the trial judge improperly allowed women to testify about allegations against the ex-movie mogul that weren’t part of the case.
Well, yeah, that’s a pretty major problem. If they’re bringing in allegations that aren’t part of the case how is the defendant supposed to defend himself against that?
Everyone getting angry about this as a miscarriage of justice, I agree, but direct that anger at the judge and prosecutors who screwed it up so badly. Echoes of Cosby getting off due to a prosecutor making a stupid deal, or OJ getting off because the police apparently tried to frame a guilty man.
But the judge and prosecutors should know that this would happen right? I’m a tad above a layman but isn’t it obvious that this would happen? It’s so negligent I’m almost convinced that it was negligence. Or is it that they usually get away with this kind of thing?
This is correct. I know the tendency on the left lately (and especially on Lemmy) is that the ends always justify the means, but the rule of law is more important. Rights of the accused are crucial to maintaining democracy. If the state fucks up its case or breaks the rules, they need to be held to account even if it means pieces of shit sometimes get away with things. Reference the entire Miranda case the warnings are based on, for example.
I also believe karma is a bitch. OJ got off but he was held civilly liable and he went on to commit other crimes that eventually landed him in prison for a significant chunk of his life. (To that point, karma eventually caught up with Miranda also…)
Yeah. Lots of people parrot the phrase “better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer,” but then as soon as some specific guilty person goes free they go “no, wait, let me amend that…”
It does annoy me that the guilty men going free does tend to skew strongly towards rich guilty men, simply because they can afford to fight it out. But I’d rather everyone get the chance to fight it out rather than remove those opportunities. Maybe if everyone had the opportunity to fight for all their rights the police and prosecutors would start taking more care not to violate them.
Well, yeah, that’s a pretty major problem. If they’re bringing in allegations that aren’t part of the case how is the defendant supposed to defend himself against that?
Everyone getting angry about this as a miscarriage of justice, I agree, but direct that anger at the judge and prosecutors who screwed it up so badly. Echoes of Cosby getting off due to a prosecutor making a stupid deal, or OJ getting off because the police apparently tried to frame a guilty man.
But the judge and prosecutors should know that this would happen right? I’m a tad above a layman but isn’t it obvious that this would happen? It’s so negligent I’m almost convinced that it was negligence. Or is it that they usually get away with this kind of thing?
This is correct. I know the tendency on the left lately (and especially on Lemmy) is that the ends always justify the means, but the rule of law is more important. Rights of the accused are crucial to maintaining democracy. If the state fucks up its case or breaks the rules, they need to be held to account even if it means pieces of shit sometimes get away with things. Reference the entire Miranda case the warnings are based on, for example.
I also believe karma is a bitch. OJ got off but he was held civilly liable and he went on to commit other crimes that eventually landed him in prison for a significant chunk of his life. (To that point, karma eventually caught up with Miranda also…)
Yeah. Lots of people parrot the phrase “better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man suffer,” but then as soon as some specific guilty person goes free they go “no, wait, let me amend that…”
It does annoy me that the guilty men going free does tend to skew strongly towards rich guilty men, simply because they can afford to fight it out. But I’d rather everyone get the chance to fight it out rather than remove those opportunities. Maybe if everyone had the opportunity to fight for all their rights the police and prosecutors would start taking more care not to violate them.