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Comment by starspangled | Hacker News Reader

The fair trial and "due process" was the initial conviction. The punishment for that is imprisonment until they prove to a parole board that they no longer pose a risk to the public.

That's the thing about "due process", isn't it? It's just a phrase that basically means "the law", and the law can be changed by legislation and judges, and the law can be unjust. The phrase is nothing more than giving airs of being impartial or some check and balance against the law. This hapless fellow got his "due process".

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I hear you, but the problem is that the alternative is much worse. These indefinite detentions lend themselves to all manner of corruption. Maybe a prison guard doesn't like you and falsely claims you committed a violent offense, just to keep you inside. Maybe a fellow inmate attacks you, and when you defend yourself, it gets registered as a violent offense.

The first element of due process is that a citizen be notified that the State is mobilizing its resources with the intention of depriving them of their life, liberty, and/or property.

Another core tenet of due process is that, once notified, you get a chance to submit evidence in your favor before an impartial adjudicator, precisely to avoid the issues in my first paragraph.

I'm just saying that due process doesn't mean fair or just.

Normal parole boards in America with American due process also do not have an obligation to release people unless their guilt for further crimes can be proven beyond reasonable doubt, but they're also part of what is called due process.

You can argue this legal punishment is no good, but you can't argue for due process because he got it. In fact that is exactly what people have argued, hence this punishment being removed from the books. But in a cruel and seemingly unjust twist of "due process" of the law, the punishment was not vacated for all of those previously convicted. So if anything you would plead for an exception to normal due process here and ask that the change be retroactively applied, wouldn't you?

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