Comments Thread For: Victor Ortiz, Days Before Fight, Charged With Sexual Assault

[Combat Talk Radio]

I get your point, but no judicial system has ever, in the history of mankind, successfully implemented the standard (of certainty) you're shooting for. That's because, as you acknowledge, humans are imperfect...and the judicial system is a product of humanity. It's not a system where you plug in your pieces of evidence (both direct and circumstantial) and an algorithm determines whether charges are warranted. It requires judgment and inference.

When you say that we need to "get back" to a time when the presumption of innocence actually meant what you think it means, I really don't know what point in history you're referring to.

Depends on your age, but basically, before there was an internet, you didn't have this many people getting locked up without evidence of a crime. You didn't. They might have been arrested on suspicion, but not put in prison.

With no internet, no "social media" and no "fake news", you don't have these prosecutors who feel pressured to just arrest someone even though they know damn well a conviction is a stretch.

That's exactly why OJ walked free; sloppy investigation and planted evidence, because they didn't have any HARD evidence he did it (i.e. the murder weapon, him seen at the scene, etc), so they made their own. But that's what ends up happening when you don't have direct, irrefutable evidence; cops will make their own shyt up.

[bigjer88]

Depends on your age, but basically, before there was an internet, you didn't have this many people getting locked up without evidence of a crime. You didn't. They might have been arrested on suspicion, but not put in prison.

With no internet, no "social media" and no "fake news", you don't have these prosecutors who feel pressured to just arrest someone even though they know damn well a conviction is a stretch.

That's exactly why OJ walked free; sloppy investigation and planted evidence, because they didn't have any HARD evidence he did it (i.e. the murder weapon, him seen at the scene, etc), so they made their own. But that's what ends up happening when you don't have direct, irrefutable evidence; cops will make their own shyt up.

I thought that might be what you were getting at (i.e., the impact of the internet/24-7 news cycle on the presumption of innocence). It's a fair point. It reflects a basic tension between the First Amendment and the Fifth.

[alexguiness]

No hard evidence = no proven crime committed.

NEVER trust a woman you hardly know, in fact never trust any women apart from your mother.