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Not Reporting A Crime

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Who said it should be?

I can think of several reasons why not reporting a murder might be justifable; for instance, if the murderers are part of an influencial gang (eg mafia) and you have grounds to expect retaliation if you get involved.

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Why should it be a crime to not report to the police a murder which you are reasonably sure will happen the next day?
Is it a crime in the UK? I'm not sure whether not reporting a murder before it occurs is a crime in any state in the US. It may expose you to civil litigation, but I don't know about criminal prosecution.
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I can think of several reasons why not reporting a murder might be justifable; for instance, if the murderers are part of an influencial gang (eg mafia) and you have grounds to expect retaliation if you get involved.
Case in point: the state prosecutor in Baltimore has taken to prosecuting witnesses for not testifying (on the grounds that they would get killed by the gangs for doing so).

I'm not sure whether not reporting a murder before it occurs is a crime in any state in the US. It may expose you to civil litigation, but I don't know about criminal prosecution.
It turns out to be a crime in some jurisdictions to not be a good citizen. I can't remember which is which, but Minnesota and Wisconsin have laws that require you to render assistance and to report crimes, but I can't remember which place has which law. This is one of those arbitrary "you just have to know" laws, that differs between states.
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Case in point: the state prosecutor in Baltimore has taken to prosecuting witnesses for not testifying (on the grounds that they would get killed by the gangs for doing so).

What is the charge brought against these witnesses and what is the potential penalty?

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Are you guys saying that under Objectivism, it would be perfectly moral to know of an impending murder and do absolutely nothing, even if there is no risk to your life by reporting it?

You forget that there is gain in reporting a crime (or a penalty for not reporting). If you do not report it you honor the criminal and punish the honest. You help increasing the economic (if it's an economic issue like stealing) position of the criminal (the irrational) while punishing the honest (the rational) and therefore you help the market getting irrational. => If your own income depends on a rational market (i.e. if you achieved your position not by fraud but by your own qualities) you gain from reporting the criminal.

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What is the charge brought against these witnesses and what is the potential penalty?
I can't find the relevant data now -- I think it was obstruction of justice. I don't know how far that went -- it may well have been just a threat to intimidate witnesses into testifying -- just that it was a news item this summer that the prosecutor was planning on playing hardball with witnesses.
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Under Objective law, would it be legal to not report a murder that you know will happen tomorrow? Ie. Would it be legal to let someone die by your inaction?
Its worth pointing out that these are 2 very different questions; 'letting someone die by your inaction' could include (eg) not giving money to a starving man, or not risking your life to save someone who was drowning. In these sorts of cases there are no rights violated at any time and it would be absurd to criminalise these actions.

Although you can make a stronger argument for the 'murder' case where there are actually rights violated at some point, I dont think it should be illegal either. Only active violations of rights should be punished by the legal system - if I fail to warn <someone> about <something> then I am neither directly violating their rights nor initiating force against them.

Edited by Hal
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If you witness the planning of a crime, and remain silent, are you not, at least to some extent, aiding and abetting the criminal in violating the rights of others? Granted, the police, not private citizens, are responsible for taking action against criminals. But are we not obliged to cooperate with the police by providing information?

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But are we not obliged to cooperate with the police by providing information?
You certainly have the right to cooperate with the police, just as a free nation has the right but not obligation to overthrow a dictatorship. Morally, you should cooperate with the police if doing so is consistent with your purpose --- your own life, but that judgment can't be turned into a general obligation to be imposed on all people, since cooperating with the police is not universally the pro-life choice.
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If the police were acting immorally, one would have not only the right to withhold information from them, but the moral obligation to do so. If the Gestapo is rounding up Jews for a train ride to Treblinka, a moral man certainly has the right to not tell them that there is a Jewish family hiding in the basement next door.

On the other hand, if the police are simply performing a proper investigation of a crime, to withhold information would be to protect the criminal.

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So in your view one has the right to withhold information from the police?
Yes (and btw that right is recognised in the US); a court may under certain circumstances legally compel you to testify at a trial, but exploring when that is or is not proper would be a separate topic of discussion.
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I don't understand. If one has the right to withhold information, how can it ever be proper for the government to compel one to give testimony?
Okay, it looks like you want to have the compulsory testimony discussion. Let me first deny a possible implication that I think compelling testimony in court is proper (I didn't say that, but you might think I held that it could be). The use of force against a witness must be objectively controlled, which means that the judge must give the order. The judge must consider the probative nature of the testimony, and the witness's reasons for not giving that testimony openly. Using force against the witness is in itself a violation of the witness's rights, which may (and I did not say "is") be (okay, that's a form "is") required to achieve justice. Hence the judge has to weigh the rights of the accused, the victim, and the witness, so decide whether to use force against the witness. There are (and/or should be) strict rules regarding that use of force, and it would not be proper to authorize police to unilaterally make those judgments (Judge Dredd notwithstanding). To give two extremes, if testifying in court would result in the death or significant injury or loss of property by the witness and the benefit would be to fill in a step in the prosecutor's argument against a petty thief, it would be a grave miscarriage of justice to force the witness to sacrifice his life. If testifying in courts would have no consequence for the witness and his testimony would prove the guilt of Ted Bundy, then forcing testimony would not be a grave injustice: Bundy would bear responsibility for that use of force. (An option to consider is to prosecute him for indirect coersion, but that definitely is a separate thread).

Presenting the argument doesn't mean I approve of it; I haven't really sorted out in my mind when it is proper to use force against an innocent person, in the pursuit of justice.

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Lets say that I KNOW a murder is going to happen tomorrow. It will cost me nothing besides my time to report this knowledge to the police.

Are you guys saying that if I don't tell the police and they later find out after the murder that I had knowledge that it was going to happen, that I:

1) Should be sentenced even though I have not intitiated force.

or

2) Should not be sentenced because it is my freedom to do as I wish as long as I don't initiate force.

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Replace the word 'murder' with 'theft' and ask the same question. Morally, the case for reporting it is significantly less, however there is still no legal obligation. When trying to answer these types of questions it is useful to keep separate the concept of 'legal' from 'moral.' Certainly you cannot punish someone for being immoral unless it violates the rights of another person which, in the case of simply not reporting crucial information, it does not.

Though I think this matter changes as soon as someone seeks this crucial information from you. If it is found that you consciously did not divulge crucial information then I think a civil/criminal actioin may be justified at that juncture.

I would venture to say that simply having this crucial information, even if privilaged or sought after, in and of itself is not incriminating. Even though the situation may become a moral black mark.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Using force against the witness is in itself a violation of the witness's rights, which may (and I did not say "is") be (okay, that's a form "is") required to achieve justice. Hence the judge has to weigh the rights of the accused, the victim, and the witness, so decide whether to use force against the witness.

I thought that it was never justifiable for government to violate rights, and that rights cannot conflict. Thus I think the proper position is that a potential witness has the right to chose not to testify, even if it means that justice is thwarted. Refusing to testify is not an initiation of force and not a rights violation.

The same principle would apply to the original question. Failing to notify the police of a probable future crime is not an initiation of force and not a rights violation.

Edited by Godless Capitalist
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For starters, anyone with knowledge of a crime who fails to report it, is an accessory to that crime. That is to say, the person did nothing to incite ot initiate the crime, did not help to carry it out, but had it in his power to try to stop it and didn't.

Now, if the person involved were reasonably afraid that he would suffer by reporting such a crime, and that he could not get effective help from the police (or any help at all), then he's acting in self-defense (or defense of another) and is justified in doing nothing.

As for compelling testimony, the issue is more complicated. The courts cannot work properly if evidence is witheld. That's one reason why it is a crime to withold evidence and to destroy evidence. Testimony is a form of evidence, too. Of course, testifying might put one at risk, too.

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For starters, anyone with knowledge of a crime who fails to report it, is an accessory to that crime. That is to say, the person did nothing to incite ot initiate the crime, did not help to carry it out, but had it in his power to try to stop it and didn't.

The purpose of this thread is not to determine what IS against the law, but rather what should or should not be against the law. It doesn't matter that there is a law (in some juridications) that compels people to report a crime, the question is SHOULD there be a law that compels people to report crime from a moral perspective.

The existence of law does not justify the law.

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Please note that the essential issue here is one of self-defense. Altruism is no barrier to an individual's right to regain his property or appropriate recompense.

Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute has written, "If, however, in waging war our government considers the deaths of civilians in terrorist states as a cost that must be weighed against the deaths of our own soldiers (or civilians), or as a cost that must be weighed against achieving victory over the enemy, our government thereby violates its most basic function. It becomes not an agent for our self-defense, but theirs." http://store.yahoo.net/netanyahu/innocentsinwar.html

For the same reason, if a government considers the loss of the rights of "suspects" or "witnesses" in this country a cost that must be weighed against the victims of aggression, our government thereby violates its most basic function -- to protect the rights of our own citizens as opposed to the enemy: the aggressors against the coerced citizens.

Now what about the theory that it is "never justifiable for government to violate rights."

Onkar Ghate writes, ". . .the truly innocent who live in countries that initiate force against other nations will acknowledge the moral right of a free nation to bomb their countries and destroy their governments--even if this jeopardizes their own lives."

Similarly, the truly innocent who live in countries that do not initiate force against other nations, such as the United States, will acknowledge the moral right (the moral right of a free nation to use force against innocents, as in the power of subpoena, to achieve victory over coercers).

Edited by Daedalus
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