BONE HEADS & BURDENS OF PROOF


for our indicted former coroner.

One of the advantages of trying to write a semi-literate blog is attracting a literate, if somewhat indiscriminate, readership. One of the advantages of attracting a literate readership is sitting back, reading your email, and letting them write most of a post for you. That happy benefit served us well last Wednesday, and it will do so again today, thanks to a little missive from a friend and colleague, collaborator and co-conspirator -- we'll call him Mr. T. -- whose day job requires him to know a thing or three about the law, and whose rarely delicate sensibilities simply could not abide the sight of...

...the PG's learned editorial writers publishing bone-headed headlines such as this one that appeared on Saturday and reversed the burden of proof in a criminal trial: "Wecht waylaid: He'll have to prove his innocence solely on the facts."

Persons accused of a crime must "prove" their innocence only in places such as the Soviet Union, the deep south when it comes to black-on-white criminal charges, and, of course, Duke University. In the U.S., the Constitution still rules everywhere else -- even for Larry Flynt, O.J. Simpson and Cyril Wecht.

This is, of course, all true. So I'm thinking that, in light of Judge Arthur J. Schwab's recent decision to seat an anonymous jury in Dr. Wecht's public corruption trial, a better headline would have been: Wecht waylaid: He'll have to defend himself solely without threats.

Posted: Mon - December 3, 2007 at 09:32 AM          

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