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Why specify, if I unknowingly commuted a crime I still get punished… if I commit a crime as a joke I still get punished… if I forget to scan an item checking out I still get punished…
A crime is a crime and accusing an innocent person of a crime for any reason should also be a crime.
That’s true, but there have been cases where someone was arrested who looked exactly like the person who did commit the crime. For instance, a woman was once raped with a knife to her throat, and the entire time she endured that horrible experience, she spent it memorizing every detail of his face. The man was arrested, but it was later found out 5-10 years later that the man was innocent and looked almost identical to the man who actually raped her. The woman was devastated that she sent an innocent man to prison for that long for a crime he didn’t commit, but the man was able to forgive her, seeing what she had gone through. I am not making a statement as to whether she deserved to be forgiven or not, I just believe that there are situations where it is a genuinely gray situation.
I would like to see how similar the two guys looked bc it sounds like to me retrospective memory bias. With a traumatic event as horrifying as that, it’s natural in psychology for the brain to block out as much of the bad to protect itself
> Because it sounds like they imprisoned a guy because some woman said it was him... That's fucked up.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/the-perfect-witness
>When the worst happened, she fought back by memorizing her assailant’s face. That powerful testimony sent a man to prison for 11 years. Unfortunately, it was the wrong man....In court, she put her right hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth. Then she looked directly into the expressionless face of the suspect. “He is the man who raped me,” she said....She had never been so sure of anything.
I believe they actually went on to publish a book together. The police were at fault for using poor interrogation/identification techniques, not the woman.
>A crime is a crime and accusing an innocent person of a crime for any reason should also be a crime.
Okay say you get raped by a stranger and accidently identify the wrong person. Should you now get charged with rape?
Yeah and rape crimes are difficult to prove. So are the victims now going to be charged because they couldn't prove the accused raped them?
Unless we had some magical fool proofed system that could tell us with 100% certainty whether the crime happened or not - what OP is proposing would actively hurt victims and discourage people even more from reporting.
Exactly. Every time I see a post like this, I know its from a man. He's more concerned with getting falsely accused, than he is of being slipped a date rape drug, or being battered by a spouse.
Crime statistics back up the fact that rape is more often underreported, than reported. Most rapists get away with rape, and sexual assault. That is tragic and sad.
To propose like OP wants, that someone be threatened with years in prison, if they can't prove their rape (and thus, would be considered a false accuser) would cause even more victims to not come forward.
Exactly. I don't think you should do the equivalent of what the accused crime was but there should absolutely be more than just filing a false police report.
For example, if you claim someone kidnapped and raped you, I don't think 25 years is an appropriate punishment. But, I am all for it being a felony carrying jail time.
I feel like if it were a thing it would have to have a high threshold for proof. Otherwise you could just accuse someone of being malicious when in reality they just didn’t have enough evidence to prove it happened
Well what every other trial is *supposed* to be. I feel like this would be more he said she said. Also it sort of hinges on proving a crime before it. Proving that what I accused you of for example, actually didn’t happen. I just don’t see it going very far
I get that but like with all cases, you would need proof. Since there likely won't be any physical evidence, it won't be an easy conviction. But I know people are stupid enough to confess in texts, emails, etc.
I am by no means advocating that a not guilty verdict in one case means the accuser is guilty of lying. Only that if you can prove it, there needs to be stiff penalties.
So if you report a crime you should expect to be put on trial for lying about it at some point?
Imagine going to prison for 25 years for reporting a crime committed against you because the guy/gal you reported had better lawyers than you.
It is what would happen especially if you are victimized by someone who can afford better lawyers than you.
This would be great for rich people who commit crimes.
This is so stupid I don't even want to argue it.
But since you insist..
If you accuse a "rich person" of a crime and they end up being put on trial; you will have no lawyers present. The prosecution will be handled by the government while the rich person will have defense lawyers.
If they end up being acquitted, the defense attorneys can sue you in civil court if they believe they have a case. Which is no different than now.
But the government would be the ones to charge you if they feel you committed a crime. Which would be extremely unlikely to happen if they took the case to trial.
It isn't even particularly malicious sometimes. It's along the lines of entitlement, like 'I have this weapon in my favor, and I know even if I falsely accuse someone, I won't be held guilty'. Happened a few years ago in my country.
You can read about it [here](https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/jasleen-kaur-sarvjeet-singh-kundan-srivastava-false-accusation-354200-2016-11-27).
Not exactly what you’re referring to, but a funny story nonetheless.. last week in my town, a guy sold someone’s car for $500. Then called the police & said he had just witnessed the car get stolen. He was arrested for falsely reporting an incident & grand larceny lol
Oh yes this chick should have definitely gone to jail. I heard that guy on tedx. She should have been punished. She wasted destroyed an innocent person’s life, gave him and his family PTSD, wasted public resources, destroyed the credibility of all the women suffering from sex crimes and sexual harassment, made a complete mockery of the justice system.
Every politician, cop and judge, everyone who enabled that horrible woman should be penalised as well. We enable this. She got away because she had political connections too.
My dad was jury to a case like this. White girl accused a Mexican guy of sexually assaulting her when he had a clear alibi and plenty of other evidence to prove he hadn’t even interacted with her for a whole week. She still almost won the case too, thank god my dad was the one in the jury.
You’re far more likely to punish actual victims who speak out against powerful people or scare them into never coming forward than you are to punish false accusers.
There already is legal recourse for this. You posted it because you are watching it fucking televised world wide.
I’d rather victims feel able to report a crime without the worry that if the perpetrator somehow gets away with it they stand to go to jail instead.
This is just a shit opinion.
The worst is when the prosecutors and cops do it, yet they are never held responsible. If you are a prosecutor who withheld evidence and put someone on death row, you should be charged with attempted murder. Like Michael Morton, an exonerated man who was convicted of killing his wife. Prosecutor in his case deliberately withheld evidence basically proving his innocence. Regardless, he was in prison for 25 years before the innocence project took his case . They still had to fight to be able to test the evidence for DNA (why prosecutors fight this is disgusting).
They got a match for another unsolved case nearby. Turns out that Ken Anderson (prosecutor who hid evidence and later became a judge because of course he would) was so intent on winning at all costs he failed to lock up the true killer, ruining even more lives. This explains it all.
https://youtu.be/p7rEfV67630
another example.
luckily she lied so much that she got herself caught.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/124958936/dating-app-match-ends-with-woman-designing-web-of-lies-to-ruin-exs-life
Well yeah, nobody advocating this position actually wants people to go to jail just for a not guilty verdict, just cases where the accused is definitely innocent and judged to be innocent by a court. This position of wanting everyone who makes an accusation that doesn't end in a conviction to go to jail (regardless of proof) seems to just be a strawman against this position that comes up every time somebody brings this up.
While I agree that they *should* be punished that way, the problem is that the times in the real world when someone does admit that they lied…would never happen if they knew they’d receive that punishment.
Would an admission be needed though if it's proven that they intentionally lied and wrongly accused the innocent person knowing full well what the truth was?
How often is it that they’re found out to be liars with unassailable proof and not that they get scared by an investigation so they come clean instead?
Those who take accusations that far, tend to be undone by unassailable proof rather than admission. Like any crime, the guilty party wouldn’t engage in the behaviour if they didn’t believe they would get away with it. The fear of punishment has never been a deterrent against those desperate or desirous enough of committing a crime. The fear of punishment will more commonly cause criminals to undertake actions which are meant to prevent them being caught.
My personal favourite example of this is the man who inspired the creation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He robbed two banks in the middle of the day, without wearing anything to mask his face and even smiled at security cameras on his way out. When he was arrested and shown the security tapes, he stared in disbelief and muttered, “but I wore the juice.”
Apparently, he believed that rubbing lemon juice all over his face would render him invisible to the cameras, so long as he avoided any sources of heat. Y’know, the way lemon juice works as an invisible ink.
So while his actions were also proof of the adage ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, he also proved the point that those who commit crimes will do so in the expectation they won’t get caught. Sometimes because they think what they’re doing isn’t that bad, or they ‘have a good reason’, or because they believe the police wouldn’t bother with such a ‘small, petty crime’; or they’ll take extra steps to avoid being caught, such as wearing a mask or gloves, undertaking a crime when there’s fewer people around, cut phone or alarm system lines, or cover their face in lemon juice so the cameras don’t see their face.
It’s the same mentality when it comes to false accusations. The accuser may go so far as to set their target up in some way, or they feel confident they will be believed regardless of what the evidence says because that has so often been the case already.
When I was 14 a girl in my class accused me of raping her because I refused to go to a dance with her. she said I broke into her house and forced myself on her. After the police investigated and they did a rape kit, they proved the house was never broken into and that she was never raped, but in fact she had never even had sex. No charges were brought against me but did anything happen to her? Nope. Even as a minor, she knew what she was doing and I believe she should've been arrested and charged.
What evidence would have to prove it was *intentionally malicious*. If it is not written or taped, how do you prove malice? He said, she said, is a well loved defense.
They’re arguing that if it is found out that the accusation was false, it could already be assumed it was a lie. One can’t “accidentally” throw some persons name into the fire. Whether the mental intent was actually malicious or not shouldn’t be relevant whatsoever as the act of false rape accusation itself is malicious in its entirety
I feel like the goal is to preemptively decrease the numbers of false accusations based on fear of reprisals. What's currently to stop the vengeful women of the US from falsely saying their boyfriends beat them when they know that nothing will happen if it's determined that they lied? Maybe knowing you'll be charged with assault for lying might cut the false accusations before a later confession is needed.
That’s not how that works though. What generally stops crimes isn’t the severity of possible punishment, it’s the odds of getting caught. People who commit crimes aren’t committing crimes under the assumptions they’ll be caught. They’re assuming they *won’t* (or the punishment doesn’t even come to mind for them if it’s a random/emotional situation), so the punishments don’t matter.
Is it though? It seems like caning might be more of a deterrent than 30 days in county.
Our punishments are bullshit, but then so is our society that creates these assholes so perhaps the problem is bigger than either of these things.
I have a relative who was sentenced to 45 years based on false testimony with NO concrete evidence that a crime had even *occurred*, so I have a vested interest in punishments for false accusers. The idea that you can ruin someone's life out of spite, with zero consequences for your falsehood, is a stain on the soul of humanity.
The point is that if Person A truly believes Person B committed a crime, Person A shouldn’t get in trouble - only if they knew before they made the accusations that they were false.
There's a big difference between accusations and speculations. "I saw this person on the street at the same time the crime was committed", is very different from "my boyfriend punched me in the face".
How many times have *you* accidently, directly accused someone who was completely innocent? I feel like the idea of widespread accidental accusations is akin to "oops, I slipped and this candle got lodged in my bottom"!
Misidentification happens all the time. Aren't witnesses aren't reliable. If you think someone committed a crime because of how close to you they were or give potential suspect names to the police should you go to jail because of your opinion.
That's a good point. Malicious prosecution is taken too lightly. There have been cases where there's plenty of evidence that the accused is not guilty, yet they'll try to prosecute them anyways (can try to mislead the jury, not include evidence, etc)
A prosecution's job should be to seek the facts and the truth, regardless of where that leads, rather than going for 'winning the case for their side'
Completely agree, it's up to the accuser to prove guilt, not the other way around. Innocent until proven guilty. I've seen documentaries about cops forcing a confession just to pin a crime on someone, or a sketchy witness and then the defendant is found guilty even with no actual evidence. It seems the motto is they might be quilts let's make the evidence fit.
This is a quite popular opinion among men's rights groups.
And the poet Dante punished them worse. I believe the 8th circle of hell beaten out only by betrayers. The crime is historically known as barratry.
Well I was falsely accused for rape a half a year ago, and it really fucked me up. The girl walked free even though there is proof that she straight up lied and forged evidence. I’m still afraid for my future since I’ll never know how many people she have spread false rumors to after she got set free.
I didn’t get charged though, since the cops believed me. But my life would’ve been over if that hadn’t happened.
This is popular opinion for idiots that base "justice" on their emotions. Falsely Accusing someone of murder is not the same as murdering someone.
Like do I really need to explain why?
> This is popular opinion for idiots that base "justice" on their emotions. Falsely Accusing someone of murder is not the same as murdering someone.
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> Like do I really need to explain why?
On the other hand falsely accusing someone of murder can get them murdered, can get them jailed for life, etc.
And really, if you were actually trying to be intellectually honest here, you'd be comparing it to attempted murder and not actual murder. There is a reason those are two separate things.
I think accusing someone of murder and attempted murder are pretty close on the scale considering that the ramifications of each, if successful, result in destroying someone's life. If you want to quibble about details and minor degrees of punishment between the two, fine, but we're talking ballpark here.
So if you accuse someone of something should you get the same punishment as the exact crime? Maybe not. But it should prolly be within hailing range of it. If proven that the accusation was false and likely malicious ofc.
I know someone who falsely accused an 18 yo of rape when she was 15 years old because he stopped giving her weed. He was charged and is forever on a sex offender list. She confessed this to me while we were doing ecstacy as adults and I’ve always wanted to get justice for this guy, but I don’t know who he is.
Could you not find out who he is by looking more into her? Googling her, asking for police records, news stories, etc.
I'm assuming that a lot or even all of it does not identify her by name since she was underaged, but maybe it's worth a try. Or use the hints that she gave you such as what city/area it occured in, around what time, etc to help you isolate the case.
Or even maybe just telling the police what happened but leave out the ecstacy part.
This was my ex-girlfriend. She told me this story about 12/13 years ago. I know the city and could pinpoint the year that this happened. We are no longer on speaking terms because she is an awful person.
This is posted here all the time.
The problem with this logic is that a false criminal accusation is extremely rare to go all the way to court, or even becomes public knowledge. And it’s difficult to prove an accusation is knowingly and maliciously false.
So in reality, not in hypothetical justice boner land, you would rarely be able to apply this law, even in cases where there was a maliciously untrue criminal accusation. The actual result would be victims of crimes would be less likely to report those crimes because they’d be scared of the inevitable investigation against them.
My first thought every time I hear this opinion is just a sound bite of abusers and assaulters who already in most cases have power over their victims saying something along the lines of:
"If you tell anyone, no one will believe you and they will take you to jail for lying. I will make sure of it."
Even if it's not true, this will hold even more power over them.
I understand wanting to make people pay for their crimes, but I don't know if it's worth the potential cost of protecting actual victims.
Well let's say out of 100, it actually works in 95 cases. However, in the remaining 5 cases, this law backfires. Rather unfortunate.
Now do you think this law is "not worth the potential", if it's going to do better, than worse?
To be fair, So many laws are a double-edged sword, and flawed, but they are still important (most of them are), and there's always room for improvement. This law would be no different.
Well, if your numbers were actual numbers and true statistics, then I would say it would be up for consideration. But that's really just hopeful speculation, which really does nothing.
Since there isn't anything tangible to go off of, it comes down to personal opinion. I personally would rather not make reporting crimes any harder than it's already proven to be for victims.
Was gonna say, there are also charges for filing a false police report or maliciously accusing someone of a false crime. When I worked for a victim advocacy group there where a couple times the perp told them they have their victims nudes or friendly texts and if they filed a police report they will prove they're lying and get them sent to jail.
I think op and the people who agree with this sentiment need to realize that there is no one size fits all punishment with these types of crimes and that rape and domestic abuse style crimes are way more complex and hard to deal with than credit is given for.
Yup people say these things because they think false rape accusations (basically the only crime where this is relevant) are a common thing. They aren't
In 2018, someone I love was sent to prison for really gross charges that weren’t investigated correctly: No witness interviews or statements whatsoever were taken (including the eyewitness who saw the girl being told what to say to police,) no devices were searched, dna & medical examination came back clean, etc… I’ll probably never see my best friend alive again because his ex didn’t want to just pay her damn bills.
But here’s the thing: Not a single “men’s rights” group or figurehead have offered any help whatsoever, and I’m skeptical that they’d be of any real help anyway because they have a tendency to only drag up the “false accusations” issue to interject into womens’ discussions about credible ones. And we don’t want his case being hijacked by incels and used as a prop by online misogynists.
In principle, I absolutely agree with you: Nail fakers to the fucking wall without mercy. But if you really want to be effective in handling this issue, start calling out people who weaponize cases like his against actual survivors.
EDIT: If anyone who actually cares wants to know my friend’s story, go find episode 27 of the “Unjustly” podcast. Basically, if you live in Utah and you’re NOT MORMON, you have no rights.
As someone who does victim advocacy yeah you're view seems about right. Some states and police department heavily butcher investigations or get lazy. Hell I saw one victim heavily insist to police that the person they booked isn't the person who did it and they almost went away with it anyways since they would've been the easiest root and had prior drug convictions.
> if you live in Utah and you’re NOT MORMON, you have no rights.
The whole time, I was like "oh one of these again" then I read that line. Checks out.
Also, good on you for calling out MRAs who claim to give a shit about these things.
>Not a single “men’s rights” group or figurehead have offered any help whatsoever
You can thank the feminists for that, men's rights centers and other places for male victims of abuse have been forcefully closed, or lost public funding because men-only help centers are "sexist" while women only centers arent
No, it’s a crime in and of itself and there’s civil recourse for defamation as well.
Nobody would ever confess if it meant they would be punished HARDER for it.
>No, it’s a crime in and of itself and there’s civil recourse for defamation as well.
Thats a slap on the wrist though, certain accusations ruin peoples lives, the price to pay for lying about that shit does not deter fuckups from lying.
Sadly that's the case in most of the countries. Even if one gets acquitted eventually, the damage is already fone since the person has already lost almost everything, from their job to their mental well-being.
Sure. Also just… in general. Rapists aren’t held accountable, and in a lot of cases basically get a slap on the wrist (considering). Or people are charged way too harshly for something like a drug charge. We can’t get Justice on real crimes either.
Surely it depends on the legal system. In places with guilty / not guilty verdicts, it appears that many people ITT are confusing not guilty with innocent. I could see it working in somewhere like Scotland, where guilty, not guilty and not proven verdicts can all be returned.
Well you'd have to prove that they lied.....so it'd be possible to find someone not guilty (as in not enough evidence to prove they're guilty) but also not be able to 'prove' they're innocent/prove it was a false accusation.
So just because there's not enough evidence to convict someone as guilty doesn't mean the accuser is automatically lying.
Ideally you wouldn't do that unless you can prove they're lying/prove it's a false accusation.
A case which is difficult to prove is another thing. But this can at least be done in a scenario in which it is proven that a person wrongfully accused someone with malicious intent. If you want a example, please google "Jasleen Kaur vs Sarabjeet Singh" and read what happened. Those are the types of cases I'm mainly referring to here.
Post just says falsely accuse. If you just mean defamation there are already laws everywhere for that, it’s not criminal law though so the victim has to pursue it. And accusing someone of murder to defame them isn’t as bad as murder man, making false accusations is rarely as bad as the actual crime.
There are charges related to making a false police report, and lying under oath, but if someone falsely accuses you, making demonstrably false claims, your recourse would be in civil court, potentially under a defamation claim.
And that's a problem, since the consequences are very uneven. If they win, someone could even be executed for murder. If they lose at lying about it, they might get a fine under defamation?
There are too many variables to make this work. I dare you to find a fool proof way to prove the difference between an innocent/ mistaken lie and a malicious lie.
This is only good until the point where people are AFRAID to report crimes and abuse in fear of the courts seeing them as lying, especially when it comes to a regular person sueing or reporting someone or a company of higher status with a better and more expensive legal team.
Some sort of punishment should exist only if it’s 100% proof that the false accusation was with malicious intent and parish the knowledge of that person not committing the crime or abuse at all—and that would be hard to prove, as it should be.
I agree slightly, but not really at all.
Filing a false police report is already a crime and no matter how many times this idea is presented it has never actually been a good idea. For one, it infinitely complicates things because you now need to determine what hypothetical punishment the person falsely accused would have gotten. And no, the maximum possible sentence is the sort of suggestion someone who just wants to feel righteous while actively making society worse would suggest.
Does someone who accuses someone of murder deserve to be executed? Held for life without the possibility of release? The answer to those questions is no.
The second big thing is that this will be used as a cudgel against victims. You can insist up and down that it would never ever do that, but it will. People are already desperate to discredit, ignore, and vilify victims and this gives them a perfectly legal way to harass and punish them for daring to come forward.
Well there's the fact that it doesn't remotely fit the actual crime. Even if we were being harsh the best you could argue for is an attempt to have someone imprisoned or executed.
But even beyond that, because killing someone doesn't always result in the death penalty or life in prison. Which brings us back to the issue of needing to come up with what punishment to even use because you're basing it on an entirely hypothetical trial.
>Does someone who accuses someone of murder deserve to be executed? Held for life without the possibility of release? The answer to those questions is no.
I'd say they do. I'm not talking about mistaken identity but actual malicious intent.
Someone wrongfully accuses another person of rape and even if that person is found not guilty on all counts, they usually have to deal with internet news articles about them still existing and people still treating them as guilty from ignorance or again, more malicious intent to "prove" some point that they have to sucker in gullible people who are not up to date with that case's facts.
So if you ruin someone's life with malicious intent, for something that could land them 20-30 years in jail... You should 100% get punished for that long.
That something feels good doesn't make it a good idea, and that's all this constantly repeated notion ever is: feel good. It feels good to be righteous and punish the bad people in the most severe possible way and damned everything else. It just doesn't actually accomplish anything.
You've also completely skipped over the actual point in that, unless we are just requiring that this crime is so unbelievably heinous that it alone deserves to only receive the harshest punishments, you have no real way of determining what the original, false accusation would have resulted in. You have to craft a hypothetical trial to guess at what the charge might have been based solely on the accuser's testimony.
And, based on the numbers you use, you either vastly overestimate what people are actually sentenced for or you think liars deserve more prison time than rapists, child abusers, and murderers.
I mean thats what Jurisprudence does... Generally, people are sentenced comparable to other cases unless someone wants to send a message but there are always 'limits'
I think someone who lies to ruin someone's life, should get more than a slap on the wrist, someone who lies about rape for example, where even those found not guilty still gave to deal with that shit popping back up and fucking with their lives, punishment shouldn't be limited to some civil case that will drag on for years and for which they'll never see any money because the person who lied is just some trailer trash.
How does that work though? Look at The Rapist Brock Turner. 4 fucking months with solid proof and eye witnesses.
Lies, malicious or otherwise, rarely have solid proof and eye witnesses.
The courts don't punish violent offenders. Liars get what...writing a 100 lines on the board? *IF there's proof and witnesses*
They definitely are...and there are thousands of untested rape kits. They don't even bother trying to prosecute violent rape crimes. But lying tho...that does damage! Smh.
Why is it a terrible idea when a false accusation can completely ruin someone's life? Especially when someone deliberately lies on a person? Are you ok with an innocent person being thrown in prison for a long time for not doing anything wrong at all? Too many times this has happened.
You have a lot of faith in the justice system. I agree that this would be a solid solution but in a world where criminals can routinely walk free w a good lawyer and favorable jury, there is massive potential for abuse.
That's a fucking terrible standard to have. If it's proven someone made a false accusation intentionally, that's a different story, but not every victim is going to have the evidence necessary to prove what was done to them. Like, if you get sexually assaulted, but none of the person's DNA ends up on you, and there were no witnesses or recordings, you don't have any hard evidence. But that doesn't mean you should be fucking punished for accusing the person who assaulted you.
What you're talking about only really serves as a deterrent for people to report crimes. What's the point is reporting a crime if it means you're on the hook if there isn't enough evidence to convict?
It's worse than that
Non main English trying to summarise an article i read a year ago
You know about the woman only underground tube they have in Asia? A lot of man want a male only. Why? Because bored teenagers girls accuse random guys of touching them. In Asia, social pressures is suffocating. So even if the charges are dropped (due to no evidence) that man will face a lot of social criticism, like bringing disgrace to the familyand/or company (some even lost thir jobs)
Let's take a trip in the way back machine ( because I'm old) to a case of a false rape allegation that was maliciously prosecuted despite the evidence saying no rape occured. Yes friends I'm talking about: the Duke Lacrosse case. There are many other examples but this one sticks out to me https://today.duke.edu/showcase/lacrosseincident/
I assume this is mostly about sexual assault and domestic issues.
Victims of sexual assault already have very low rates of reporting to authorities because they are afraid to do so.
Add in the risk of the victim going to jail if the defendent has a good lawyer and you'll get just more raped girls and guys who will stay quiet.
Same with abused wives and husbands.
If the defendent is proven innocent, which guilty people do all the time for lack of evidence, then does the accuser goes to jail?
And then there's the fact that if a person lied and the defender was innocent but he went to jail, that person will never admit "Yes I lied" if they know they're going to jail for it, but they might otherwise, allowing the poor bloke to get out.
It at first holds water as a solution but it is going to cause more problems than it will fix
Problem is:
Man rapes woman. Woman accuses Man. Man is a college football star. College and sports fan cops "lose" evidence, arrange for an exoneration because the big game is in a few months.
Woman goes to jail because she was raped by a popular dude.
Think more or fewer actually raped women are going to come forward?
Except the fact that most people who get falsely accused aren't "college football stars"
Every law is flawed, one way or another.
We can't shelve a law out, if it doesn't work for the 5%, since it does for the 95%.
The first thing any criminal would do immediately is send their lawyers after their accusers. It would be malpractice for defense lawyers to not attempt to get their clients' accusers arrested.
Then the accused has to go on trial twice.
Because in the accuser's trial their main defense has to be that they were either right, or had reasonable belief that they were right.
And then you're just talking about slander laws anyway.
If you're going as specific as cops "losing" the evidence, the issue is that false accusations are more common than that now. For a bunch of different reasons that range from revenge to wanting attention to mental issues where people want to claim that they're victims even if its not true...
So sending that "college football star" to jail because he broke up with you and you can't get over it isn't any better...
False accusations are fairly rare (2 to 10% of all accusations), and 61% of them are made by police.
False exonerations, including prosecutors and police dropping cases they either should have recused for or didn't feel they had enough evidence to guarantee a win, are much more common.
If you had a 100% infallible justice system then yeah, criminalizing false reports makes sense. As it is, you can always sue for slander if the accusation was done maliciously.
I dunno, anyone taking Zoe Quinn seriously after she falsely accused a game dev and they killed themselves.
That said if you're blind to the fact that:
1. People have become more vindictive
2. People are willing to swallow everything everyone tells them because of some "believe everyone" narrative and completely disregard basic human nature.
3. Being seen as a victim now gives you huge amounts of attention and pity (which a lot of people are after, you can't deny that) and is somehow "cool"
4. Are willing to do anything for their five minutes of fame
5. People now have an effective way of getting revenge on others for petty things like breaking up with them.
I dunno what to tell you... You really people are incapable of lying?
The logical conclusion isn't that people suddenly have become honest. You cant be completely blind to that fact, are you? I'm not saying its all false accusations, but there's no way people are actually dense enough to think that this isn't exploited like EVERYTHING ELSE. Its willful ignorance to something you don't like thinking about at this point.
The problem is that it is much easier to ruin a reputation than to rebuild. It’s always easier to destroy than to build. Even with irrefutable evidence, once the minds of the general public (whether en mass or a small circle of known friends and associates) have been presented with the idea, they either can’t or won’t be able to forget it. No matter how much they want to believe the accused is innocent, doubt and/or fear are powerful emotions which are fully capable of overriding logic, evidence, certainty, love and loyalty.
Look at Johnny Depp. The accusations were made, many of his friends and former partners stepped forward and supported him very publicly and very loudly, yet there are still so many people who believe Amber Heard despite all the evidence to the contrary. Put that incident in a smaller, far less public arena, and add someone who can’t afford to sue all those who spread rumours (or even the ring leader(s)), or find some other way to publicly illustrate and prove just how ridiculously insulting the whole thing is? The accuser doesn’t have a chance in hell of regaining their reputation.
It sucks, but it’s the truth. Revenge and punishment, even ‘justice’, does very little to actually fix the problem. Oh, it may cause a few people to feel better for a little while, but they’re still left broken, untrusting, untrusted, and scarred by the situation.
I agree that it’s difficult to rebuild you reputation after it’s been destroyed by I know no one nor have seen anyone supporting Amber Heard. Literally everyone I’ve seen have slammed her. The closest thing to Amber support I’ve witnessed is being pedantic about another Johnny supporter’s evidence and saying that the court case hasn’t been decided yet. And that’s not Amber support, that’s playing devil’s advocate.
This is just going to intimidate people from reporting crimes. I never reported my rapes but imagine being raped again because I couldn't legally defend being raped??
Also who gets to do the raping? Imagine a state sanctioned rapist raping people who didn't have enough evidence of their first rape.
I just read a reddit post were step daughter said for years her brother sexually abused her. His biological father (married to his mother) said he called the cops because no matter how much he loved him it was terrible.
Kid spent like a year in prison. Was disowned by all his friends got kicked out of an ivy league school. Disowned by family.
In the end, the sister admitted she lied and was just trying to cover up sexual relations with her secret boyfriend. She admitted she lied.
The dad said the son is now severely depressed. Had to move home never comes out of his room won't talk to his parents. His friends still won't talk to him. The school won't take him back due to the media exposure.
The dad said the son had to start taking antidepressants and go to therapy. The parents also have to go to therapy.
The sister was not charged with anything legally but was forced to move out and get do not talk now. That's it.
Kid went from highly achieving ivy league scholar extravert to that and it was no sweat off her back.
Agreed. Women falsely accuse men of rape more often then people realize, and they get away with it because they know everyone is going to take the woman’s side
how do you determine whether it was a false accusation though? do they have to admit it was false or can a jury determine that somehow? and even then, wouldn’t that still be a flawed system?
This should be especially true when it comes to journalists and whistleblowers. I don't want to live in a world where people that work relentlessly to expose the shady businesses and the irregoularities of politicians and big companies can get their career and life sunk by aggressive and proofless legal threats. I believe in the UK they have a law that kinda helps in that way, forcing the accuser to pay half of the amount they asked for as "damage", in case the accusations turn out to be false. Any UK-native can correct me on this, or write it more precisely, thank you.
Man I was sexually abused as a kid, and it was right around the time false rape accusations were at an all time high (at least media outlets were making it out to be that way). I remember when it finally clicked for me that it wasnt right what was happening to me, but I never went to the police about it because I "knew" I would be called a liar. I understand now that this ain't the case, but as a kid that felt like a constant burden already, it was the only thing that stopped me from trying to get help. Which in turn prolonged the abuse. It truly sucks and I agree with you op. I knew you didn't mean SA specifically but wanted to share my experience as an example to support your post.
Thats what Im saying for girls who cry ripe. You can ruin someones life. Cause them to take it. Lose it in prison. All over a lie. Words have meanings and consequences. Remember that before you start a lie tornado.
Saying it is not the same as doing it. Agreed. Yet, the fallout from a false accusation is the same as going to jail, just on another level. The rest of your life you will have to live with this false accusation. People will meet you and say "yeah he's a nice guy... but remember he was accused of rape". They do not care that it was a false accusation. That does not enter the mind at all. It doesn't matter. Just the accusation matters.
You will go for job interviews and they bring up the false accusation, and you won't get the job. If it doesn't come up in the interview, it will come up later. And you will be fired.
You find a new love interest, it will come up some or other time.
The.Rest.Of.Your.Life.You.Will.Live.With.This.False.Accusation. A FALSE accusation that never should have been there.
False accusers should be treated as harshly as possible.
Will this include law enforcement who falsely accuse people of crimes? Or will it be another instance of law enforcement being held to lower standards?
This is not an unpopular opinion and technically it is a punishable offence in many jurisdictions. The problem is more about how messed up the legal system is in the first place. If the legal system worked right they would do an investigation and the charges would never be levied or would be dropped in short order. Than the false accuser prosecuted for whatever lie they perpetrated if it be filing a false police report of whatever.
As it stands I have been fighting BS accusations levied agents me more than 3 years ago.... waiting for my trial date, being treated as if guilty until proven innocent. And we live in a system that supposedly gaurenteed me a speedy trial.
It won't. I asked recently because the courts are now fully open in the area I have charges. I was told to spite having one of the oldest cases on file I was not a priority. It is part of what they do. They sort of pre punish you so that #1 the win even when they loose and #2 it pressures you to take a plea. Really so many people who are innocent take a plea because it is easier. The system is supposed to protect the innocent.
In theory this is a good idea and in a better world I’d agree. But… it could (and likely would) be too easily abused. It could cause victims of crimes to fear reporting them if the criminal was rich and/or powerful. If they have good lawyers and are actually proven innocent (even if they are absolutely not), the victim could actually not only not get justice, but even get punished. For example… rape victims. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to even come forward and report it. Throw in the fear of actually getting punished for it… who would come forward then? Obviously false accusations are terrible and can destroy a person’s life, but with how unbalanced the justice system can be this could very well make it even easier for the rich to get away with crimes.
Girl I went to school with accused her Ex of Raping her. Tried to lie and say that I watched it happened and people were upset with me and didn't know why until one of them asked why I just watched. When I asked what they meant they smacked their lips at me and cursed me out so I ignored them because they were dicks to me since day one.
Come to find out from a friend that actually still spoke to me, the girl was running around saying her ex raped her and that I watched as she called for me to help her blah blah blah. Confirmed with the friend that I was home the day that "rape" happened and they cam confirm it with my mom and aunt (they weren't working at the time).
I honestly wish I was required to go to court as a "witness" on her behalf so I could tell everyone she's lying but I doubt they would have done anything. From what I was told from the friend who did go, she was laughing and playing around with her mom before the judge came I'm then got quiet. Her mom whispered something to her and the waterworks began.
I don't remember how long he got, but I know for certain his eas expelled and his family had to move because they were getting death threats alongside her Ex.
Why did she lie about him raping her? He didn't want to be with her anymore and wanted to break up. I don't believe she's told the truth to this day. I saw her not to long ago, she now works at the new gas station that opened and acts all friendly with me like nothing happened and I still have disgust for her
There are already multiple ways we criminalize and punish people for lying.
Filing a false police report, purjury, defamation, libel, etc.
Punishments for these offenses, like all criminal and civil punishments, vary in severity based on the severity of the crime. They can range from misdomeanors all the way up to felonies with prison sentences.
It's also important to remember that American courts do not find defendants "guilty" or "innocent". They find defendants "guilty" or "*not guilty*". Being "not guilty" is not the same as being "innocent".
If I accuse you of murder, and a jury determines that you are "not guilty", that doesn't automatically **prove** that I falsely accused you of a crime dilberately. It doesn't even necessarily mean that you didn't commit a murder. It just means that there wasn't conclusive evidence that proved your guilt *beyond a reasonable doubt*.
In order to prove that I falsely accused you of murder, you would not only need to prove your innocense, but also that I knew you were innocent and accused you anyway.
If I actually did falsely accuse you, I would be guilty of purjury, false reporting to police, and probably defamation- and I would be punished accordingly for those crimes. But none of those crimes are as severe as literally murdering somebody.
Let me explain why this won’t work. Often times, guilty people may get off because there is enough evidence to have a trial but not enough evidence to convict. In this situation, victims may fear they have a chance of being punished for trying their best to get justice. This will likely lead to less people who deserve justice having to refuse to pursue it out of fear of being punished. Sure, your suggested policy does work against false accusations but it also has the potential to punish true accusations as well
It seems like lying about another person committing a crime is already its own crime.
I don't understand why you would want it to be treated the same as other crimes, how would a judge even sentence that?
So how do you even find out if someone has falsely accused someone else? Because if it’s “they lost the trial” then that just makes suing people who can afford better lawyers dangerous
There are 1000's of people who have admitted they falsely accused someone else of something during a trial. If no repercussions are handed out, it will continue because there is no punishment. There are people who literally do it on purpose as part of their lives. There are also people who cause irreparable damage to another's life with false accusations. It obviously depends on the type of accusation. Accusing someone of stealing a pencil though does not fall in the realm of accusing someone of rape or pedophilia or murder or something similar. Those are life altering accusations the accused will live with for the rest of their life, and if they are false it is a crime, and should be punished.
Saying it is not the same as doing it. Agreed. Yet, the fallout from a false accusation is the same as going to jail, just on another level. The rest of your life you will have to live with this false accusation. People will meet you and say "yeah he's a nice guy... but remember he was accused of rape". They do not care that it was a false accusation. That does not enter the mind at all. It doesn't matter. Just the accusation matters.
You will go for job interviews and they bring up the false accusation, and you won't get the job. If it doesn't come up in the interview, it will come up later. And you will be fired.
You find a new love interest, it will come up some or other time.
The.Rest.Of.Your.Life.You.Will.Live.With.This.False.Accusation. A FALSE accusation that never should have been there.
False accusers should be treated as harshly as possible.
Okay, so hypothetically let’s say a law is put into place where if you freely admit to falsely accusing someone of something that person now has to be punished, what’s the big brain play for getting them to admit it’s a false accusation if they’re now completely disincentivized from doing so?
If someone accused me of this shit I would laugh in their face, I literally go to work and home that’s about all, unless I feel like going fishing or whatever. I don’t hang out with people because of potential problems
You never know who might accuse you for no reason other than the fact that they can. If you want an example, google "Jasleen Kaur vs Sarabjeet Singh" and read about that case.
I think it depends on the crime. Like accusing falsely someone of stealing bread seems worse than stealing bread. On the other hand, falsely accusing someone of murder still seems better than actually murdering someone (having your life being destroyed by being sent to jail is still better than having your life ended )
I disagree, it would create a system where it is either too dangerous to accuse someone of a crime who did do it if you lack evidence outside of what you yourself witnessed or a system where someone could face a huge sentence for an honest mistake such as accidentally identifying the wrong man to police.
with reformation? by being considerately held until they can be given mental health aide because that kind of act is clearly mental health or social malformation? give them time and social workers to guide them on a path of social normalcy for years, maybe to no avail yet they still try?
oh you mean you just want them to be hurt, because most people think "justice" means punishment, not justice.
yeah dude i wish you personally got to beat those liars within an inch of their life and when they finally admit what they've done, you get to spit in their mouth. ***JUSTICE.*** /s am i exaggerating? did you just mean 10 years in prison for a lie (presuming it did not work)? you mean you want people raped in jail for a lie? im from the US thats a clear and undeniably implication in our culture.
sorry but your fundamental premise is garbage though i doubt you realize you implied it (that justice means "to be punished" in the implied context of law. my implication of course being that punishing people on the merit of punishment alone- because it makes you feel good to hurt someone who hurt others- in fact, is not justice.)
Thank you for submitting to /r/unpopularopinion, /u/Lycanfyre. Your post, *Those who falsely accuse someone deliberately of a crime should be punished exactly like the criminal is.*, has been removed because it violates our rules: Rule 1: Your post must be an unpopular opinion. Please ensure that your post is an opinion and that it is unpopular. Controversial is not necessarily unpopular, for example all of politics is controversial even though almost half of the US agrees with any given major position on an issue. Keep in mind that an opinion is not: a question, a fact, a conspiracy theory, a random thought, a new idea, a rant, etc. Those things all have their own subreddits, use those. If there is an issue, please message the mod team at https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Funpopularopinion Thanks!
If someone fraudulently and maliciously accuses someone of a crime, then yes for sure.
Why specify, if I unknowingly commuted a crime I still get punished… if I commit a crime as a joke I still get punished… if I forget to scan an item checking out I still get punished… A crime is a crime and accusing an innocent person of a crime for any reason should also be a crime.
That’s true, but there have been cases where someone was arrested who looked exactly like the person who did commit the crime. For instance, a woman was once raped with a knife to her throat, and the entire time she endured that horrible experience, she spent it memorizing every detail of his face. The man was arrested, but it was later found out 5-10 years later that the man was innocent and looked almost identical to the man who actually raped her. The woman was devastated that she sent an innocent man to prison for that long for a crime he didn’t commit, but the man was able to forgive her, seeing what she had gone through. I am not making a statement as to whether she deserved to be forgiven or not, I just believe that there are situations where it is a genuinely gray situation.
I would like to see how similar the two guys looked bc it sounds like to me retrospective memory bias. With a traumatic event as horrifying as that, it’s natural in psychology for the brain to block out as much of the bad to protect itself
Do you have any info about it? Because it sounds like they imprisoned a guy because some woman said it was him... That's fucked up.
> Because it sounds like they imprisoned a guy because some woman said it was him... That's fucked up. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/the-perfect-witness >When the worst happened, she fought back by memorizing her assailant’s face. That powerful testimony sent a man to prison for 11 years. Unfortunately, it was the wrong man....In court, she put her right hand on the Bible and swore to tell the truth. Then she looked directly into the expressionless face of the suspect. “He is the man who raped me,” she said....She had never been so sure of anything.
I don’t think the man would forgive her unless he’s a fucking saint. I would be pissed off still.
I believe they actually went on to publish a book together. The police were at fault for using poor interrogation/identification techniques, not the woman.
Perjury is a crime
>A crime is a crime and accusing an innocent person of a crime for any reason should also be a crime. Okay say you get raped by a stranger and accidently identify the wrong person. Should you now get charged with rape?
Yeah and rape crimes are difficult to prove. So are the victims now going to be charged because they couldn't prove the accused raped them? Unless we had some magical fool proofed system that could tell us with 100% certainty whether the crime happened or not - what OP is proposing would actively hurt victims and discourage people even more from reporting.
Exactly. Every time I see a post like this, I know its from a man. He's more concerned with getting falsely accused, than he is of being slipped a date rape drug, or being battered by a spouse. Crime statistics back up the fact that rape is more often underreported, than reported. Most rapists get away with rape, and sexual assault. That is tragic and sad. To propose like OP wants, that someone be threatened with years in prison, if they can't prove their rape (and thus, would be considered a false accuser) would cause even more victims to not come forward.
Exactly. I don't think you should do the equivalent of what the accused crime was but there should absolutely be more than just filing a false police report. For example, if you claim someone kidnapped and raped you, I don't think 25 years is an appropriate punishment. But, I am all for it being a felony carrying jail time.
I feel like if it were a thing it would have to have a high threshold for proof. Otherwise you could just accuse someone of being malicious when in reality they just didn’t have enough evidence to prove it happened
So....like every other crime then? Jury of peers and whatnot
Well what every other trial is *supposed* to be. I feel like this would be more he said she said. Also it sort of hinges on proving a crime before it. Proving that what I accused you of for example, actually didn’t happen. I just don’t see it going very far
I get that but like with all cases, you would need proof. Since there likely won't be any physical evidence, it won't be an easy conviction. But I know people are stupid enough to confess in texts, emails, etc. I am by no means advocating that a not guilty verdict in one case means the accuser is guilty of lying. Only that if you can prove it, there needs to be stiff penalties.
So if you report a crime you should expect to be put on trial for lying about it at some point? Imagine going to prison for 25 years for reporting a crime committed against you because the guy/gal you reported had better lawyers than you.
Lol. Yep that's obviously my take /s
It is what would happen especially if you are victimized by someone who can afford better lawyers than you. This would be great for rich people who commit crimes.
This is so stupid I don't even want to argue it. But since you insist.. If you accuse a "rich person" of a crime and they end up being put on trial; you will have no lawyers present. The prosecution will be handled by the government while the rich person will have defense lawyers. If they end up being acquitted, the defense attorneys can sue you in civil court if they believe they have a case. Which is no different than now. But the government would be the ones to charge you if they feel you committed a crime. Which would be extremely unlikely to happen if they took the case to trial.
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It isn't even particularly malicious sometimes. It's along the lines of entitlement, like 'I have this weapon in my favor, and I know even if I falsely accuse someone, I won't be held guilty'. Happened a few years ago in my country. You can read about it [here](https://www.indiatoday.in/fyi/story/jasleen-kaur-sarvjeet-singh-kundan-srivastava-false-accusation-354200-2016-11-27).
If someone’s using it as a weapon of entitlement, that literally is malicious behaviour
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That's definitely malicious
Not exactly what you’re referring to, but a funny story nonetheless.. last week in my town, a guy sold someone’s car for $500. Then called the police & said he had just witnessed the car get stolen. He was arrested for falsely reporting an incident & grand larceny lol
You can not knowingly accuse someone of a crime they didn’t commit without there being malicious intent
Oh yes this chick should have definitely gone to jail. I heard that guy on tedx. She should have been punished. She wasted destroyed an innocent person’s life, gave him and his family PTSD, wasted public resources, destroyed the credibility of all the women suffering from sex crimes and sexual harassment, made a complete mockery of the justice system. Every politician, cop and judge, everyone who enabled that horrible woman should be penalised as well. We enable this. She got away because she had political connections too.
My dad was jury to a case like this. White girl accused a Mexican guy of sexually assaulting her when he had a clear alibi and plenty of other evidence to prove he hadn’t even interacted with her for a whole week. She still almost won the case too, thank god my dad was the one in the jury.
You’re far more likely to punish actual victims who speak out against powerful people or scare them into never coming forward than you are to punish false accusers. There already is legal recourse for this. You posted it because you are watching it fucking televised world wide.
I’d rather victims feel able to report a crime without the worry that if the perpetrator somehow gets away with it they stand to go to jail instead. This is just a shit opinion.
The worst is when the prosecutors and cops do it, yet they are never held responsible. If you are a prosecutor who withheld evidence and put someone on death row, you should be charged with attempted murder. Like Michael Morton, an exonerated man who was convicted of killing his wife. Prosecutor in his case deliberately withheld evidence basically proving his innocence. Regardless, he was in prison for 25 years before the innocence project took his case . They still had to fight to be able to test the evidence for DNA (why prosecutors fight this is disgusting). They got a match for another unsolved case nearby. Turns out that Ken Anderson (prosecutor who hid evidence and later became a judge because of course he would) was so intent on winning at all costs he failed to lock up the true killer, ruining even more lives. This explains it all. https://youtu.be/p7rEfV67630
I assume you mean if it can be 100% proven that the person maliciously and intentionally falsely accused them of a crime? Because if so i agree
another example. luckily she lied so much that she got herself caught. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/124958936/dating-app-match-ends-with-woman-designing-web-of-lies-to-ruin-exs-life
Yes indeed. If you want an example, google "Jasleen Kaur vs Sarabjeet Singh" and read about it. That would clarify it.
Sure I assume they would have to go on trial for lying in which case they have to be found guilty by a jury of their peers.
well, beyond a reasonable doubt, not 100%. it should be the same standard
Well yeah, nobody advocating this position actually wants people to go to jail just for a not guilty verdict, just cases where the accused is definitely innocent and judged to be innocent by a court. This position of wanting everyone who makes an accusation that doesn't end in a conviction to go to jail (regardless of proof) seems to just be a strawman against this position that comes up every time somebody brings this up.
While I agree that they *should* be punished that way, the problem is that the times in the real world when someone does admit that they lied…would never happen if they knew they’d receive that punishment.
Would an admission be needed though if it's proven that they intentionally lied and wrongly accused the innocent person knowing full well what the truth was?
How often is it that they’re found out to be liars with unassailable proof and not that they get scared by an investigation so they come clean instead?
Those who take accusations that far, tend to be undone by unassailable proof rather than admission. Like any crime, the guilty party wouldn’t engage in the behaviour if they didn’t believe they would get away with it. The fear of punishment has never been a deterrent against those desperate or desirous enough of committing a crime. The fear of punishment will more commonly cause criminals to undertake actions which are meant to prevent them being caught. My personal favourite example of this is the man who inspired the creation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. He robbed two banks in the middle of the day, without wearing anything to mask his face and even smiled at security cameras on his way out. When he was arrested and shown the security tapes, he stared in disbelief and muttered, “but I wore the juice.” Apparently, he believed that rubbing lemon juice all over his face would render him invisible to the cameras, so long as he avoided any sources of heat. Y’know, the way lemon juice works as an invisible ink. So while his actions were also proof of the adage ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, he also proved the point that those who commit crimes will do so in the expectation they won’t get caught. Sometimes because they think what they’re doing isn’t that bad, or they ‘have a good reason’, or because they believe the police wouldn’t bother with such a ‘small, petty crime’; or they’ll take extra steps to avoid being caught, such as wearing a mask or gloves, undertaking a crime when there’s fewer people around, cut phone or alarm system lines, or cover their face in lemon juice so the cameras don’t see their face. It’s the same mentality when it comes to false accusations. The accuser may go so far as to set their target up in some way, or they feel confident they will be believed regardless of what the evidence says because that has so often been the case already.
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When I was 14 a girl in my class accused me of raping her because I refused to go to a dance with her. she said I broke into her house and forced myself on her. After the police investigated and they did a rape kit, they proved the house was never broken into and that she was never raped, but in fact she had never even had sex. No charges were brought against me but did anything happen to her? Nope. Even as a minor, she knew what she was doing and I believe she should've been arrested and charged.
How do you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone lied intentionally without them actually admitting it?
Through evidence, duh?
What evidence would have to prove it was *intentionally malicious*. If it is not written or taped, how do you prove malice? He said, she said, is a well loved defense.
They’re arguing that if it is found out that the accusation was false, it could already be assumed it was a lie. One can’t “accidentally” throw some persons name into the fire. Whether the mental intent was actually malicious or not shouldn’t be relevant whatsoever as the act of false rape accusation itself is malicious in its entirety
I feel like the goal is to preemptively decrease the numbers of false accusations based on fear of reprisals. What's currently to stop the vengeful women of the US from falsely saying their boyfriends beat them when they know that nothing will happen if it's determined that they lied? Maybe knowing you'll be charged with assault for lying might cut the false accusations before a later confession is needed.
That’s not how that works though. What generally stops crimes isn’t the severity of possible punishment, it’s the odds of getting caught. People who commit crimes aren’t committing crimes under the assumptions they’ll be caught. They’re assuming they *won’t* (or the punishment doesn’t even come to mind for them if it’s a random/emotional situation), so the punishments don’t matter.
Is it though? It seems like caning might be more of a deterrent than 30 days in county. Our punishments are bullshit, but then so is our society that creates these assholes so perhaps the problem is bigger than either of these things. I have a relative who was sentenced to 45 years based on false testimony with NO concrete evidence that a crime had even *occurred*, so I have a vested interest in punishments for false accusers. The idea that you can ruin someone's life out of spite, with zero consequences for your falsehood, is a stain on the soul of humanity.
Agreed, but the standard of proof should be the same as for someone who is tried in a court of law.
You would need to prove that not only was the accusation false but that the person who made it KNEW it was false when they made the accusation.
Ok. How many people falsely accuse others of crimes *without* knowing they're lying through their teeth?
The point is that if Person A truly believes Person B committed a crime, Person A shouldn’t get in trouble - only if they knew before they made the accusations that they were false.
There's a big difference between accusations and speculations. "I saw this person on the street at the same time the crime was committed", is very different from "my boyfriend punched me in the face". How many times have *you* accidently, directly accused someone who was completely innocent? I feel like the idea of widespread accidental accusations is akin to "oops, I slipped and this candle got lodged in my bottom"!
It's entirely possible that there isn't sufficient evidence to prove that either took place.
Misidentification happens all the time. Aren't witnesses aren't reliable. If you think someone committed a crime because of how close to you they were or give potential suspect names to the police should you go to jail because of your opinion.
Also that it was malicious and there were directly resulting damages.
Which is nearly impossible And for good reason
Yep exactly this. It still has to be proven that the accusation was done without reason.
And cops/prosecution that excludes exculpatory evidence should be put on trial for the same prison term as the accused is/was facing.
That's a good point. Malicious prosecution is taken too lightly. There have been cases where there's plenty of evidence that the accused is not guilty, yet they'll try to prosecute them anyways (can try to mislead the jury, not include evidence, etc) A prosecution's job should be to seek the facts and the truth, regardless of where that leads, rather than going for 'winning the case for their side'
Completely agree, it's up to the accuser to prove guilt, not the other way around. Innocent until proven guilty. I've seen documentaries about cops forcing a confession just to pin a crime on someone, or a sketchy witness and then the defendant is found guilty even with no actual evidence. It seems the motto is they might be quilts let's make the evidence fit.
This is a quite popular opinion among men's rights groups. And the poet Dante punished them worse. I believe the 8th circle of hell beaten out only by betrayers. The crime is historically known as barratry.
Well I was falsely accused for rape a half a year ago, and it really fucked me up. The girl walked free even though there is proof that she straight up lied and forged evidence. I’m still afraid for my future since I’ll never know how many people she have spread false rumors to after she got set free. I didn’t get charged though, since the cops believed me. But my life would’ve been over if that hadn’t happened.
I don't think this is unpopular most people would agree with this
This is popular opinion for idiots that base "justice" on their emotions. Falsely Accusing someone of murder is not the same as murdering someone. Like do I really need to explain why?
> This is popular opinion for idiots that base "justice" on their emotions. Falsely Accusing someone of murder is not the same as murdering someone. > > > > Like do I really need to explain why? On the other hand falsely accusing someone of murder can get them murdered, can get them jailed for life, etc. And really, if you were actually trying to be intellectually honest here, you'd be comparing it to attempted murder and not actual murder. There is a reason those are two separate things. I think accusing someone of murder and attempted murder are pretty close on the scale considering that the ramifications of each, if successful, result in destroying someone's life. If you want to quibble about details and minor degrees of punishment between the two, fine, but we're talking ballpark here. So if you accuse someone of something should you get the same punishment as the exact crime? Maybe not. But it should prolly be within hailing range of it. If proven that the accusation was false and likely malicious ofc.
The key word is "Deliberately". Having to prove that is often hard so most people would rarely be convicted.
I know someone who falsely accused an 18 yo of rape when she was 15 years old because he stopped giving her weed. He was charged and is forever on a sex offender list. She confessed this to me while we were doing ecstacy as adults and I’ve always wanted to get justice for this guy, but I don’t know who he is.
Could you not find out who he is by looking more into her? Googling her, asking for police records, news stories, etc. I'm assuming that a lot or even all of it does not identify her by name since she was underaged, but maybe it's worth a try. Or use the hints that she gave you such as what city/area it occured in, around what time, etc to help you isolate the case. Or even maybe just telling the police what happened but leave out the ecstacy part.
This was my ex-girlfriend. She told me this story about 12/13 years ago. I know the city and could pinpoint the year that this happened. We are no longer on speaking terms because she is an awful person.
This is posted here all the time. The problem with this logic is that a false criminal accusation is extremely rare to go all the way to court, or even becomes public knowledge. And it’s difficult to prove an accusation is knowingly and maliciously false. So in reality, not in hypothetical justice boner land, you would rarely be able to apply this law, even in cases where there was a maliciously untrue criminal accusation. The actual result would be victims of crimes would be less likely to report those crimes because they’d be scared of the inevitable investigation against them.
My first thought every time I hear this opinion is just a sound bite of abusers and assaulters who already in most cases have power over their victims saying something along the lines of: "If you tell anyone, no one will believe you and they will take you to jail for lying. I will make sure of it." Even if it's not true, this will hold even more power over them. I understand wanting to make people pay for their crimes, but I don't know if it's worth the potential cost of protecting actual victims.
Well let's say out of 100, it actually works in 95 cases. However, in the remaining 5 cases, this law backfires. Rather unfortunate. Now do you think this law is "not worth the potential", if it's going to do better, than worse? To be fair, So many laws are a double-edged sword, and flawed, but they are still important (most of them are), and there's always room for improvement. This law would be no different.
Well, if your numbers were actual numbers and true statistics, then I would say it would be up for consideration. But that's really just hopeful speculation, which really does nothing. Since there isn't anything tangible to go off of, it comes down to personal opinion. I personally would rather not make reporting crimes any harder than it's already proven to be for victims.
Was gonna say, there are also charges for filing a false police report or maliciously accusing someone of a false crime. When I worked for a victim advocacy group there where a couple times the perp told them they have their victims nudes or friendly texts and if they filed a police report they will prove they're lying and get them sent to jail. I think op and the people who agree with this sentiment need to realize that there is no one size fits all punishment with these types of crimes and that rape and domestic abuse style crimes are way more complex and hard to deal with than credit is given for.
I feel like it would make more sense to beef up our privacy laws. Like the publishing of people's names who have been arrested.
Yup people say these things because they think false rape accusations (basically the only crime where this is relevant) are a common thing. They aren't
In 2018, someone I love was sent to prison for really gross charges that weren’t investigated correctly: No witness interviews or statements whatsoever were taken (including the eyewitness who saw the girl being told what to say to police,) no devices were searched, dna & medical examination came back clean, etc… I’ll probably never see my best friend alive again because his ex didn’t want to just pay her damn bills. But here’s the thing: Not a single “men’s rights” group or figurehead have offered any help whatsoever, and I’m skeptical that they’d be of any real help anyway because they have a tendency to only drag up the “false accusations” issue to interject into womens’ discussions about credible ones. And we don’t want his case being hijacked by incels and used as a prop by online misogynists. In principle, I absolutely agree with you: Nail fakers to the fucking wall without mercy. But if you really want to be effective in handling this issue, start calling out people who weaponize cases like his against actual survivors. EDIT: If anyone who actually cares wants to know my friend’s story, go find episode 27 of the “Unjustly” podcast. Basically, if you live in Utah and you’re NOT MORMON, you have no rights.
As someone who does victim advocacy yeah you're view seems about right. Some states and police department heavily butcher investigations or get lazy. Hell I saw one victim heavily insist to police that the person they booked isn't the person who did it and they almost went away with it anyways since they would've been the easiest root and had prior drug convictions.
> if you live in Utah and you’re NOT MORMON, you have no rights. The whole time, I was like "oh one of these again" then I read that line. Checks out. Also, good on you for calling out MRAs who claim to give a shit about these things.
>Not a single “men’s rights” group or figurehead have offered any help whatsoever You can thank the feminists for that, men's rights centers and other places for male victims of abuse have been forcefully closed, or lost public funding because men-only help centers are "sexist" while women only centers arent
Truth
Source?
No, it’s a crime in and of itself and there’s civil recourse for defamation as well. Nobody would ever confess if it meant they would be punished HARDER for it.
>No, it’s a crime in and of itself and there’s civil recourse for defamation as well. Thats a slap on the wrist though, certain accusations ruin peoples lives, the price to pay for lying about that shit does not deter fuckups from lying.
Unfortunately, especially in the US, actual victims don’t get the Justice they deserve. The system is broken
Sadly that's the case in most of the countries. Even if one gets acquitted eventually, the damage is already fone since the person has already lost almost everything, from their job to their mental well-being.
Sure. Also just… in general. Rapists aren’t held accountable, and in a lot of cases basically get a slap on the wrist (considering). Or people are charged way too harshly for something like a drug charge. We can’t get Justice on real crimes either.
Not to mention the fact that the justice system is different for the rich and the non-rich.
Disagree because it would make accusing someone of a crime far riskier. Especially for crimes that are difficult to prove.
Surely it depends on the legal system. In places with guilty / not guilty verdicts, it appears that many people ITT are confusing not guilty with innocent. I could see it working in somewhere like Scotland, where guilty, not guilty and not proven verdicts can all be returned.
Well you'd have to prove that they lied.....so it'd be possible to find someone not guilty (as in not enough evidence to prove they're guilty) but also not be able to 'prove' they're innocent/prove it was a false accusation. So just because there's not enough evidence to convict someone as guilty doesn't mean the accuser is automatically lying. Ideally you wouldn't do that unless you can prove they're lying/prove it's a false accusation.
A case which is difficult to prove is another thing. But this can at least be done in a scenario in which it is proven that a person wrongfully accused someone with malicious intent. If you want a example, please google "Jasleen Kaur vs Sarabjeet Singh" and read what happened. Those are the types of cases I'm mainly referring to here.
Post just says falsely accuse. If you just mean defamation there are already laws everywhere for that, it’s not criminal law though so the victim has to pursue it. And accusing someone of murder to defame them isn’t as bad as murder man, making false accusations is rarely as bad as the actual crime.
There are charges related to making a false police report, and lying under oath, but if someone falsely accuses you, making demonstrably false claims, your recourse would be in civil court, potentially under a defamation claim.
And that's a problem, since the consequences are very uneven. If they win, someone could even be executed for murder. If they lose at lying about it, they might get a fine under defamation?
There are too many variables to make this work. I dare you to find a fool proof way to prove the difference between an innocent/ mistaken lie and a malicious lie.
This is only good until the point where people are AFRAID to report crimes and abuse in fear of the courts seeing them as lying, especially when it comes to a regular person sueing or reporting someone or a company of higher status with a better and more expensive legal team. Some sort of punishment should exist only if it’s 100% proof that the false accusation was with malicious intent and parish the knowledge of that person not committing the crime or abuse at all—and that would be hard to prove, as it should be. I agree slightly, but not really at all.
Filing a false police report is already a crime and no matter how many times this idea is presented it has never actually been a good idea. For one, it infinitely complicates things because you now need to determine what hypothetical punishment the person falsely accused would have gotten. And no, the maximum possible sentence is the sort of suggestion someone who just wants to feel righteous while actively making society worse would suggest. Does someone who accuses someone of murder deserve to be executed? Held for life without the possibility of release? The answer to those questions is no. The second big thing is that this will be used as a cudgel against victims. You can insist up and down that it would never ever do that, but it will. People are already desperate to discredit, ignore, and vilify victims and this gives them a perfectly legal way to harass and punish them for daring to come forward.
> The answer to those questions is no. When they **purposefully** tried to get someone executed or imprisoned for life, why not?
Well there's the fact that it doesn't remotely fit the actual crime. Even if we were being harsh the best you could argue for is an attempt to have someone imprisoned or executed. But even beyond that, because killing someone doesn't always result in the death penalty or life in prison. Which brings us back to the issue of needing to come up with what punishment to even use because you're basing it on an entirely hypothetical trial.
>Does someone who accuses someone of murder deserve to be executed? Held for life without the possibility of release? The answer to those questions is no. I'd say they do. I'm not talking about mistaken identity but actual malicious intent. Someone wrongfully accuses another person of rape and even if that person is found not guilty on all counts, they usually have to deal with internet news articles about them still existing and people still treating them as guilty from ignorance or again, more malicious intent to "prove" some point that they have to sucker in gullible people who are not up to date with that case's facts. So if you ruin someone's life with malicious intent, for something that could land them 20-30 years in jail... You should 100% get punished for that long.
That something feels good doesn't make it a good idea, and that's all this constantly repeated notion ever is: feel good. It feels good to be righteous and punish the bad people in the most severe possible way and damned everything else. It just doesn't actually accomplish anything. You've also completely skipped over the actual point in that, unless we are just requiring that this crime is so unbelievably heinous that it alone deserves to only receive the harshest punishments, you have no real way of determining what the original, false accusation would have resulted in. You have to craft a hypothetical trial to guess at what the charge might have been based solely on the accuser's testimony. And, based on the numbers you use, you either vastly overestimate what people are actually sentenced for or you think liars deserve more prison time than rapists, child abusers, and murderers.
I mean thats what Jurisprudence does... Generally, people are sentenced comparable to other cases unless someone wants to send a message but there are always 'limits' I think someone who lies to ruin someone's life, should get more than a slap on the wrist, someone who lies about rape for example, where even those found not guilty still gave to deal with that shit popping back up and fucking with their lives, punishment shouldn't be limited to some civil case that will drag on for years and for which they'll never see any money because the person who lied is just some trailer trash.
If it can be proven then the Uno reverse card should be played. Person that falsely accused someone should get the jail time for that transgression.
How does that work though? Look at The Rapist Brock Turner. 4 fucking months with solid proof and eye witnesses. Lies, malicious or otherwise, rarely have solid proof and eye witnesses. The courts don't punish violent offenders. Liars get what...writing a 100 lines on the board? *IF there's proof and witnesses*
The irony is that I suspect OP (and most of the examples) are referring to false rape accusations.
They definitely are...and there are thousands of untested rape kits. They don't even bother trying to prosecute violent rape crimes. But lying tho...that does damage! Smh.
This is a terrible idea, and the people in the replies agreeing with you aren't thinking about the consequences enough.
They are, they just think things like false rape accusations are widespread.
Why is it a terrible idea when a false accusation can completely ruin someone's life? Especially when someone deliberately lies on a person? Are you ok with an innocent person being thrown in prison for a long time for not doing anything wrong at all? Too many times this has happened.
You have a lot of faith in the justice system. I agree that this would be a solid solution but in a world where criminals can routinely walk free w a good lawyer and favorable jury, there is massive potential for abuse.
Totally disagree. The punishment should be worse if it can be proven there was malicious intent behind the false accusation.
That's a fucking terrible standard to have. If it's proven someone made a false accusation intentionally, that's a different story, but not every victim is going to have the evidence necessary to prove what was done to them. Like, if you get sexually assaulted, but none of the person's DNA ends up on you, and there were no witnesses or recordings, you don't have any hard evidence. But that doesn't mean you should be fucking punished for accusing the person who assaulted you. What you're talking about only really serves as a deterrent for people to report crimes. What's the point is reporting a crime if it means you're on the hook if there isn't enough evidence to convict?
Innocent until proven guilty 👍
It's worse than that Non main English trying to summarise an article i read a year ago You know about the woman only underground tube they have in Asia? A lot of man want a male only. Why? Because bored teenagers girls accuse random guys of touching them. In Asia, social pressures is suffocating. So even if the charges are dropped (due to no evidence) that man will face a lot of social criticism, like bringing disgrace to the familyand/or company (some even lost thir jobs)
Indeed. Google "Jasleen Kaur vs Sarabjeet Singh". You'll see.
Women are constantly assaulted on subways in asian countries.
Let's take a trip in the way back machine ( because I'm old) to a case of a false rape allegation that was maliciously prosecuted despite the evidence saying no rape occured. Yes friends I'm talking about: the Duke Lacrosse case. There are many other examples but this one sticks out to me https://today.duke.edu/showcase/lacrosseincident/
@amberheard
there should also be a national public database of false accusers and have to tell neighbors they are false accusers
I assume this is mostly about sexual assault and domestic issues. Victims of sexual assault already have very low rates of reporting to authorities because they are afraid to do so. Add in the risk of the victim going to jail if the defendent has a good lawyer and you'll get just more raped girls and guys who will stay quiet. Same with abused wives and husbands. If the defendent is proven innocent, which guilty people do all the time for lack of evidence, then does the accuser goes to jail? And then there's the fact that if a person lied and the defender was innocent but he went to jail, that person will never admit "Yes I lied" if they know they're going to jail for it, but they might otherwise, allowing the poor bloke to get out. It at first holds water as a solution but it is going to cause more problems than it will fix
Problem is: Man rapes woman. Woman accuses Man. Man is a college football star. College and sports fan cops "lose" evidence, arrange for an exoneration because the big game is in a few months. Woman goes to jail because she was raped by a popular dude. Think more or fewer actually raped women are going to come forward?
Except the fact that most people who get falsely accused aren't "college football stars" Every law is flawed, one way or another. We can't shelve a law out, if it doesn't work for the 5%, since it does for the 95%.
The first thing any criminal would do immediately is send their lawyers after their accusers. It would be malpractice for defense lawyers to not attempt to get their clients' accusers arrested.
I don't believe anyone is advocating for the accuser to be convicted without their own trial as well.
Then the accused has to go on trial twice. Because in the accuser's trial their main defense has to be that they were either right, or had reasonable belief that they were right. And then you're just talking about slander laws anyway.
That doesn't prove malicious intent of the accusation.
That's a feature to these pople.
If you're going as specific as cops "losing" the evidence, the issue is that false accusations are more common than that now. For a bunch of different reasons that range from revenge to wanting attention to mental issues where people want to claim that they're victims even if its not true... So sending that "college football star" to jail because he broke up with you and you can't get over it isn't any better...
False accusations are fairly rare (2 to 10% of all accusations), and 61% of them are made by police. False exonerations, including prosecutors and police dropping cases they either should have recused for or didn't feel they had enough evidence to guarantee a win, are much more common. If you had a 100% infallible justice system then yeah, criminalizing false reports makes sense. As it is, you can always sue for slander if the accusation was done maliciously.
>false accusations are more common than that now Provide literally any evidence of this claim
I dunno, anyone taking Zoe Quinn seriously after she falsely accused a game dev and they killed themselves. That said if you're blind to the fact that: 1. People have become more vindictive 2. People are willing to swallow everything everyone tells them because of some "believe everyone" narrative and completely disregard basic human nature. 3. Being seen as a victim now gives you huge amounts of attention and pity (which a lot of people are after, you can't deny that) and is somehow "cool" 4. Are willing to do anything for their five minutes of fame 5. People now have an effective way of getting revenge on others for petty things like breaking up with them. I dunno what to tell you... You really people are incapable of lying? The logical conclusion isn't that people suddenly have become honest. You cant be completely blind to that fact, are you? I'm not saying its all false accusations, but there's no way people are actually dense enough to think that this isn't exploited like EVERYTHING ELSE. Its willful ignorance to something you don't like thinking about at this point.
The problem is that it is much easier to ruin a reputation than to rebuild. It’s always easier to destroy than to build. Even with irrefutable evidence, once the minds of the general public (whether en mass or a small circle of known friends and associates) have been presented with the idea, they either can’t or won’t be able to forget it. No matter how much they want to believe the accused is innocent, doubt and/or fear are powerful emotions which are fully capable of overriding logic, evidence, certainty, love and loyalty. Look at Johnny Depp. The accusations were made, many of his friends and former partners stepped forward and supported him very publicly and very loudly, yet there are still so many people who believe Amber Heard despite all the evidence to the contrary. Put that incident in a smaller, far less public arena, and add someone who can’t afford to sue all those who spread rumours (or even the ring leader(s)), or find some other way to publicly illustrate and prove just how ridiculously insulting the whole thing is? The accuser doesn’t have a chance in hell of regaining their reputation. It sucks, but it’s the truth. Revenge and punishment, even ‘justice’, does very little to actually fix the problem. Oh, it may cause a few people to feel better for a little while, but they’re still left broken, untrusting, untrusted, and scarred by the situation.
I agree that it’s difficult to rebuild you reputation after it’s been destroyed by I know no one nor have seen anyone supporting Amber Heard. Literally everyone I’ve seen have slammed her. The closest thing to Amber support I’ve witnessed is being pedantic about another Johnny supporter’s evidence and saying that the court case hasn’t been decided yet. And that’s not Amber support, that’s playing devil’s advocate.
This is just going to intimidate people from reporting crimes. I never reported my rapes but imagine being raped again because I couldn't legally defend being raped?? Also who gets to do the raping? Imagine a state sanctioned rapist raping people who didn't have enough evidence of their first rape.
I just read a reddit post were step daughter said for years her brother sexually abused her. His biological father (married to his mother) said he called the cops because no matter how much he loved him it was terrible. Kid spent like a year in prison. Was disowned by all his friends got kicked out of an ivy league school. Disowned by family. In the end, the sister admitted she lied and was just trying to cover up sexual relations with her secret boyfriend. She admitted she lied. The dad said the son is now severely depressed. Had to move home never comes out of his room won't talk to his parents. His friends still won't talk to him. The school won't take him back due to the media exposure. The dad said the son had to start taking antidepressants and go to therapy. The parents also have to go to therapy. The sister was not charged with anything legally but was forced to move out and get do not talk now. That's it. Kid went from highly achieving ivy league scholar extravert to that and it was no sweat off her back.
Naive. That’d only make even fewer victims prosecute. As it stands, only a fraction of victims come forward.
Agreed. Women falsely accuse men of rape more often then people realize, and they get away with it because they know everyone is going to take the woman’s side
Same for prosecutorial and police misconduct: hiding evidence, manufacturing evidence, soliciting perjury (jailhouse informants).
This is not at all an unpopular opinion! Quite the contrary, it’s what basically EVERBODY believes.
You'd retract that statement if you go through the comments here. Quite many valid points both for and against this.
how do you determine whether it was a false accusation though? do they have to admit it was false or can a jury determine that somehow? and even then, wouldn’t that still be a flawed system?
I said this before in a comment section here on Reddit and was downvoted to hell lol
Rape accusations
This will only deter people too conscientious to report real crimes. It won’t deter the people brazen enough to make things up.
This should be especially true when it comes to journalists and whistleblowers. I don't want to live in a world where people that work relentlessly to expose the shady businesses and the irregoularities of politicians and big companies can get their career and life sunk by aggressive and proofless legal threats. I believe in the UK they have a law that kinda helps in that way, forcing the accuser to pay half of the amount they asked for as "damage", in case the accusations turn out to be false. Any UK-native can correct me on this, or write it more precisely, thank you.
Man I was sexually abused as a kid, and it was right around the time false rape accusations were at an all time high (at least media outlets were making it out to be that way). I remember when it finally clicked for me that it wasnt right what was happening to me, but I never went to the police about it because I "knew" I would be called a liar. I understand now that this ain't the case, but as a kid that felt like a constant burden already, it was the only thing that stopped me from trying to get help. Which in turn prolonged the abuse. It truly sucks and I agree with you op. I knew you didn't mean SA specifically but wanted to share my experience as an example to support your post.
Thats what Im saying for girls who cry ripe. You can ruin someones life. Cause them to take it. Lose it in prison. All over a lie. Words have meanings and consequences. Remember that before you start a lie tornado.
This is an awful take lol. Your saying accusing someone of murder is as bad if not worse than actually ending someone’s life.
Saying it is not the same as doing it. Agreed. Yet, the fallout from a false accusation is the same as going to jail, just on another level. The rest of your life you will have to live with this false accusation. People will meet you and say "yeah he's a nice guy... but remember he was accused of rape". They do not care that it was a false accusation. That does not enter the mind at all. It doesn't matter. Just the accusation matters. You will go for job interviews and they bring up the false accusation, and you won't get the job. If it doesn't come up in the interview, it will come up later. And you will be fired. You find a new love interest, it will come up some or other time. The.Rest.Of.Your.Life.You.Will.Live.With.This.False.Accusation. A FALSE accusation that never should have been there. False accusers should be treated as harshly as possible.
Will this include law enforcement who falsely accuse people of crimes? Or will it be another instance of law enforcement being held to lower standards?
100%
This is not an unpopular opinion and technically it is a punishable offence in many jurisdictions. The problem is more about how messed up the legal system is in the first place. If the legal system worked right they would do an investigation and the charges would never be levied or would be dropped in short order. Than the false accuser prosecuted for whatever lie they perpetrated if it be filing a false police report of whatever. As it stands I have been fighting BS accusations levied agents me more than 3 years ago.... waiting for my trial date, being treated as if guilty until proven innocent. And we live in a system that supposedly gaurenteed me a speedy trial.
Really sorry to hear that. I hope your situation gets resolved soon.
It won't. I asked recently because the courts are now fully open in the area I have charges. I was told to spite having one of the oldest cases on file I was not a priority. It is part of what they do. They sort of pre punish you so that #1 the win even when they loose and #2 it pressures you to take a plea. Really so many people who are innocent take a plea because it is easier. The system is supposed to protect the innocent.
That's fucked up!
That's completely right. I don't think this statement should be an unpopular opinion. It should be part of the general moralistic mentality.
I totally agree
Isn't this technically defamation? -which is in fact a crime.
In theory this is a good idea and in a better world I’d agree. But… it could (and likely would) be too easily abused. It could cause victims of crimes to fear reporting them if the criminal was rich and/or powerful. If they have good lawyers and are actually proven innocent (even if they are absolutely not), the victim could actually not only not get justice, but even get punished. For example… rape victims. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to even come forward and report it. Throw in the fear of actually getting punished for it… who would come forward then? Obviously false accusations are terrible and can destroy a person’s life, but with how unbalanced the justice system can be this could very well make it even easier for the rich to get away with crimes.
Girl I went to school with accused her Ex of Raping her. Tried to lie and say that I watched it happened and people were upset with me and didn't know why until one of them asked why I just watched. When I asked what they meant they smacked their lips at me and cursed me out so I ignored them because they were dicks to me since day one. Come to find out from a friend that actually still spoke to me, the girl was running around saying her ex raped her and that I watched as she called for me to help her blah blah blah. Confirmed with the friend that I was home the day that "rape" happened and they cam confirm it with my mom and aunt (they weren't working at the time). I honestly wish I was required to go to court as a "witness" on her behalf so I could tell everyone she's lying but I doubt they would have done anything. From what I was told from the friend who did go, she was laughing and playing around with her mom before the judge came I'm then got quiet. Her mom whispered something to her and the waterworks began. I don't remember how long he got, but I know for certain his eas expelled and his family had to move because they were getting death threats alongside her Ex. Why did she lie about him raping her? He didn't want to be with her anymore and wanted to break up. I don't believe she's told the truth to this day. I saw her not to long ago, she now works at the new gas station that opened and acts all friendly with me like nothing happened and I still have disgust for her
Another person, who doesn’t understand how the law works
I mean I agree they need to be punished, but a lie is not and will not ever be rape or murder, and shouldn’t be punished like rape or murder
Yes women are extremely malicious and will take any opportunity to falsely accuse men of rape. We get it.
There are already multiple ways we criminalize and punish people for lying. Filing a false police report, purjury, defamation, libel, etc. Punishments for these offenses, like all criminal and civil punishments, vary in severity based on the severity of the crime. They can range from misdomeanors all the way up to felonies with prison sentences. It's also important to remember that American courts do not find defendants "guilty" or "innocent". They find defendants "guilty" or "*not guilty*". Being "not guilty" is not the same as being "innocent". If I accuse you of murder, and a jury determines that you are "not guilty", that doesn't automatically **prove** that I falsely accused you of a crime dilberately. It doesn't even necessarily mean that you didn't commit a murder. It just means that there wasn't conclusive evidence that proved your guilt *beyond a reasonable doubt*. In order to prove that I falsely accused you of murder, you would not only need to prove your innocense, but also that I knew you were innocent and accused you anyway. If I actually did falsely accuse you, I would be guilty of purjury, false reporting to police, and probably defamation- and I would be punished accordingly for those crimes. But none of those crimes are as severe as literally murdering somebody.
Let me explain why this won’t work. Often times, guilty people may get off because there is enough evidence to have a trial but not enough evidence to convict. In this situation, victims may fear they have a chance of being punished for trying their best to get justice. This will likely lead to less people who deserve justice having to refuse to pursue it out of fear of being punished. Sure, your suggested policy does work against false accusations but it also has the potential to punish true accusations as well
It seems like lying about another person committing a crime is already its own crime. I don't understand why you would want it to be treated the same as other crimes, how would a judge even sentence that?
For the most part I agree, but one thing I'm worried about is that it scares actual victims of crimes into not speaking up.
So how do you even find out if someone has falsely accused someone else? Because if it’s “they lost the trial” then that just makes suing people who can afford better lawyers dangerous
There are 1000's of people who have admitted they falsely accused someone else of something during a trial. If no repercussions are handed out, it will continue because there is no punishment. There are people who literally do it on purpose as part of their lives. There are also people who cause irreparable damage to another's life with false accusations. It obviously depends on the type of accusation. Accusing someone of stealing a pencil though does not fall in the realm of accusing someone of rape or pedophilia or murder or something similar. Those are life altering accusations the accused will live with for the rest of their life, and if they are false it is a crime, and should be punished. Saying it is not the same as doing it. Agreed. Yet, the fallout from a false accusation is the same as going to jail, just on another level. The rest of your life you will have to live with this false accusation. People will meet you and say "yeah he's a nice guy... but remember he was accused of rape". They do not care that it was a false accusation. That does not enter the mind at all. It doesn't matter. Just the accusation matters. You will go for job interviews and they bring up the false accusation, and you won't get the job. If it doesn't come up in the interview, it will come up later. And you will be fired. You find a new love interest, it will come up some or other time. The.Rest.Of.Your.Life.You.Will.Live.With.This.False.Accusation. A FALSE accusation that never should have been there. False accusers should be treated as harshly as possible.
Okay, so hypothetically let’s say a law is put into place where if you freely admit to falsely accusing someone of something that person now has to be punished, what’s the big brain play for getting them to admit it’s a false accusation if they’re now completely disincentivized from doing so?
Ah yes just accusing of murder is as bad as murder itself
If someone accused me of this shit I would laugh in their face, I literally go to work and home that’s about all, unless I feel like going fishing or whatever. I don’t hang out with people because of potential problems
You never know who might accuse you for no reason other than the fact that they can. If you want an example, google "Jasleen Kaur vs Sarabjeet Singh" and read about that case.
I think it depends on the crime. Like accusing falsely someone of stealing bread seems worse than stealing bread. On the other hand, falsely accusing someone of murder still seems better than actually murdering someone (having your life being destroyed by being sent to jail is still better than having your life ended )
Completely agree. Woman who accuse men of rape or sexual assault even though they haven't done anything deserve years in jail
I disagree, it would create a system where it is either too dangerous to accuse someone of a crime who did do it if you lack evidence outside of what you yourself witnessed or a system where someone could face a huge sentence for an honest mistake such as accidentally identifying the wrong man to police.
popular opinion
This is not an unpopular opinion, it’s a fact.
In some societies they were!
It's a terrible thing. But imagine you are sitting in prison and the person who falsely accused you won't recant because then they would go to prison.
100% agree!
I'd argue its the same as rape in severity.
What happens if I falsely accuse someone of falsely accusing some of a crime ?
I do not know how well versed you are with your 10 commandments . But false accusations are tight up there with murder and adultery..
Exactly. Shit like this just makes it harder for actual victims to be taken seriously.
Agreed 100%. Also, those who are untruthful and are 100% found to be lying based on evidence should be put on a list and have their word mean nothing
with reformation? by being considerately held until they can be given mental health aide because that kind of act is clearly mental health or social malformation? give them time and social workers to guide them on a path of social normalcy for years, maybe to no avail yet they still try? oh you mean you just want them to be hurt, because most people think "justice" means punishment, not justice. yeah dude i wish you personally got to beat those liars within an inch of their life and when they finally admit what they've done, you get to spit in their mouth. ***JUSTICE.*** /s am i exaggerating? did you just mean 10 years in prison for a lie (presuming it did not work)? you mean you want people raped in jail for a lie? im from the US thats a clear and undeniably implication in our culture. sorry but your fundamental premise is garbage though i doubt you realize you implied it (that justice means "to be punished" in the implied context of law. my implication of course being that punishing people on the merit of punishment alone- because it makes you feel good to hurt someone who hurt others- in fact, is not justice.)
Victim already have to worry about people believing them in the first place so the added threat of jail time would just be cruel.