Yes, that was me. See above.

Moreover as another Canadian I'm appalled that your first examples of the miscarriage of justice don't include the cases of David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin. It's their cases among others that should give us nightmares. And no, those "other" cases don't include that of O.J. Simpson.

:mad:

This makes no sense from a moral perspective. If I commit a murder and nobody catches me, I'm innocent? The legal system has huge limitations in terms of its ability to identify much less convict the guilty. Rightly so, because the alternative is much worse, but it doesn't mean those people are innocent.

Class actions subject to CAFA are a tiny, tiny percentage of cases. I assure you there is no "general" problem with forum shopping in US civil litigation.

Assuming the government is 100% correct 100% of the time is the most big brother thing of all. Sometimes innocent people are convicted, and sometimes guilty people are not and frequently the crime is never charged at all.

The burden of proof is very high, the rules of evidence are onerous, and the defendant doesn't have to testify. That the prosecution does not convict someone does not mean they are "innocent" of the crime.

I don’t think the burden of proof is that high. It’s supposed to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt but doubt is subjective and a highly individual emotion.

I hope you're going to be OK?

And, are we not talking about O.J. here, or should I have brought up all such cases from centuries of litigation?

I'm strong, healthy and snarly, i.e. a classic curmudgeon. And hoping to stay that way for many more years!

Incidentally, are you a big time CFL fan and collector? Or are you merely an American sycophant?

This thread is actually about Lebron James. For whatever arcane reason, another poster inserted O.J. Simpson into the discussion.

Bringing up a few 21st century miscarriages of justice from our home jurisdiction would have been enough.

;)

I have no interest in imposing my morals upon anyone else. But I'll continue to resist any attempts by others (including the State) to impose their morals upon me.

My only interest is in defending the legal principle. This is partially in my own self-interest given the all too numerous wrongful convictions that have occurred due to over eagerness on the part of law enforcement personnel to "solve" the case by deciding upon a culprit and then seeking out "evidence" to gain a conviction. See "profiling".

See the Guy Paul Morin case where the police decided Morin must be the culprit (despite the timeline of events) because he was "weird". He played the clarinet and he just wasn't a "regular" guy. So one of the things they did was induce another prisoner to lie him up (give false testimony against Morin). And was compensation for Morin then taken out of the "investigating" officers hide? No, it was taken out of the taxpayers' hide instead.

Well if nobody catches you and can say you did it, how can you be treated as anything but innocent? Hence "A man is innocent until and unless convicted in a fair and unbiased court of law."

Hmmmpphhhffff! My position is that a man is innocent until and unless convicted in a fair and unbiased court of law. Case closed.

You on the other hand seem determined to explore nuances in the meaning of the word "innocent". In so doing you're simply acting as the handmaiden of those who would happily undermine the "innocent until proven guilty" principle. And let me point out that this principle is one of the very few bulwarks we the citizenry have against the overriding power of the State and one that all freedom loving individuals must fight to protect.

I agree.

:)

But like many words, innocent has more than one meaning which varies by the situation. I'm too lazy today to copy and paste from the dictionary.

Not guilty and innocent are different things.

examples - Both true

Friend was a juror. State did a bad job of prosecuting. Verdict not guilty.
Judge met with the jury after. Asked about the case. Every single juror was certain the accused had done what he was accused of. But that the state had not proven it even by a more lax standard than reasonable doubt. No choice but to aquit.

Worked for a car dealership. New finance manager, who I was told had been fired a couple years before for embezzeling 15K. (it was the late 80's, but really, almost not worth the trouble.) No police involved, just fired and the money taken as a loss.
He lasted a month. another 15K. Again no police, just fired.
Innocent? Hell no.
Not arrested tried or convicted? yes

[QUOTE=Balticfox;2469527 Well if nobody catches you and can say you did it, how can you be treated as anything but innocent? Hence "A man is innocent until and unless convicted in a fair and unbiased court of law." [/QUOTE]

We're not talking about whether people are treated as innocent or guilty. We're talking about whether they are innocent or guilty - whether they have in fact done something wrong or not. Something does not have to be legally proved to be true, even if legal proof is necessary for a legal conviction. Is a stone not heavy unless I have convicted it of heaviness in a court of law? It's the same question.

Do you really not understand this distinction? Are you just trolling us?

To reply to your charges of us being handmaidens of dystopia: My personal sympathies lean towards anarchism/libertarianism - limited government, at the very least - not some state-uber-alles society. I believe that we can best defend ourselves against the all-powerful state by by saying that there is truth outside what the state says. It is the 1984-type state that says what you are essentially saying: that nothing is true if it is not said by the state.

Baltic's position is circular. If innocent MEANS not convicted, then of course you're innocent until convicted. But the overwhelming majority of people would not so define it.

One of the crooked cops, (Durham Regional Police) lived in a house I used to pass everyday on my way to high school.
He mysteriously got sick when he was called upon to testify about the doctoring of notes and evidence and did not appear.

The old saying, "the apple does not fall far from the tree", holds true here as his son was, and still most likely is, a complete and utter imbecile. (Goof is a much better word) When he was in grade 12, him, (he was with a couple of his friends) threw one of my friends, (the smallest one, of course, who was in grade 9), into the creek on his way to school in the winter.
Unbeknownst to him, one of my other friends was fairly tough and not afraid of much of anything so he tuned him up, and tuned him up good.
Of course word got around school about a grade 9 student beating up a grade 12 student and magically his attendance plummeted after that. :D

Without legal proof, I'm not willing to convict a man in thought, word or deed. And when I consider a man to be innocent, I just say he's innocent and I leave it at that. I leave no doubts whatsoever with my choice of words.

A false equivalence if I've ever seen one. Stones need no constitutional protection. It's only individuals, particularly free thinking ones, who do.

Do you really suspect that a Libertarian whose overriding interest is protecting individuals (including myself) from malicious prosecution by the State may just be trolling? Well you're wrong, very wrong. When it comes to the presumption of innocence, I make no compromises. It's innocent until proven guilty.

Fffftttt! Claptrap. The only protection that an individual has from the overriding power of the State is strict constitutional constraints on the power of the government. And the presumption of innocence is one of those.

Nonsense! That's a preposterous argument. Just because I accept one specific definition in the Constitution in no way implies that I must embrace any other let alone all other government definitions. :rolleyes:

In only a 1984 kind of State can a man be guilty before being convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

I'm saying that a man is innocent until and unless convicted in a court of law. What I'm saying is simple and direct. There's no circularity there at all.

Yes, precisely. Case closed.

There is no inconsistency between believing in the presumption of innocence as the right way for a society to govern itself, and believing in a definition of innocence that does not depend on the court system. Again, innocence in the eyes of the law, and innocence in a broader sense, are different things.