DD's plan -- Minister of Magic

[sistermagpie at earthlink.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 189148

> > Eric:
> Before I did _anything,_ I'd want to make sure that the people in  
> question were guilty.  Why they didn't even try to question Black  
> (make sure he wasn't under the Imperius or otherwise magically  
> controlled, wait till all possible antidotes were out of his system  
> and then dose him with Veritaserum and question him, get a Penseive)  
> is utterly beyond me.

Magpie:
Because they already were sure he was guilty. As far as anyone was concerned, there was no miscarriage of justice there. There were witnesses. "Everyone" knew he was guilty. Dumbledore testified he was the secret keeper etc. I think that mentality would actually be more common in a world where official policy was to kill anybody said to have loyalty to DE than less.

In the US justice system, for instance, there's a lot of things that make it unsurprising that innocent people wind up on death row.  Guilty people, for instance, are more likely to plead down if the death penalty is used as a threat. Innocent people more often refuse to plead because they don't want to admit to a crime (especially a particularly disgusting one) they didn't commit. Being sure a person is guilty can mean different things to different people.

Basically, we're talking about the Dexter system, right? I mean, based on the TV show that's based on the books? Dexter as an individual murders mass murderers. Though sometimes he, too, makes mistakes. (And he's not doing it really out of justice, he just has a desire to kill and focuses on people that turn his desire into a sort of facsimile of justice.)

As for Fudge killing all the DEs, yes, that would have been a way to go. You do prevent any chance that any of them will join LV again if they're dead. Though I think that policy of killing people for being loyal to the wrong people can pretty obviously lead to bigger problems. The bigger loss in this case would possibly have been Snape rather than Sirius. Snape was a DE but later was an effective ally. Harry seems to think they also are too quick to consider someone proved loyal to the DEs. It would have prevented Barty from getting out--and ironically would probably have prevented Peter from bringing LV back as well (since he might have just stayed a rat w/o the confrontation w/Sirius). It probably would have also led to a lot of innocent deaths and possible thought policing etc.

Eric: 
> Once I was sure of guilt, though...unlike fashionable opinion on the  
> other side of the Herring Pond, I am with most of my fellow Americans  
> in not opposing the death penalty for sufficiently heinous crimes, and  
> what the DEs apparently did routinely certainly qualifies.

Magpie:
I wouldn't claim "most" of your fellow Americans in not opposing it for sufficiently heinous crimes (another reason it often gets applied unfairly, btw, because the more heinous the crime the more emotional the trial). I believe studies have more shown that opinion on the death penalty isn't that different in the US than in many other countries. The difference is more in that in the US it's decided by state so in some places it's legal and in other places it's not. But there are plenty of Americans who oppose it.

-m