The Highest Court in the land (yes authority) with access to all the evidence as well as the decisions of 32 previous judges stated that two others helped Rudy Murder Meredith.
Has Wikipedia got this wrong?
"The Court of Cassation cannot overrule the trial court's interpretation of the evidence; rather, it corrects a lower court's interpretation or application of the law. Appeals to the Court of Cassation generally come from the appeals court, but litigants may also appeal directly from the trial court.
Decisions of the supreme court are binding only in the case submitted. The essential roles of the Court of Cassation are to ensure that lower courts have correctly followed legal procedure and to harmonise the interpretation of laws by lower courts through its interpretation"
In other words, the role of the Supreme Court is to rule on the interpretation of law by the lower courts. It does not rule on evidence or fact. By the time Rudy's case got to the Supreme Courts, all they can rule on are:
a) the lower courts' interpretation of the law
b) the lower courts' application of the law
Thus, their judgement amounted to: In the case of Rudy Guede, the interpretation of law and the application of law was correct (in terms of whether certain types of evidence and testimony were allowed etc).
It does not have the power to make a judgement of the actual facts and evidence presented at lower courts, or even to say that these facts / evidence presented in lower courts should (or should not) have led to a conviction.
Therefore, if AK and RS were found guilty at appeal level, and they appeal to the Supreme Court, that court can't say 'the evidence presented was / was not strong enough for a conviction to be upheld'. They can only say 'the application of law in this case was / was not done correctly' or 'the interpretation of law in that case was / was not done correctly'.
Diocletus, this made me giggle!
