[lbo-talk] Johnny Cash RIP

Bill Bartlett billbartlett at dodo.com.au
Sat Sep 13 20:04:09 PDT 2003


At 10:25 AM -0700 12/9/03, andie nachgeborenen wrote:


>Innocent but not wrongly convicted. the guy wouldn't
>give his alibi b/c he was in the arms of his best
>friend's wife. jks

From this comment I can only deduce your philosophy to be that, if an accused refuses to prove his innocence, then his resulting conviction is legally correct.

This is the opposite of the doctrine of innocent until proven guilty. Where an accused has no responsibility to prove anything, rather the state has the burden of proving everything.

I cannot see how you can continue to maintain that the US legal system operates according to a presumption of innocence in criminal matters, while also maintaining that it is correct to convict an innocent person who refuses to prove their innocence?

Perhaps you can explain this apparent contradiction? The most obvious explanation is that you don't actually understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty. Given that you are a lawyer this would indicate that, far from innocent until proven guilty being the presumption in the US legal system, it is an alien concept utterly incomprehensible to that system.

The time has come for travel warnings to alert people from free countries to the dangers of entering within the jurisdiction of what is for all intents and purposes a police state.

Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas



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