Question Why is a person responsible for crimes they have committed in the past? How can we be certain that a person who commits an act at one moment in time has the same moral status as they had at another moment of time. So a person who murders a person at one moment may actually be a person who has a benevolent and charitable disposition the next moment. Wouldn't it be wrong to harm a benevolent and charitable person just because of what they did in the past when they held values that are different than what they currently hold?

Accepted:
May 13, 2010

Comments

Yes, I think it is wrong to harm a benevolent and charitable person just because of what they did in the past when they held values that are different than what they currently hold. But we cannot run a legal system so as to avoid this wrong. Just imagine that juries, to convict, would have to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused has not had a change of values since he committed the crime in question. It would not be hard for many accused (and their lawyers and jury experts) to create such doubt. Many criminals would be acquitted and many of these would then commit further crimes. Others would be emboldened to commit crimes by the confident expectation that, if caught, they would find a way to plead a subsequent change of heart.

What I'm suggesting then is that our current practice of holding people responsible for their past conduct is the lesser evil. And we mitigate this evil in various ways: through statutes of limitation, through pardons, and through the occasional jury nullification (where a jury acquits even while its members understand that, on the basis of all the evidence, they ought to have convicted). Despite such mitigating measures, the wrong you are calling attention to is not entirely avoided or avoidable (much like the occasional conviction and punishment of innocent persons is practically unavoidable).

While the wrong is not, I think, reasonably avoidable in our criminal justice system, we can do better in our personal lives by being ready to forgive wholeheartedly in cases where a former offender really did have a change of heart.