| HN Mirror

I think my comment may have been unclear, I apologise, the point I'm trying to make is that how we determine things as individuals and how the legal system determines things is very different, and individuals should not be admonished for the decisions they make based on the evidence available to them. The legal system works in a very specific way, a way that can often be at odds with how an individual thinks, and a way that can be counter productive for making an individual decision.

The case I sat on had a piece of evidence that could not be admitted initially because of a legal technicality, the defendant made a mistake during his testimony and much to the defence's chagrin he revealed something that allowed the prosecution to present the evidence which otherwise would never have been heard by the jury. An article written about the case I sat on would have mentioned that piece of evidence -- even if it hadn't been delivered in court, it was public knowledge -- and a person reading that article would know more than I might have known had the defendant not made that mistake. The evidence heard by a jury is not more true or more meaningful than evidence heard by those outside of the process, it is evidence that fits within the legal parameters, evidence that the lawyers determine furthers their cause, it's evidence that has a material impact on the legal outcome.

The information available to the public about a case before a trial has taken place can be more informative than the information available to the jury during the trial, there are many cases where jurors have been contacted after a high profile trial to talk about the case and revealed the decisions they made would have been very different had they seen information now available to the public. Some cases may never make it to court, victims of sexual assault are often told that their case won't be pursued because the prosecution doesn't believe they have a strong chance of winning, does this mean that the victims and people knowledgable about the cases should never be permitted to air their opinions, the opinions they built on the evidence, because it never made it to court? That doesn't seem reasonable, to suggest that the gate keeper of whether or not an opinion is allowed is an opaque unsupervised legal process.

Every day individuals make decisions about people based on the information available to them and nobody bats an eye. When I witness caring and compassionate behaviour I choose to pursue friendship, when I see disrespectful behaviour I choose to minimise interactions, this is normal human behaviour that we all engage in every day, in personal and professional contexts. When people I trust inform me that someone behaves inappropriately, I choose to minimise interactions with that person, this is normal, it's accepted, everybody does it, so why does this suddenly become inappropriate to engage in this normal behaviour when the person is involved in sexual assault? Why are we suddenly worried about slander and libel and letting the legal system run its course when someone is accused of rape but the same isn't applied to claims about being inconsiderate, or theft. A credible claim is made about a party guest stealing jewellery, they aren't invited to parties any more, a credible claim is made about sexual assault, "whoa whoa whoa, let's not start a lynch mob here, let's leave it to the legal process".

The legal system exists to deal with law not personal opinion, it doesn't exist to determine how individuals can or should feel.