Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 07:39 PM 9/6/1999 -0700, Bryan Caldwell wrote: >Please tell me if that is misreading the report. Well, yes and no. What you cited was the heart of the report. What the American media left out was WHY the judge ruled that way. They interpreted it as if it were an Ameican judge making the ruling. Under the Civil Law system, the judge examined the government's evidence and found it was insufficient to support a conviction. Hence, the Defendants won. So, the judge entered a series of rulings in favour of the Defendants. It doesn't mean they weren't guilty: it just means the government couldn't prove its case. The American media is constantly confusing "not guilty" and "innocent" in the same way. If the government fails to prove a criminal act to the satisfaction of the trier of fact, that doesn't mean the Defendants didn't do it; it just means the government failed to prove their case, a different thing totally. Witness the mush Marsha Clark made of the OJ trial -- an easy win for most prosecutors, she so overplayed a winning case that he got off, which both cost her her job, and made her rich. A jury or bench-trial verdict will be "not guilty" under the Common Law -- meaning, "you are not found guilty". "Innocent" means you didn't do it, and no criminal system will go that far! Marc msmall@roanoke.infi.net FAX: +540/343-7315 Cha robh bas fir gun ghras fir!