greatdrams23 t1_ja10ffg wrote
Reply to comment by AcusTwinhammer in ELI5. What happens to ‘criminals’ when the law changes and what they were imprisoned for is no longer illegal? by L0rdTeddingt0n
"By much the same logic, if something is made illegal now, that doesn't mean you can be charged for doing it when it was still legal"
This 'reverse' case is not the same Logic in reverse.
If something was PREVIOUSLY LEGAL but now illegal, then it would be wrong to convict retrospectively, because that person kept to the law.
But...
If something was PREVIOUSLY ILLEGAL but now legalised, then their conviction was THEN first, but CONTINUED punishment means you continue to punish a person for something that is now deemed legal.
caraamon t1_ja15hdc wrote
There's two arguments I can think of for this.
Among whatever other reasons for sentencing someone, there's an almost circular logic element of punishing people for breaking the law. In modern society there's an unspoken agreement that people will follow the law, even if they don't agree with it. Therefor, in essence, breaking the law itself is breaking the law, which doesn't change even if the act they did later becomes legal.
Second is the practical element of a clogged "justice" system. It might be simple to release a person who was convicted of a newly legal act, but it still requires review. Plus what about other cases, where they might have been convicted of multiple counts of different crimes? You'd need to resentence them since it may not be clear how much of the total sentence was derived from each crime. What about people who were only fined? Under the same logic, wouldn't they deserve their fines back? And how far back would you go with these repayments?
And on another practical level, if a change in law results in "criminals" being released and large repayments, voters that would be supportive, or at least apathetic, may come to oppose it.
Llanite t1_ja1ns6h wrote
They are punished because they violated the laws and broke a social contract. The punishment is that they are no longer part of the society.
The fact that a law was amended doesn't mean they did not break it in the past.
NextSoft2224 t1_ja2fqwl wrote
Genuine question: How about for cases that a law violates human rights? Alan Turing's case for example.
Llanite t1_ja3ojcy wrote
Human rights are just something we made up. Slavery used to be something we considered ok, now we don't and it's illegal, then we made freedom a human right and grant clemency to everyone.
SoNic67 t1_ja2ikue wrote
Punishment was for breaking an existing law at that time. Not for breaking it NOW.
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