OT Sad News

Seen on textsfromlastnight.com - "they say celebs die in threes. leave it to billy mays to throw in one extra COMPLETELY FREE!"

The "evil things" to which you refer are called "years of bad living" I daresay.

After all the recreational surgery Jackson had, it was a miracle he was still alive.

"Not proven" is slightly different from "not guilty", and as far as I know only exists in Scottish law.

That aside, I believe most democracies still have the notion of "innocent until proven guilty". A court found him not guilty - he is therefore legally innocent unless and until someone proves that the court made a mistake.

In fact "not guilty" simply means the prosecution has failed to prove it's case beyond a reasonable doubt. There is NO verdict of "innocent" anywhere using a legal system similar to ours that I know of.

In name only, otherwise people remanded for trial and subsequently found not guilty would recieve compensation wouldn't they.

In fact many cases have been found guilty by one court and not guilty by another. Criminal and civil courts in the USA have different standards of proof required, often causing different outcomes.Where does that leave your argument?

In any case people can always believe what they like, I do not claim he is in fact guilty, however the payment of millions of dollars is rarely done by truly "innocent" people. It's a rather moot point now however.

MrT.

I don't agree there, unless there have been clear mistakes or bias involved, or particularly hard treatment of the innocent (i.e., not guilty) party. I don't know about where you live, but here in Norway people *do* get compensation if something has gone badly wrong. But otherwise, it's not often that completely unconnected and innocent people end up in a criminal trial, and that risk is one of the prices that must be paid for having a solid justice system.

Still, once a trial is over and the defendant found "not guilty", they are legally innocent, even if they have had to defend themselves in court.

I believe that is the case in most judicial systems - civil courts have a more balanced burden of proof, while in the criminal courts the prosecution has the burden. When you get a situation where a person has been cleared of criminal charges yet the victims have successfully sued for compensation, it is very difficult to say what is "true" or "right". Innocence and guilt are often very grey areas, which courts attempt to turn into black or white answers. But the person is /legally/ innocent of the crime, because he was not proved guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.

Agreed.

Easy to see that you have had little to do with any legal system.

The payment of X dollars is done when people believe that not paying X dollars will result in something worse (e.g. payment of N*X dollars where N>1).

Exactly. Legal systems are used by people to extort money.

That's because there's no need for one. It would be utterly pointless to issue a verdict just to state the obvious fact. If you weren't proven guilty, you're innocent by default. It's as simple as that.

That conclusion is invalid. Innocence before the law doesn't mean you don't owe society some cooperation in finding the facts.

That's got nothing to do with the issue of guilt vs. innocence. Civil courts don't get to make any decisions about that --- they're about compensation.

Exactly, and why would they think that when they have far more money for better lawyers than the others? Just maybe they think there is actually a real reason to worry about losing even more.

MrT.

when you get involved in those games, only the lawyers win; a BIG cheque from both parties.

Which is why the richest person can afford to bluff a poorer person from taking action regardless of merit, and usually do! Only an idiot takes legal action when there is no merit to it at all.

MrT.

Yawn, you don't get it.

There is a real reason, but it often has little to do with "guilt" or "innocence". Look up "jury nullification". While that term technically applies to criminal law, the same thing happens in civil trails. I remember a quote from one curor in the breast-implant suite agains Dow-Corning: the juror stated the evidence clearly showed that the implants didn't cause the various health problems suffered by the plaintiff, but the juror voted in favor of the plaintiff becuase the plaintiff was a nice woman and had all sorts of health problems and large medical bills, and Dow-Corning had lots of money.

Dow-Corning lost big time even though there was never a shred of serious evidence (at the time or since then) that they were at fault for the plaintiff's conditions. You don't think Dow-Corning had plenty of money for lawyers?

Acting Legend Karl Malden Dead At 97

Don...

-- Don McKenzie

Site Map:

Breakout, Prototype, Development, & Robotics Boards.

great man, and a good life.

Finally, someone who was very good. And joined by Molly Sugden, who was rememberable.

Shame the ABC just couldn't bring the news to saying the pussy joke.

Of course, there's a separate handling and shipping charge (for Billy)

Maybe this will be of interest.

Also odd that I have yet to see this on Australian news as it would blow the Australian government / police propaganda policy that "every man is a pedophile, or a pedophile in the making".

Without wanting to create any offence to you personally, you seem to have a similar attitude based on your comments. If you were on a jury in such a case, I wouldn't believe you could make a fair and just decision based on facts rather than media bias or personal feelings on the nature of the alleged crime.

This applies to a significant proportion of the population too IMHO.

This bias is probably why the thing was settled out of court.

I hope you press as hard for justice to be done to this bastard for what he had done to Jackson. Charges of Blackmail, extortion, perjury and instant freezing of all assets pending transfer to Jackson's estate if found guilty would be a good start. If you dont, then one day you could be the next victim of this kind of human filth.