If you falsely accuse someone of doing something illegal with bad intentions to the authorities, you should be charged with at least 3/4th of the sentence for the crime that is reported. amirite?

This doesn't cover any accusation. It covers the case where there is proof that the accuser has knowingly lied. We have perjury laws for this, however perjury consequences are not on par for the damage a false accusation can cause. We do have libel, slander laws in place to help balance damage, but that only comes in monetary form which is sometimes hard to collect. This can leave an accused person in a place where their life is struggling and the false accuser has no impact to their life. I support this concept, so long as the false accuser gets their day in court and gets the same "beyond reasonable doubt" judgement as the accused would have had.

by alvissenger 1 year ago

Not to mention it'll scare off actual victims and witnesses and make them afraid to speak out. Who's gonna relive trauma and speak out against it if there's a chance you'll end up getting imprisoned for it?

by Free-Temperature1672 1 year ago

I think a more workable solution would be to charge the perjurer with crimes like kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, etc. That is, if you lie to get me arrested and held against my will, you're a kidnapper. I bet you could get some long sentences out of that kind of law.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I came around to this kind of thinking after the Duke lacrosse case. Innocent people had their lives ruined because a stripper lied

by Anonymous 1 year ago

I see where you are coming from, but laws like this mean that anyone who reports a crime is under the risk of being charged for that crime. That is extremely problematic.

by No_Argument 1 year ago

I mean it's already illegal and a felony to falsify a crime. The only thing different in OP's scenario is the sentence would weigh 3/4 of the potential false imprisonment

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Agreed, they shouldn't be charged with the same crime, however could they serve the same sentence? (if found guilty)

by alvissenger 1 year ago

Perjury exists and is, indeed, a crime. Next.

by breanakerluke 1 year ago

Idk what happens when innocent people get exonerated 5, 10, 20 years down the road?

by Wide-Marsupial 1 year ago

Hunt down the accuser. 🤷‍♂️

by Anonymous 1 year ago

This sounds like a terrible idea as it'll only make actual victims and witnesses afraid of coming out. And perjury and false police reports are already crimes.

by Free-Temperature1672 1 year ago

It all depends on the equilibrium. No matter what, people who are afraid of coming out and people that accuse will exist. One solution for the latter, if their number is excessive, is to get a law like this. Laws against this type of behaviour at present are usually just situated in the "reputation destruction" category so no real repercussions against blame.

by Just_Astronomer_7590 1 year ago

For example how do you prove it's actually fake? Do you just mean if the defendant's found not guilty? And false accusations are exceptionally rare in comparison to the real crimes. Instead of arguing for this we should argue for a better investigative process as tons of criminals, murderers, and assaulters walk free or get slaps on the wrists for their crimes

by Free-Temperature1672 1 year ago

I bet you're also against death penalty.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Not sure what this has to do with what I'm saying here but that's an interesting concept to me. I'd say in a perfect world with enough funding that most of the people there should be given a chance at therapy and rehab but I know that in reality that'll be a huge money sink and isn't even guaranteed to work So I think a quick and humane execution is acceptable in practice

by Free-Temperature1672 1 year ago

You make a good point there but I figure this entire thing's points because the investigative and judicial systems suck so much. If they wee better, we could better combat false accusations but as things stand, we can't even accurately convict or sentence people that literally admitted to it I just feel this argument's putting the cart way ahead of the horse atm

by Free-Temperature1672 1 year ago

Then what do you want to happened to the false accusers presently? We have a lot of proven false accusers now.

by Responsible_Lie 1 year ago

Like I said before, perjury and false police reports are already crimes. They can be tried for those And I feel this is presently an issue that doesn't have a clear answer. I'm just pointing out that this one's definitely not it

by Free-Temperature1672 1 year ago

I agree. You cant just ruin someones life and just say "welp, i may have lied, but you still deserve it" But i do think we need to fix the justice system 1st and the people who handles these cases should have better process if we really want true justice.

by Responsible_Lie 1 year ago

while I agree with you, but a counter argument can be made that this discourages victims to press charges if they think they may be punished

by These_Top 1 year ago

this would absolutely result in criminal charges against victims who the court system already failed

by Careless_Credit1943 1 year ago

perjury fully is a crime, and this would only imprison victims who justice already failed in court

by Careless_Credit1943 1 year ago

I prefer revenge.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Perjury is already a crime with penalties. The problem with propositions like this is that it can create or worsen adversarial relationships between police and citizens and further discourage legitimate reporting, especially for sex crimes which are already famously underreported. It's a really delicate problem without a clean resolution; the reality is false reporting is far less common than legitimate reporting so it makes more sense to keep things as they are.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

3/4th? I would say that the "price" of such a thing should begin with the DOUBLE of the sentence of the falsely reported crime.

by Similar-Actuary7677 1 year ago

If I'm going to be accused of someone who is proven to be lying that I'm doing X, they should have the same jail sentence. The key is proven to have knowingly false accusation.

by Hilda06 1 year ago

I'm always 100% down for the punishment of those who has falsely accused someone. You should look up the story of David Milgaard. That mans story makes my blood boil.... "No one's interested in something you didn't do"

by xcrooks 1 year ago

Amen

by ahansen 1 year ago

It should be 1.25x minimum.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Nope not unpopular for me. If you come at me and drag me thru the mud for a false accusation. You bet your a$$ I'm coming after you. Legally, financially, emotionally, everything as a nice trophy to place on a shelf behind my desk. For the life of me I don't get why people don't do this in situations like this. 🙃

by Anonymous 1 year ago