Winona Ryder, Robert Blake, Jose Padilla, R. Kelley, John Walker Lindh; the sad litle list goes on and on doesn't it? People accused of crimes and declared guilty in all BUT a court of law before even a scrap of evidence is ever even shown! Pathetic isn't it? What the hell happened to the concept of innocent until proven guilty? Has that gone the way of New Kids on the Block and 8-track in America?

Blame the IRS. No, seriously. In tax court (or whatever it is called) you must prove your innocence. The Treasury department can charge you with any crimes and you have to prove a negative. (I.E. You do not run a prostitution ring that gives you income you do not report.) The only way to do it is prove a positive (I.E. the prostitution ring just broke even because of the bribes paid out to local police -- see the reciepts your honor?)

I'm not terribly familiar with the cases you mention. Didn't Winona plead guilty? Blake and Lindh were "tried" in the media (Page #1 "MURDERER" page 17C "correction: he didn't do it") and that should not affect their outcome in court. I never even heard of Padilla.

Jose Padilla is another Al-Quida (knowing that I just spelt it wrong, I will wait for a correction to come in) convert who was arrested for aiding the enemy.

As for the IRS, wasn't there a reform bill that passed a few years ago that shifted the burden of proof off the accused?

Winona Ryder was video tapes shoplifting from a store. Obviously she has to go to trial but it is pretty obvious that she did take things without paying for them.

R. Kelley is on video having sex with an underaged girl. Unless he can pull a Rob Lowe ("I met them in a club where you have to be 21 to get in, what shoudl have made me think they were underaged") it's pretty hard to disprove it when it's on video.

Robert Blake was tried and convicted in the media but that doesn't mean that he will be convicted in court. Remember OJ Simpson and Bill Clinton? The media raked both of them over the coals but neither was convicted because of it.

Jose Padilla & John Walker Lindh - were both captured carrying guns and wearing the uniform of an enemy.

Brian F.,

Just a nit. We can argue over what rags constitute a Taliban or Al-Queda(sp?) uniform. (I always thought the AK-47 was the give away.)

Brian,

is video admissable as evidence in US courts? I always thought that tape recordings and photos are not admissable, because they can be easily faked, but the same logic applies to videos, too. (Of course, if you carry it far enough, there is today no evidence that can't be tampered with).

The IRS sure has a strange way of looking at things. When I learnt about german tax laws a few years back, I was surprised to hear that the tax office always assumes that everything you tell them is true. I had thought as layman that because so many people cheat on taxes, some things would be disbelieved and checked upon from the start, but the principle still is that the tax office has to prove you lied/cheated. In specific areas, somethings are disbelieved, and have to be proven painstakingly in minute detail by the taxpayer, but the example mentioned above should not work this way in germany.
The reason given for it was, of course, the same as in normal justice: a citizen can't prove innocence or his truthfulness. The state has to disprove him. Everything else reminds me of witch-hunts in medieval times.

BUT: I've recently read about some alarming "neglect" of this principle in some areas, where free-lancers who work for a swiss company are automatically assumed to have cheated on the taxes because the swiss is known for it and is "foreign country". Also, some right-wing politicans are always clamoring for total data exchange between several offices, to catch the cheaters, without asking how high the percentage of cheaters is and how much damage they do. This is very frightning, because it means to catch maybe 5% of cheaters, you make life hard for the honest rest. (The laws have been changed in other areas using the argument of catching cheaters, and conditions for most of the other people have worsened because of it.)

I always thought that tape recordings and photos are not admissable

Where did you get that, constanze? Having served on juries where both tape recorded and photographic evidence was provided, I can tell you from personal experience that they are admissible. The authenticity need to be vouched for, but other than that... I would assume that videotape is also admissible (but my only experience with that is watching "Law & Order").

It is my understanding that they can't be "testimony" (because how can you cross-examine a photograph?) but they can be evidence. As such there must be testimony by a witness so that it is certain that there has been no tampering. (Chain-of-custody must be testified to, like with DNA evidence, and like in the OJ case, if the defense can convince the jury that the testimony is unreliable, they can choose to see the evidence as tainted.)

is video admissable as evidence in US courts? I always thought that tape recordings and photos are not admissable

Remember what the bombshell that proved Bill Clinton fooled around with Monica Lewinski was? It was an audio tape of a phone conversation she had with Linda Tripp. If it were not admissable evidence the impeachment hearings never would have happened.

A party seeking to introduce any physicial evidence (photographs, videotapes, items found at a crime scene, etc.) must provide a "foundation" demonstrating their authenticity and trustworthiness. Essentially, this means a witness must come in and testify (under oath) how the physical evidence was produced and came into his or her possession. In the case of a videotape, this usually means that someone has to testify about the circumstances surrounding the tape recording, the equipment used and where the tape has been since it was recorded. The other side is entitled to inspect the original and have an expert take a look at it to see if it has been edited or otherwise tampered with. The judge then makes the decision whether the party seeking to introduce the videotape has shown that the evidence is sufficiently reliable to present to a jury. This question comes up more often in matters involving crime scene evidence (like guns, drugs or blood). The police have to testify how the evidence was recovered, and they must present documents showing the chain of custody from the time the evidence was collected until trial. Even after the court admits the evidence, it is up to the jury to decide how much weight to give to it in their deliberations. To their credit, the Law & Order shows generally recognize this as an issue, but they usually boil it down to one or two questions at trial. (T.V. trials move at a faster pace than real trials)

Well, yeah, L&O is only an hour. It's a credit to them that they do try to keep it realistic though. They don't always suceed, but an A+ for effort.

How could Peter Guber be allowed to serve on the jury in the Winona Ryder shoplifting trial? Guber was the head of Sony Pictures when Ryder did three films for them. I would definitely question his impartiality.

That would be up to the lawyers.

Maquis Lawyer is correct about evidence. I've watched enough legal shows (both dramas and reality-based) and read enough articles to know all that.

If you remember, a few months after the OJ Simpson trial, they showed a videotape of him doing an interview with someone at a football field from when he worked as a broadcaster for CBS Sports, and he was wearing the `ugly Bruno Magli shoes' that his lawyers claimed he didn't own. If the prosecuters had found that tape and brought in an expert on leather gloves to dispute Johnny Cochran's claim that `If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit' instead of playing to the cameras, then OJ would probably be on death row right now.

And I agree with everything Brian Fitzgerald said. Except for Robert Blake, its pretty obvious from the evidence they're all guilty as hell. But I expect the R. Kelly and Robert Blake trials to be nothing but farces anyway....

The presumption of innocence is the golden thread that runs throughout our justice system.

Rumpole knows nothing about the law. He knows how to distract the jury; how to rustle his papers during counsel's summation . . .

Plus he's nothing but a common thief named Harry Bundage, who is hatching a scheme to rid Lady St. Edmund of her grandfather's treasure!

He's also the new Number 2.

The IRS method involves adding up your assets and finding that your taxes owed are not the same as taxes paid. How can that not become Guilty until proven otherwise?

Cause its the IRS.

I'd avoid using that name anymore.

Also, the only people who have to respect the Presumption of Innocence is the Jury, the defense and the Court. The Prosecutor, the Police and Victim clearly do not think the accused is innocent.