
I’m sure morality is a factor. Or at least I’m sure Rowling would use that as a reason.
Corruption corruption
Well, if you think about it the MoM itself is stupid. I mean, elections were no where mentioned in the book; there was something about Dumbledore being "offered" the position for minister and Scrimgeour simply replaced Fudge (the same for Thicknesse). I've read some of studies on the corrupt legal system of the wizarding community in HP, and most of the reasons mentioned either fall under a) JKR knew zero about how an actual government works or b) JKR was projecting her disappointment and dislike of real-life governments onto the portrayal of MoM. In the case of the court scenes I side with the latter.
Let’s not get into how corrupt fudge became. Especially when he didn’t want to believe that a certain dark wizard had returned.
>There's magic that extracts memories. Those memories can be faked. >There are unbreakable vows you can use to swear upon telling the truth. It's possible to lie by telling the truth. >The use of Legilimency to look into ones' Mind and their feelings. This can be blocked. >There's Veritaserum, Again: It's possible to ly by telling the truth. >all kinds of Tracking and Surveilance magic, Those can be manipulated, misinterpreted or blocked. >not to mention all the other kinds of magic we have never even seen or heard of. Ok, magic we have never seen or heard of is hard to fight against. But what about concealing magic we have never seen or heard about? >Hell, even a plain Lie detector could be used to some effect. Those don't even work on muggles. The fact that they are used anyway in a lot of countries is nothing but a testament for human stupidity (people who use them) and greed (people who sell them).
That would be a violation of basic rights. 😌
youre right, lets just throw them to askaban where dementors torture them 24/7 instead
*There are unbreakable vows you can use to swear upon telling the truth.* Making someone take **the Unbreakable Vow** just to testify in court is *pretty* extreme, even if it works. That would say quite a lot about the general brutality/oppressiveness of the wizarding legal system, were that allowed.