| Well, secret trials have a long history of working very poorly in terms of just outcomes. Anyway, allegations can be made independent of a formal court proceeding.E.g. how would you shut people up from talking about things that have happened to them? Who would victims be allowed to tell and how would it be prevented from coming out, if its newsworthy? Or maybe you shut down the press so it's OK to talk about what happened to you but not publish it? It's pretty tricky. Obviously, a system where you have to prove your allegations before you can make the allegation is not a system at all, so I think there inherently has to be a time of ambiguity between when an allegation is made and when it's resolved. > ...what's the point of publicizing this until the case has been decided? One very important reason is that it encourages other victims to come forward. E.g. in the Larry Nasser/Michigan State case, this guy molested hundreds of girls. At various points someone would speak up.. to an MSU coach or a parent, or up the line to USAG and the allegation was killed or ignored. Finally there was one girl who just wouldn't shut up and got something moving forward. As it progressed, more of the girls (many actually women by that point) were encouraged and were able to come forward again. It made a big difference to finally putting a stop to what the guy was doing. In this case many of the allegations are of things that are pretty unambiguous and took place in front of third parties, so there should be a chance to get at the truth of enough of them to determine the general truth of the overall case, I think. It's interesting the company is backing him 100%. Essentially betting the reputation of the company on this. (I think it's a private company, so maybe it's just the CEO backing himself? I don't know how much power various investors or founders have so I don't know how much they are backing him. Either way, the company will be seriously damaged if the allegations are found to be substantially true). |