Recent events (which don’t need discussing here) got me thinking. If you’re actually innocent until proven guilty then why are so many people so often suspended pending an investigation? I think the term “Held in suspicion until proven not guilty” is more accurate. It is simple common sense to suspend an employee if serious allegations are made, so accordingly they’re not considered innocent.
Take a step further on this. An unscrupulous club pays a lady (or gentleman) to make a serious accusation against team X’s star play 2 days before the cup final. No way is he going to play. Worth a few million? This really could be seriously abused.
I think suspension from the organisation that an employee works for pending investigation is fair because it takes the employee out of unnecessary situations or implications pending legal investigations. Putting aside the most current case of Mason Greenwood, generally what I think concerns me is the trials by social media. I have always believed that social media or the internet is a double edged sword because it allows for previously swept under the carpet issues to be surfaced, but at the same time, it becomes so easy for some issues now to be degraded to a matter of ‘what has the bigger voice on the internet wins’. The legal system is not perfect but it is the best thing we have now to mete out punishment for crimes and even if there are loopholes and unfairness, we simply cannot allow public trials to sway ultimately what should be judgements based on concrete evidences or else in a way, wouldn’t it become a modern salem witch trial? As for specifically Mason Greenwood, he behaves like a prick on the field, I don’t know him how he is like off the field, so I hope that the law can look into all the evidences presented and give him the punishment that is accorded to any normal citizen of the country if the evidences are damning.
Think OJ Simpson. A criminal court has a high burden of proof because it can deprive you of your liberty, and it finds you not guilty rather than innocent. Depending on how proceedings unfold, someone can be acquitted despite clear evidence of guilt. A civil court faces a lower burden, ‘on balance of probability’ in many places. Being found not guilty in a criminal court does not establish your innocence.
I’m always very uneasy about a determination by a civil court that someone has committed what would amount to a criminal offence. I posted about this a few weeks ago when it was widely reported that a judge in divorce proceedings found that someone had ‘raped’ their spouse. It is not appropriate, imo, that civil actions make determinations of such criminal behaviour.
I am rather less deferential to the legal arts. When someone walks free despite a crime because a piece of evidence was excluded due to a procedural matter, I don’t see any particular reason why the rest of the system needs to kowtow to them.
If it’s a criminal case , the civil courts shouldn’t be judging it. I’m not sure how the legal system in Scotland compares to the one in India. But a civil court doesn’t generally pronounce judgements based on probability for criminal matters.
I believe there has to be a high burden of proof because it’s imperative that an innocent man shouldn’t be send to Jail.
There’s a high possibility that Goodwillie was guilty of rape. (He probably is), But that’s for a criminal court to consider. That for me seems very irregular. I’m not aware of whether he appealed this verdict though
Edited : Assumed this happened in the UK , Turns out that it happened in Scotland.
Sure, but if you raped a woman, got evidence excluded and walk free, you don’t have an entitlement to not be called a rapist. You merely have a right not to be jailed.
The Goodwillie case has to be viewed in the context of a Crown Prosecution Service that was managing its own caseload with an eye to maximizing performance versus management incentives. The number of cases that simply went forward because they were not an easy win for a prosecutor is simply appalling.
If he does walk free in criminal court, He’s not to be accused as a rapist.
Why not?
A civil court doesn’t have that power, simple, by virtue of a lower burden of proof. But I have the right to call David Goodwillie a rapist, and if he wants to sue me, fine. However, the court that adjudicates that matter isn’t going to have the same standard as the one that could have jailed him had he ever had a hearing.
He’s not guilty as per criminal law in a criminal case.
If he walks free there , He isn’t a rapist.
So someone has been pronounced as guilty in a criminal case by a civil courts judge who presumably has no expertise dealing with criminal cases. Legally he’s not a rapist as there wasn’t enough evidence to make the charges stick.
I mean the judicial system probably shot themselves in the foot here though. It evidently comes down to someone “who as per criminal law isn’t a rapist” being called as a rapist and asked to pay compensation by a court which has no authority to do so.
Because a civil court can call someone as a rapist and ask them to pay compensation but as per the criminal court (which is the only one which is supposed to ajudicate these matters , there isn’t enough evidence).
I mean legally. Criminal cases are absolute. Either theres enough evidence to charge them as guilty or theres an admission by the defendant to the same… Or there isn’t enough evidence…
If there isn’t enough evidence to prosecute , he isnt a rapist in the eyes of the law.
For a civil court to over rule that sets a very bad precedent imo.
Sorry, missed this hence my post above. When you actually discover this and what it means, it really does open up a better view of the world and the legal system. God exists vs I can’t prove he doesn’t exist etc.