Spirituality
28 Oct 05
30 Oct 05
Originally posted by no1marauderAmen!
You've pulled this s**t before and I'm through with it. You made a claim that the Inquistion's judical protections were an improvement over prior systems, but when presented proof that important protections were used in legal systems before but not by the Inquistion, you simply deny their importance. The right to confront your accusers is important be ...[text shortened]... n; you're a jerk to change the goalposts in the middle of the game. But you've done it before.
I find all the God botherers on this site similar.
As soon as you display the error in their argument or produce evidence to denounce their flimsy ideas, they simply keep quiet like it never happened or just ignore it.
Still, such is the nature of human-sheep I suppose.
31 Oct 05
1 edit
Originally posted by lucifershammerFirst, note that "It is difficult to form any precise idea of the Cathar doctrines, as all the existing knowledge of them is derived from their opponents, and the few texts from the Cathars (the Rituel Cathare de Lyon and the Nouveau Testament en Provencal) contain very little information concerning their beliefs and moral practices".
What was the position of the Cathars on marriage? On oaths (which were the primary means of binding oral contracts at the time)?
What is the logical impact of these positions on any society?
Second,
1. They rejected the sacrament of marriage.
2. Oaths were out.
3. a) If everyone followed the Cathars' teachings on this matter to the letter, they would have practiced anal sex until the human race died out. (The same thing would have happened if St. Origen's views had enjoyed greater popularity). However the society in which the Cathars thrived was in fact prosperous, even with a higher level of culture than e.g. France, and underwent a significant decrease population only as a direct result of the Crusade. b). Perhaps a better means of forming oral contracts would be necessary, and perhaps people would have to be taught how to read. The Church doesn't seem to have enjoyed common people thinking for themselves, viz. it's attitude towards the Bible being published in ordinary language (the Cathar translation being the first to upset them so).
In a later post you said you weren't trying to justify the Albigensian Crusade. Fair enough--if you can't justify the Crusade that led directly to the institution of the Inquisition, you can't justify the Inquisition either. Why even try? It baffles me. I've spoken to Catholic priests who are not afraid to say it was iniquitous.
01 Nov 05
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauder
You've pulled this s**t before and I'm through with it. You made a claim that the Inquistion's judical protections were an improvement over prior systems, but when presented proof that important protections were used in legal systems before but not by the Inquistion, you simply deny their importance. The right to confront your accusers is important be ...[text shortened]... n; you're a jerk to change the goalposts in the middle of the game. But you've done it before.
You made a claim that the Inquistion's judical protections were an improvement over prior systems, but when presented proof that important protections were used in legal systems before but not by the Inquistion, you simply deny their importance.
I never denied the importance of those protections (right to face one's accuser and the right to a jury of one's peers) - merely the absolute nature of those protections. Are they valid for all situations and all times? I contend that they are not - unlike the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The right to confront your accusers is important because "cross-examination is the best tool to establish the truth"; it's easy for anyone to make an accusation if they know they won't have to face the one they're accusing.
The use of truth serum would probably trump cross-examination as a "tool to establish the truth", but we do not use it in courts. Why?
In a legal system, it is not simply the defendant who has rights - but also the witness. A balance must be sought when those rights are in conflict. On the one hand, the defendant has the right to offer a defence or a refutation of the testimony against him. On the other hand, the witness has the right not be put at risk by virtue of his giving testimony. In a modern State with well-developed policing systems, we can offer such facilities as Witness Protection to ensure the safety of witnesses.
But no such programmes existed in the Middle Ages. The original Medieval Inquisitions did guarantee the right to face one's accuser. Pretty soon, defendants were having witnesses assassinated often enough for this protection to be withdrawn.
Note that the absence of a right to face one's accuser does not equate to the absence of a right to refute testimony. Under the procedure of the Inquisitions, all defendants were provided a notarised copy of the witnesses' testimony (identity of the witness not disclosed) and could either offer a defence, provide refuting evidence or submit counter-questions. If the latter, the witness was recalled and asked to answer those questions. So the Inquisition did have a form of cross-examination (albeit less efficient).
A jury trial with your peers is fair fairer than a system of Inquistors making a decision on your guilt.
Inquisitors were well-trained investigators and jurists - capable of expert interpretation of both evidence and law. I am not of the opinion that using a group of untrained laypersons offer a fairer system of justice. Even in the modern era of a literate jury and mass media, we have had such grossly incorrect judgments as the acquittal of Rodney King's attackers.
In terms of implementation in legal systems around the world, the jury trial is not a well-established best practice. Countries whose legal systems did not evolve from English common law (e.g. Continental Europe) do not use juries. There are even common law countries (e.g. India - the largest democracy in the world) where juries have been abolished. International war crimes tribunals typically do not use juries.
So, the idea that a jury trial fundamentally represents a better system of judgment than a trained jurist (or a panel of trained jurists) is disputable.
01 Nov 05
2 edits
Originally posted by no1marauder
More lies.
I was wrong about the time period, but you are grossly misstating Langbein's views by selective quotation a speciality of yours and Ivanhoe. Here's the full quote about those 80 cases:
We have record of more than eighty cases from the century’ 1540 - 1640 in which the Privy Council or the monarch ordered torture (OR THE TH ...[text shortened]... e as part of the criminal procedure is so demented I have no idea how to respond but with a WTF.
Since threat of torture was used 100% of the time in the Inquistion, which system used it more, sophist?
First, a clarification:
When you say that the threat of torture was used 100% of the time in the Inquisition*, do you mean that 100% of defendants were explicitly threatened with torture? If so, do you have any evidence?
If you mean that the threat of torture was implicit or understood (because torture was not illegal), then that is true of the English interrogation system as well.
In any case, I have not disputed that the use (or threat) of torture was more widespread with the Inquisitions than in England.
I don't believe the 2% figure either, as it is from the self-serving documents from the RCC which has shown a willingness to edit or lose crucial documents.
Do you have any actual evidence that the Church edited, hid or destroyed tens of thousands of trial documents relating to the Spanish Inquisition?
The 2% figure is the most widely accepted one amongst historians today (it was Henry Kamen - the historian whose research revolutionised the study of the Spanish Inquisition - who first estimated this figure). I have yet to see any historian argue that evidence was destroyed.
The cases of Bruno† and Galileo do not constitute sufficient evidence for your assertion.
---
* Which one?
† Apparently, records of Bruno's trial were not lost (as was thought before the 1920s):
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/bruno07f.htm
01 Nov 05
Originally posted by no1marauder
A perfect example of the type of grotesque misrepresentation LH will stoop to is this quote:
On the Continent, torture came to the relief of a law of evidence which made conviction well-nigh impossible
This is followed IMMEDIATELY by this sentence:
Luckily for England neither the stringent rules of legal proof nor the cr ...[text shortened]... s. Thus, the Inquistion was, again, a backslide even from the grossly unfair Continental system.
The cruel and stupid subterfuge is, of course, torture which was endemic in the Continental system. So far from being some fairer system where convictions were almost impossible as LH implies by quoting selectively and out of context, the Continental system was based almost entirely on the efficiency of torture on getting confessions from the accused. I ask you: is that a fairer system?
What do you think the following statement of Prof. Langbein's means?
To this day’ an English jury can convict a defendant on less evidence than was required as a mere precondition for interrogation under torture on the Continent.
no1:
BTW, the Inquistion got rid of the high legal standards of the Continental system for proof and simply threatened everybody with torture to extract confessions.
Are you just making this up or do you have any evidence for this?
01 Nov 05
1 edit
Originally posted by lucifershammerThere is no such thing as a "truth serum" which is one reason why it isn't used in court.You made a claim that the Inquistion's judical protections were an improvement over prior systems, but when presented proof that important protections were used in legal systems before but not by the Inquistion, you simply deny their importance.
I never denied the importance of those protections (right to face one's accuser and the ...[text shortened]... a better system of judgment than a trained jurist (or a panel of trained jurists) is disputable.
You are now making a different claim then the one you did before. Before you asserted that a primary reason why the Inquistion was created was to give greater protection to the ACCUSED. Now you have moved the goalposts to it was a "fairer" system in toto. Which is it, LH? It can't be both as the failure to allow real cross-examination by you and/or your counsel is far different from arguing with an affidavit as any trial lawyer will tell you. Decide what position you're going to take and decide to actually stick to it and I might show you your errors, but I'm not going to keep chasing you from point to point because you keep changing your argument.
Inquistors were prosecutors judging the merits of the cases that they brought forward. No system that does this can be said to be fair to the accused. Again, you are position shifting here as well. According to Wikipedia, India abolished jury trials after the Indian government got a verdict it didn't like acquitting a political opponent. This is exactly why a jury system is superior to all others; it is a the one that offers the most protection for the accused. Again, you have changed your argument from the Inquistion was more protective of the accused's rights to it was somehow "fairer". I dispute both, but which is it LH; surely it cannot be seriously argued even by a sophist like you that a system of professional prosecutor-judges using torture and affidavits is more protective of an accused's rights than a jury of his peers, no torture and the right to directly cross-examine?
EDIT: From Wikipedia:
Jury trials were abolished by the government of India in 1960 on the grounds they would be susceptible to media and public influence. This decision was based on a 8:1 acquittal of Kawas Nanavati in K. M. Nanavati vs. State of Maharashtra, which was overturned by higher courts, on the grounds that the Jury was misled by the presiding judge.
I might also add that an acquittal in the UK and US cannot be overturned by a higher court as this would constitute double jeopardy.
03 Nov 05
2 edits
Originally posted by lucifershammerFortunately, my law school library had a copy of Langbein's book. Thus, I was able to read the section on torture in Roman law which was adapted to the Continent and make some sense of the passage you cited:The cruel and stupid subterfuge is, of course, torture which was endemic in the Continental system. So far from being some fairer system where convictions were almost impossible as LH implies by quoting selectively and out of context, the Continental system was based almost entirely on the efficiency of torture on getting confessions from the a ...[text shortened]... extract confessions.
Are you just making this up or do you have any evidence for this?
To this day’ an English jury can convict a defendant on less evidence than was required as a mere precondition for interrogation under torture on the Continent.[/
First, the only sufficient evidence to convict under Roman law (RL from now on for short though this abbreviation will also mean the medieval Contintental system for brevity) was:
1. The testimony of two eyewitness; or
2. A confession.
If either of these were present, the case was resolved by the judges. However, if they weren't the court could order torture to obtain a confession if they had what was called "half-proof" which was either:
A. The testimony of one eyewitness; or
B. A certain amount of other "circumstantial" evidence such as are the core of trials today (physical evidence like a weapon, non-physical evidence like motive and opportunity as examples). The exact type of this "circumstanial" evidence was specifically regulated under RL though he changed and evolved under different statutory systems on the Continent.
Thus, the statement that a jury can still convict under less evidence than was required for torture is true IF that evidence consists of what RL considered "circumstantial". Such evidence must, of course, be sufficient to a "morally certainty" if the case is based solely on "circumstantial" evidence which is now defined basically as non-physical evidence which is not eyewitness.
However, the crux of Langbein's whole book is that a legal system based on torture as a necessary expedient to get confessions, even though other evidence is more probative of guilt, is unjust and absurd. In the vast majorities of cases according to Langbein, the half-proof standard was easily met (and the types of "circumstantial evidence" needed to meet the standard was constantly being upgraded to make it even easier over time). Thus, torture and the possibility of false confessions was an integral part of, indeed the distinguishing feature of, RL. A system based on torture like RL cannot be considered fair to the accused as it rest on a barbaric practice which often leads to incorrect results.
Langbein's analysis is that, despite your false claim, the English system did not even use the threat of torture in its criminal procedure except for certain extraordinary cases during a well-defined time period. Thus, English defendants were NOT under a 100% threat of torture like the persons ensnared in the Inquistion. Again I state, a legal system based on a trial by a jury of your peers without the threat of torture is far fairer to the accused than a system like the Inquistion which is based on findings by professional prosecutor-judges and where the omnipresent threat of torture is an essential ingredient of the legal process. Do you seriously assert otherwise?
My next post will address how the procedures of the Inquistion were worse than, not an improvement on as you and Ivanhoe have claimed, the RL system.
03 Nov 05
1 edit
Originally posted by no1marauderMarauder: " Roman law (RL from now on for short though this abbreviation will also mean the medieval Contintental system for brevity)"
Fortunately, my law school library had a copy of Langbein's book. Thus, I was [text shortened]... nquistion were worse than, not an improvement on as you and Ivanhoe have claimed, the RL system.
Marauder: " My next post will address how the procedures of the Inquistion were worse than, not an improvement on as you and Ivanhoe have claimed, the RL system.
The basis for new misunderstandings, misinterpretations and confusion are being laid right here.
03 Nov 05
Originally posted by no1marauderno1: BTW, the Inquistion got rid of the high legal standards of the Continental system for proof and simply threatened everybody with torture to extract confessions.
There is no such thing as a "truth serum" which is one reason why it isn't used in court.
You are now making a different claim then the one you did before. Before you asserted that a primary reason why the Inquistion was created was to give greater protection to the ACCUSED. Now you have moved the goalposts to it was a "fairer" system in ...[text shortened]... n the UK and US cannot be overturned by a higher court as this would constitute double jeopardy.
LH: Are you just making this up or do you have any evidence for this?
Yes I do. From Peters, Torture (1996) at pages 66-67:
First he notes that it was not until the late 13th and early 14th centuries that Inquistors were required to have ANY training in either canon law or the procedures of the Inquistion itself! This deficiency in legal training:
appears to have led the new judges of heresy [Inquistors] to employ the most dramatic of the inquistorial procedure, often without understanding or appreciating its conventional safeguards for the defendant and perhaps, out of fear that those accused of heresy were far more dangerous to Christian society than ordinary thieves, murderers or traitors."
He goes on to list 7 areas where the practices of the Inquistion were less protective of the accused than RL (as bad as that system was):
The early personnel of the inquistions then, mark one difference in ecclesiastical inquistorial procedure. A second is their right to withhold the names and substantial testimony of witnesses; a third is their customary restriction of the aid of counsel to the defendant. Fourth was the admission of the testimony of other incompetent witnesses: interested parties, those declared infamous, those already convicted of perjury and so forth. A fifth was the relaxation of the rules of evidence and the greater weight given to indicia, particulary in the area of facial expressions, behavior, apparent nervousness, and so on. A sixth consisted of the policy of deceiving the accused by introducing spies into their cells, making promises of leniency, and developing a system of carefully designed forms of interrogation that were much broader then those prescribed in the ordinary inquistorial [i.e.RL] procedure. A seventh was the category of degress of suspicion in which accused heretics were held; these determined the intensity of the procedures used against them.
Thus, according to Peters:
In short, the ecclesiastical inquistors had greatly altered the character of the inquistorial process as they found it in the mid-thirteenth century in use in Italy and France.
And unfortunately:
the secular courts found themselves influenced by the ecclesiastical procedures in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Since virtually all of the alterations were unfavorable to the rights of the accused, your claim that the Inquistion was set up with the primary purpose of protecting the accused is baloney. Even worse, this cancerous diminution of the defendant's rights spilled over in the RL courts leading to centuries where the progress towards greater rights to ordinary citizens accused of crimes was actually reversed on the Continent.
Would you and/or Ivanhoe care to retract your claim that the practices of the Inquistion afforded more right to defendants than the civil courts, even in RL countries (surely you must have given up that claim vis-a-vis the English system)?
03 Nov 05
Originally posted by ivanhoeAmazing that you can prejudge a post EVEN before it is written!
[b]Marauder: " Roman law (RL from now on for short though this abbreviation will also mean the medieval Contintental system for brevity)"
Marauder: " My next post will address how the procedures of the Inquistion were worse than, not an improvement on as you and Ivanhoe have claimed, the RL system.
The basis for new misunderstandings, misinterpretations and confusion are being laid right here.[/b]
05 Nov 05
LH apparently doesn't want to play with me anymore though he has found plenty of time to dance in the "Infallibility" thread. As I spent considerable research time in refuting his claim that the Inquistion was fairer to the accused then existing secular courts, I would expect him to either respond to my points or admit error. But I'm not holding my breath.
05 Nov 05
Originally posted by no1marauderWell, one cannot dance in two parties at the same time. 🙂
There is no such thing as a "truth serum" which is one reason why it isn't used in court.
You are now making a different claim then the one you did before. Before you asserted that a primary reason why the Inquistion was created was to give greater protection to the ACCUSED. Now you have moved the goalposts to it was a "fairer" system in ...[text shortened]... n the UK and US cannot be overturned by a higher court as this would constitute double jeopardy.
There is no such thing as a "truth serum" which is one reason why it isn't used in court.
Alright, the polygraph then. Let's not be pedantic.
You are now making a different claim then the one you did before. Before you asserted that a primary reason why the Inquistion was created was to give greater protection to the ACCUSED. Now you have moved the goalposts to it was a "fairer" system in toto.
You and I seem to be using the term 'protection' in very different senses. You seem to be referring to due process 'protections', whereas I'm talking about protection from certain death by a lynch mob or a secular execution.
I didn't say anything about "fairness" (you're the one who's been using that term) - but that is ultimately what determines whether one judicial system is better than another. Since ivanhoe and I have asserted that the procedure of the Inquisitions represented an improvement on secular procedures, I guess we are committed to relative fairness.
Inquistors were prosecutors judging the merits of the cases that they brought forward. No system that does this can be said to be fair to the accused.
If you have to look for an analogue to the Inquisitor in the adversarial system, it would be a combination of detective and jury rather than the prosecutor. In the adversarial system, the prosecutor is committed to securing a conviction by all means available under the law, while the opposite is true of the defence; the idea being that the process will favour the participant with truth on his side. That is not the purpose of the Inquisitor - he is committed to looking for the truth of the matter.
According to Wikipedia, India abolished jury trials after the Indian government got a verdict it didn't like acquitting a political opponent. This is exactly why a jury system is superior to all others...
Nanavati was not a "political opponent". You're a lawyer - please read up on the case before making such assertions. The Nanavati case is summarised at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._M._Nanavati_vs._State_of_Maharashtra
This and the Rodney King case give a good reason why a jury system is demonstrably not superior to other systems.
05 Nov 05
Originally posted by lucifershammerTo the easy one first; while Nanavati was not a "political opponent", the government certainly was influenced by political and ethnic factors in how they treated the accused:
Well, one cannot dance in two parties at the same time. 🙂
There is no such thing as a "truth serum" which is one reason why it isn't used in court.
Alright, the polygraph then. Let's not be pedantic.
[quote]You are now making a different claim then the one you did before. Before you asserted that a primary reason why the I ...[text shortened]... case give a good reason why a jury system is demonstrably [b]not superior to other systems.[/b]
Influential Parsis held regular rallies in Mumbai, with the largest being an event held at Cowasji Jehangir Hall, to support the Governor's decree that suspended Nanavati's life sentence and put him under naval custody, until his appeal was heard by the Supreme Court. At that rally, 3,500 people filled the hall and around 5000 stood outside. Nanavati also received backing from the Indian Navy and the Parsi Panchayat, while the Sindhi community backed Mamie Ahuja. Even among the jurists, Ram Jethmalani, a Sindhi consulted the prosecution, while Karl Khandavala, a Parsi, represented Nanavati.
[edit]
Release
While Nanavati spent 3 years in prison, public opinion thought the sentence was too harsh and the Blitz magazine kept the issue alive and pressured the government to pardon Nanavati. Nanavati, by virtue of working as a Defence Attaché to V. K. Krishna Menon, while he was a high commissioner to the United Kingdom, was also close to the Nehru-Gandhi family. But a government pardon could have got an angry reaction from the Sindhi community.
At the same time, the government received an application for pardon from Bhai Pratap, a Sindhi trader and a participant in the Indian independence movement, who was convicted for misusing an import license, but exonerated by a government inquiry. The prosecution working with Ram Jethmalani, the Defence's counsel, got Prem's sister Mamie Ahuja to forgive Nanavati and give her assent for his pardon, in writing. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, then governor of Maharashtra, pardoned Bhai Pratap and Nanavati on the same day
To argue that abolishing jury trials is the proper response every single time a jury reaches a verdict that the government or majority opinion disagrees with, is tauntamont to leaving criminal defendants at the mercy of lynch mobs.