But all of that is tangential to the main point, which is that the Ramseys, like so many others (Duke LaCross, the guy from the Staircase, the man recently put to death in Texas for arson even though he was clearly innocent...etc.), had their lives destroyed because they acted funny and seemed like they should be guilty.
There's simply no place for that kind of barbaric rush to judgment in a modern legal system.
Thank you, TraneWreck, that was very interesting.
There seems to be a distressing tendency in perhaps all jurisdictions to latch on to a preferred suspect, and then interpret every piece of evidence in the light of this person's guilt. Sometimes something happens, or is discovered, to bring this train to a screeching halt and a general re-evaluatoin ensues. But then sometimes it doesn't.
I recall the original case against the first suspects in the Damilola Taylor murder. The evidence was brought to court, and strongly pressed by the prosecution. A young witness was "groomed" by the police to give evidence against the defendants. It didn't stand up, frankly. The actions proposed for the defendants to get round the fact that they had an alibi were simply preposterous. That didn't stop the press having a field day, and screaming about how these people must be guilty! One paper found an alleged "short cut" to reduce the time taken to get to the alibi location from the murder scene, but in fact the route would have taken just as long if not longer.
The accused were teenage hoodlums. The murder victim was a handsome, studious 10-year-old, whose final appearance on a CCTV camera showed him endearingly skipping towards his computer class at the local library. Of
course they were guilty!
Fortunately the jury didn't buy it. The case was thown out. Re-examination of the forensic evidence showed a bloodstain on a shoe that had been missed, and that led to the identification of the real culprits. But it could so easily have happened that the first jury bought the prosecution case.
Look at Sally Clark, whom I mentioned earlier. There are still articles accessible from when she was convicted.
Baby killer was lonely drunk. Every innocent action twisted to prove guilt. (Except, look at the neighbour's comment in the middle.) This woman lost two infant children. She was accused of killing them. Her third baby was taken from her at ten days old and given to foster parents. She was found guilty and jailed. She spent eight years in jail, abused by other inmates, who regularly gang up on child-killers.
By sheer chance, helpers looking for evidence that a baby alarm might have been faulty, found a pathology report (an analysis of the spinal fluid of one of the babies) that had been concealed from the defence. It proved the death was natural causes. When she was released she was unrecognisable as the same woman. She never recovered, and died of acute alcohol poisoning four years later.
But hey, she had a drink problem (she had a degree of post-natal depression and was drinking as a result). She wrote a jokey letter saying that one of the babies was whiney and demanding. She
must have killed her babies!
The murder of Jill Dando was a huge case. The cops had pretty much no leads at all. (Whoever did that one was a pro.) They latched on to a local weirdo, who had been around at the time. Everything he did (and a lot of the things he did were very weird) was interpreted as guilt. He spent seven years in jail before being acquitted on his third appeal. No way in hell was that misfit capable of carrying out that professional-style execution. But he was a weirdo! There was a picture of him in black clothes and a mask, holding a gun! He must have done it!
Readers of the CT forum may have noticed some of us dissecting the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the "Lockerbie Bomber". Again and again in that case, investigators and judges preferred the less likely of two alternative explanations for parts of the evidence - because that was the interpretation that fitted with the guilt of the accused. Sometimes they actually
admitted that train of thought. The result was a striking exercise in circular reasoning, where point A was used to support point B which was used to support point C which was used to support point A, rinse and repeat. But the man was a Libyan intelligence agent! He must have done it!
The terrorist trials of the 1970s are another example. But these people were Irish! Some of them lived in squats and actually knew people in the IRA! They must have been guilty!
I sometimes wonder, if any of us were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and suspicion fell on us for some reason, what innocent parts of
our lives might be dusted off and presented as evidence of our guilt? Especially if, in our shock and distress, we didn't react the way some busybody thought we should have reacted.
Rolfe.
