You are still allowed to dislike innocent people. The law is not morality.
You are still allowed to dislike innocent people.
Just a small correction. Being not proven guilty doesn’t proves innocence. It just means that the accusation couldn’t be proven in court. That’s the price we pay for our justice system which tries to keep wrong convictions as small as possible, quite a few guilty people will walk free.
And I think in this case a guilty person walks free.
He also wasn’t found “innocent”, but “not guilty”.
There’s a vast difference between that. Not guilty means that we can’t prove he’s guilty beyond reasonable doubt, not that we can prove that he’s innocent.
It’s still very likely he committed crimes, but we can’t be sure enough to send him to jail.
I have never heard about an “innocent” verdict, is that really a thing?
I think the closest you get to that is if you counter-sue (or they get sued for lying in court, etc.) the accusers and win.
What’s the public sentiment on this verdict going to be? I have not been following the case.
I think he was found not guilty. Anyone that continues to demonize him should probably step up with more information than came out at the trial before they open their mouths again and ruin a man’s career.
I’m not sure where the first witch hunt came from, but I’d lay it at the feet of social media platforms like Reddit causing an echo chamber that drove it.
The fact that he was abandoned by the studios and the people he worked with said more about them than it does about him.
Even the career is not important, whole life is ruined. Just imagine family and friends all ar least asking about it and some leaving you.
While I agree there should be severe and swift punishment for sexual offences, there should be some punishment for false accusations. I know that sometimes is just not prooved and sometimes it is in legally gray area, so not automatic, but if it can be prooven that someone was intentional lying - then there should be consequences.
While I agree there should be severe and swift punishment for sexual offences, there should be some punishment for false accusations.
What are you talking about? There are punishment for false accusations. But that of course has the very same legal requirements of proven beyong reasonable doubt as any other accusation.
And no, just because someone is not proven guilty doesn’t mean that the accusation is false. It literally just means that, the court couldn’t prove the accusation and so couldn’t punish the accused.
A verdict in a court of law is based on what is presented, not on what happened. This is what makes it possible for people to commit a crime, and get away with it (or get framed for something that they didn’t do).
This is a question that I do not want you to answer here, but one to ponder:
If your son/nephew/younger was up for a part in a project that was directed by, and starring Kevin Spacey? What weight would you assign to that Not Guilty due to insufficient evidence verdict?
Where does the judge say that evidence was insufficient for a verdict? I missed that part.
Also, are we going to start questioning every verdict as if any accusation was true, even when proved differently in court?
“Where does the judge say that evidence was insufficient for a verdict? I missed that part.”
The primary cause of your confusion is your insistence on missing the point.
“Also, are we going to start questioning every verdict as if any accusation was true, even when proved differently in court?”
Again, missing the point. Who is talking about every verdict, besides yourself? This is Kevin Spacey specific.
Do you believe that not getting convicted means that the accused did not do the thing that they are accused of?
Is it your personal belief that Kevin Spacey is completely harmless with respect to sexual predation? Does your confidence extend far enough that you would have no qualms about a young male relative of yours work on a movie with Kevin Spacey?
Reading you comment I searched for the differences between being “not guilty” and being “innocent” and boy I didn’t know enough about the US justice system. I thought a “not guilty” verdict was the same as “the guy didn’t do it”. I stand corrected, though. Thanks for your input.
I’m not sure where you’re from. But that principle by no means is limited to the US but pretty much present in every western country.
The whole idea is to prevent false convictions at the cost of guilty people walking free if their guilt can’t be proven.
