dagblog - Comments for "Innocent until proven guilty? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?"

Yet our Constitution states

Nebton — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:59:00 +0000

In reply to August 12, 2009 Yet our

Yet our Constitution states that we have this right.

Actually, the Constitution says no such thing. In fact, it doesn't even have the phrase "innocent until proven guilty".

A quick search of the internets, turned up this interesting article on the phrase. Here's an interesting excerpt:

Clementi did not know that the maxim "Innocent until proven guilty" cannot be found in any English court case or any jurisprudential treatise before ca. 1800 --- at least I have not yet found it in one. He also did not seem to know that the French, in spite of their legal system’s being based on rebarbative Roman jurisprudence, did include an article in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 stating that "every man is presumed innocent until declared guilty."

I'm curious as to Dr. Cleveland's take on this since he knows far more about law (and probably history) than I do.

August 12, 2009 Yet our

TCW — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:31:11 +0000

In reply to Someone will correct me if

August 12, 2009

Yet our Constitution states that we have this right.

No, I am not confused about the Juvenille court system, I guess I would be were I not living it there with my adopted daughter...

I also do remember persons getting an innocent verdict, so I believe your opinion on it isn't correct...so I will move forward into Google and see what comes up.

As for MJ, it doesn't bother me that your feelings are as such concerning him, for many ride the same motor boat as yourself, besides that little one is now with Our Heavenly Father, who knows what, when, where and how on all things...

Do I believe our judicial system helped bring about MJ's, early demise? Absolutely for again, my adopted daughter's court appointed stated, loud and clear, two times, "49.99% not proof, circumstantial evidence and even were the dude wrong by that small tenths of a fraction, still I want to know why only 50% circumstantial evidence to gather a conviction?

I believe that not only our governmetal system is broken, yet also or judicial system as well...

Don't believe it? Then wait and see when one can find prisons more common than gas stations! Just a throwing it all out there at you.

Be Blessed, thanks for your quick response!

Love, Light and Peace

TCW hahahha "I wear my sun glasses at night"

Someone will correct me if

Nebton — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:12:00 +0000

In reply to Wednesday August 12, 2009 It

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, I assume, but as far as I know we've never had an "innocent until found guilty plea". What we have had and do have is a presumption of innocence in the legal system. I.e., you are legally considered innocent (in the criminal system) unless you are found guilty. From a legal standpoint there is no difference, even if you are acuitted on a technicality. Of course, as I mention above, it's different in civil cases, and it always has been. All it takes is a preponderence of evidence (50.00001%, not 49.99999%, however.).

Also, you seem to be confusing the juvenile system (which tries minors) with the system that handles cases dealing with child and protective services. I may be wrong (having no experience with either), but I don't think those are the same systems.

As for MJ, my original opinion still holds.

Wednesday August 12, 2009 It

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:03:11 +0000

In reply to Innocent until proven guilty? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

Wednesday August 12, 2009

It is my understanding that our Constitutional Rights are in essence not being honored when our justice system no longers holds the preponderance of innocent until proven guilty.

Yet I would dare say that most Americans don't understand that our justice system no longer allows one to receive the innocent plea.

At least that is what my adopted daughter's attorney told me and other family members that was privileged to the attorney's discussion over one month ago.

Juvenile Justice System -Per Court Appointed Attorney's Statements Given*

"The juvenile justice system is different than the other justice systems in that we no longer need100% proof that one is guilty of the crime, for all we need to get a guilty verdict is 49.999% that something did occur and not necessarily proof that the one being charged did it."

I don't know how all feel about those statements, I know how it made me feel and to tell you the truth, I don't know when our system went to this type of court rulings based on "circumstantial evidence," yet folks we are there and it is pretty darn frightening to know that all a child has to do to turn ones life completely upside down is to issue forth alledged statements and the heavy burdenof proof rests completely in the hands of the defendant.

I feel that is the reason that we have so many sexual offenders in our system for all don't have the money to hire the expensive attorneys that MJ was able to afford and for MJ to have received the acquittal ruling that he got, being innocent is no longer alive in the Juvenile court system, I would have to state that definitely MJ was an innocent man on both counts, and I feel so sorry for the man and what he had to go through to just receive that ruling!

Many in our land don't know that ithe innocent ruling has been taken away from us and thus when all MJ recieved was an acquittal on both cases, many still thought of MJ as being guilty because he wasn't given an innocent ruling.

Were MJ to have a drug problem from all the stress and trauma of having to go through all the mess that he did and never receiving the innocent verdict, I can totally inderstand it for I have only been involved in my adopted daughter's case for little over a year and I understand how a watching the justice system a playing their "power games," have almost drove me crazy, not to mention my adopted daughter and her family!

One last thing for you all to savor and ponder on...my adopted daughter's court appointed attorney told my adopted daughter that even though her husband were found to be given an acquittal, she could never see him again, or his step children for acquittal didn't mean innocent, only that not enough evidence was found to give him a guilty ruling."

Whereas I then told my adopted daughter's attorney this:

"What you are saying is this in essence; even though you later discover after you go through all of the discrepencies already present from my adopted daughter's daughter actual statements to the CME examiner and you locate the missing medical exam pictures that DSSI case worker/department have and call all of the witnesses that you have and haven't as of yet called or even bothered to talk to and find out that this 11 year old child, with the help of "other" parental figures have programmed into her for their own self-gained interests; and thus find out that it was all a lie from the start up...does that mean that the best that my adopted daughter's husband can gather for himself after the hell and trauma and illegal incarceration since December 2008, is an acquittal?"

The court appointed attorney stated, "yes."

I also believe as well that he will have to register as a sexual predator for the ten year period that this state mandates and I believe in Florida it is twenty years one needs to be registered and followed up on...

This case hasn't gone to criminal court as of yet...I will be back to post the results of it when it does...

If all find this acquittal ruling to be a just thing, I would have to say, bull crap!

Also on either Sixty Minutes or Katie Couric or both, perhaps about a couple of weeks ago they both covered the news special about teenagers 11-18 years of age growing population problem with prostitution and these girls are not from the poor class necessarily, yet from the middle class...something to think about, especially for those guys that believe that having a child sexually even if you have to pay for it, is the way to go!

For when it comes to push or shove, were a child prostitute with the juvenille legal system such as what I described, were to be caught in a prostitution sting, guess who would go down; child or adult?

It won't matter much to the court system that one thought the now discovered minor child, looked years older than what one thought she was..."ignorance is no excuse."

Just some thoughts to ponder on, one and all...

ps. Why do I think MJ gave both kids the 20M each? MJ was a very highly sensitive and evolved man/child and knows like I do, the saying from a great philospher I believe it is Kahil Gilban (not sure if that is the proper spelling of his name) "when one finds themselves with an unworthy master, they serve him up a second helping the next time around."

Be Blessed

Love, Light and Peace

Does anyone know when our justice system stopped the "innocent until found guilty plea.?" That is the reason I discovered this blog site, for I was a trying to Google that answer."

Another thought: what

Nebton — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:51:32 +0000

In reply to Innocent until proven guilty? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

Another thought: what standards should we, as bloggers, employ when writing about actions that are clearly not criminal?

E.g., many speculated on what Obama was doing while at the G-8 conference. I think Genghis's post in that thread makes it clear that Obama was probably not doing what he was accused of. Was it wrong for Deadman to speculate that he was? If so, how wrong was it? Should we beat him with a wet herring, or what?

Let me toss something out. I

acanuck — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:30:47 +0000

In reply to Innocent until proven guilty? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?

Let me toss something out. I don't know exactly when the phrase "a reasonable doubt" was coined, but I tend to think of it as having a more archaic, more literal meaning than it does in, say, the phrase "a reasonable person."

I see it as meaning "a doubt that can be reasoned out." In other words, a preponderance of evidence can suggest a scenario leading to a guilty verdict. But if the same evidence could logically be construed in such a way that the defendant is innocent, that constitutes a "reasonable doubt."

It's obviously the defense attorney's job to propose such an alternative reading of the evidence to the jury or judge. I know the trial starts out with the defendant presumed innocent, but once the evidence presented points to his or her guilt, the defense has the burden to show it is also consistent with its client being innocent.

I've enjoyed your

Michael Wolraich — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:42:38 +0000

In reply to No, as far as I know. How do

I've enjoyed your argumentation, so I'm glad that you found the article.

Maybe they should have a

Nebton — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:42:33 +0000

In reply to No, as far as I know. How do

Maybe they should have a different option, then.

I don't consider dagblog to be a "news" site. Rather, it's a place where average people (no offense to the regulars) post their opinions on items in the news (or on latriner's commentaries on the Old Testament - speaking of which, aren't we a bit overdue?).

I can see why people might want to expand their view and get nontraditional news sites, and I also know there's a lot of opinion pieces on sites that are intended to be news sites, so that the separation is tricky, but if I'm searching for news, I'd like to be able to separate out the opinions of armchair quarterbacks like myself from news sources that presumbaly feel compelled to do a bit of fact-checking because they have a reputation to uphold.

No, as far as I know. How do

nobody — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:14:57 +0000

In reply to I've gone back a few hours

No, as far as I know. How do you think I've stumbled upon your article?

All in all, I find it's a good thing that there's no screening for google news. Its a search engine, after all. It's not their place to filter according to self-defined standards. I appreciate that I get an idea of the overall coverage.

I've gone back a few hours

Nebton — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:53:18 +0000

In reply to Right now, it is

I've gone back a few hours (and sorted by date), and I see what you're talking about. There's even a vapid "news" article in there titled "Innocent until proven guilty? Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?"

Is there no screening as to what gets on to Google News?