Yea.. I can see some people thinking that, but that sentiment kind of goes against the rule of law. If all of the criminals committed crimes that everyone agreed should be punishable by death I could see it being more acceptable, but if these are lesser crimes that wouldn't be punishable by death but where the individual could be killed by other criminals that believe them to be a snitch, having law enforcement risk a person's life seems to go against the rule of law.
>> having law enforcement risk a person's life seems to go against the rule of law.
Most criminals who engage in any kind of criminal activity are usually living dangerous lives as it is. Working with the mob? Drug dealing with Mexican cartels? Finance crimes with sketchy people like Jeffrey Epstein? Engaging in credit card fraud with Russian mobsters?
I would say a majority of profitable criminal activity involves dealing with some form of violence or violent people to begin with. Criminals know the inherit risk with what they do or who they're involved with.
Yes, criminals do criminal things, but normally we don't just execute criminals that are involved in bad organizations. Even criminals are afforded rights here and it is one of the things that makes this country so great. Having law enforcement decide that they get to pass judgement on criminals is an incredibly slippery and ugly slope. Without everyone getting a right to a fair trial, those that are innocent can be impacted as well (e.g.: this is why one of our founding fathers defended the british soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre [1]).
Why is it ok that law enforcement get to decide what punishment a criminal should receive? You don't think that has a risk of trending society towards a police state where law enforcement power is not checked at all?
Innocent people getting thrown in jail happens. Say the police give this type of public exposure to an actually innocent person and that innocent person gets convicted. Say a newspaper article reports on the lie that the given innocent person was cooperating with police and that article is read by a big audience. That innocent person runs the risk of being murdered in jail because they have been marked as a snitch by law enforcement.
