Posted by Jost on October 11, 2006, at 21:37:08
In reply to Lou's response to aspects of fayeroe's post, posted by Lou Pilder on October 11, 2006, at 20:56:23
It's been stated here several times that it's transparently not acceptable to enforce a rule unfairly, by which seems to be meant, that some violations of a rule or norm are sanctioned (to borrow a phrase) and others aren't.
In contrast to this idea, however, there's another: called in law, "prosecutorial discretion."
Prosecutorial discretion-- is the idea that any prosecutor is free to exercise appropriate discretion in deciding which crimes to, well, prosecute.
Lots of factors may come into play. The upshot is that some criminals, for various reasons, are prosecuted, and others, who(may) have committed the same crime aren't.
It's not humanly possible to enforce all laws all the time in a fully consistent way-- the question then becomes, which instances of potential violations of the law are or should be handled by criminal charges (or any other charges or sanctions).
The same principle undoubtedly applies here--
I'd also like to point out that when someone is murdered, for example, it's a rare instance in which it is considered a violation of the person's human rights.
Perhaps in the most troubling instances, a murder or serious assault has been prosecuted, often after the fact of an acquittal when there's a sense of social outrage. In these cases, the murder or assault may be considered also a "hate crime."
However, there are lots of hateful acts, even anti-semitic, or racist acts, that aren't prosecuted because of, well, prosecutorial discretion about the proper use of resources-- and the types of injustice perpetrated in seeking that justice.
Jost
poster:Jost
thread:693800
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20060918/msgs/693966.html