Sinclair Davidson's Sheltered Home for Obnoxious Old Conservatives is, of course, going off about the Victorian Appeal Court upholding George Pell's conviction by a 2 to 1 majority.
I would have thought that anyone, on the Left or the Right, would be wise* to be cautious about this whole affair. It seems clear that the witness must have been pretty convincing in his evidence; but also everyone knows juries have made mistakes and (obviously) different lawyers and judges can disagree about whether there is a clear enough mistake to overturn the decision.
In short, the judicial system is imperfect, but it is what it is and there is no way of being absolutely certain here as to whether its findings accord perfectly with what really happened.
If, by some extraordinary circumstance, it later became perfectly clear that the convictions were wrong (I think the only likelihood of that would be a confession of the victim that he invented it), it's not going to be the biggest injustice in the nation's history. Pell will serve about the same time in jail as Lindy Chamberlain, and I think the lack of evidence and outright carelessness of the investigation and expert witnesses and prosecution collectively in that case would still stand as a worse case of injustice.
* That excludes the dumb, culture war blinded people of Catallaxy, naturally.
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ReplyDeleteI haven't followed the case so my opinion is irrelevant but I am surprised by the result of the appeal because conviction of a criminal offence requires "beyond reasonable doubt" which I learned in my legal subjects at Uni was the equivalent of 95% certainty; that being the same standard applied in statistics across many professions and it just doesn't seem possible to attain that level of certainty given the length of time since the purported offences and the number of complainants whose claims were dismissed.
ReplyDeleteDo we really want to judge the quality of the Australian legal system relative to how well it preformed in the Chamberlain case?
ReplyDeleteDon't see why I can't, anon; especially when referencing the hysteria at Catallaxy over the "dark days" for Australia.
ReplyDeleteIt's quaintly optimistic, if delusional, how some of them also think Pell stoically serving his sentence as a martyr will somehow raise the status of the Catholic Church. I would put that in the "rather unlikely" category, myself.
I really am very pleased with Catallaxy on this one. There are signs that they are not as bad in the goose-stepping department as they have been in the past. One fellow quotes the judgement:
ReplyDelete"In any event, there is nothing particularly unusual in a jury convicting an accused on the strength of a so-called ‘uncorroborated’ complainant. A finding of guilt in such circumstances does not give rise, in and of itself, to a conviction being unsafe or unsatisfactory."
So one fellow telling a story is all that is needed. Six years on the basis of one bloke talking. The female judge barely trying to hide her raw use of vindictive power here. Because its not just one fellow talking, there are problems with his story. One would have to be part of a truly powerful gang not to be worried about this sort of thing.
I am worried when one Justice says the main witness is not okay but the two say the opposite.
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