Like for example in cases of rape and/or armed robbery? Hell, it would save taxpayers $ of reimbursing said wrongfully imprisoned. I mean if a person was wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years for brutally raping another person or for armed robbery, then allow that former person that was wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years to brutally rape or armedly rob for 20 years that latter person? What do you all think? I mean, the tens of millions of dollars that's spent reimbursing a person wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years for brutally raping/armedly robbing another person would be better off used for education, the poor, health care, etc.
I think the biggest problem with this is that it would be insufficient restitution. A rape or armed robbery is never worth 20 years in prison. The person, if he was innocent in the first place, probably doesn't even want to commit the crime. Hell, what if the person he "gets" to rape has AIDS, or the person he gets to rob has no money? I think a better solution is to give everything the false accuser has to the victim, and then make them serve a prison sentence equal to what was served. AND the government should monetarily reimburse them for wasting their life.
I agree with almost everything you said, but making the false accuser serve a prison sentence equal to what was served is kind of scary to me. I can see in cases where it was a blatantly false accusation, where somebody completely lied about being raped (such as Brian Banks), but if the rule applied to all witnesses in a crime, nobody would ever want to take the stand. I think one of the best ways to reduce the number of false convictions is to improve the quality of defense that indigent defendants have access to. The way that public defenders are forced to work is often very unfair, and leads to an inherently unfair trial for many poor people. There are significantly fewer public defenders than prosecutors, and their budget is much smaller. I hate paying the government for stupid stuff, but this is one area where the government is severely lacking, and I have no problem paying for it (I see it as a primary purpose of the government). I also think we the People need to insist that people charged with a crime (any crime) truly be innocent until proven guilty. We have begun moving away from that more and more in recent years in the name of "safety and security".
Yeah, I have to assume by 'false accuser' he is referring to those that knowlingly, maliciously provide false testimony, not cases of mistaken identity.
There is no remedy; you (*)(*)(*)(*)ed up, now you've got to either screw them over and say "oops", or pretty much end your life. Preference call.
