Cardinal Pell's appeal has been dismissed.

[IceJad]

My problem with this is that the outcome is that for this type of crime, when it does not get reported until years later and whatever evidence there might have been has been obscured by time, we have decided there can be no conviction. Even when it did occur. And that is a broken system.

We live in reality, no one has omnipresence. It's like asking two boys who eat the last cookie 1 week after the event. If both say no and both blame each other so how is justice to be carried out?

Or are you to assume that the boy who always hang out with unsavory people automatically have the highest probability and guilty by that reason alone. Is this justice?

Please don't suddenly divert from Pell to the other powerful individuals in general.

The court overturned the conviction. We have to accept it else the whole institution of justice crumbles. If all verdicts are miscarriages if they don't conform to our preference then why a court to begin with? Just tar and feather the guy and be done with it. Run him out of town. Everyone will feel better. Because feeling better = justice served.

 

[IceJad]

Don't get the wrong impression that people who defend Pell now are in it to cover up the sexual crimes that the Catholic church has done in the past. All of the people want to see all the perpetrators found and trialed.

What the people don't want is to target the group as a whole. If a person is innocent he is innocent. No such thing as breaking a few eggs to make an omelette. No such thing as collateral damage. These are tactics used by dictators like Stalin, Mao & Kim. If I can't get you I get your closest friends and family.

And no one is denying that justice has not been miscarriage before. Epstein, Wienstein & Cosby just to name a few (only later in their life is justice served). But don't deny there are people out there that fabricate sexual crimes to gain something in life. You already have one prominent case in Australia - Kenan Basic

 

[Philip_B]

The blame belongs to the person who abused him. No one else.

My problem with this is that the outcome is that for this type of crime, when it does not get reported until years later and whatever evidence there might have been has been obscured by time, we have decided there can be no conviction. Even when it did occur. And that is a broken system.

This is a problem for jurisprudence in many settings. Law can be good in the clear cut, and especially in the distinctly measurable. The failings come about in the human interaction areas, and family law is a notoriously difficult area, evidenced by the reality that family court judges need additional security measures beyond that of normal judges. We need in terms of delay to create an environment where people can come forward, knowing they will be taken seriously. The western legal system for all its failings has shown itself marginally better than trial by media.

Partly it is also a reflection of a broader problem in society where the measure of a message is often based who who delivers it, rather than the message itself. I recall as a child my mother screaming at us to turn off the television because Whitlam was telling lies. I asked her how she knew that to be the case to be told 'it is obvious, he is speaking'. I don't know if he was or was not because I never got to hear what he was saying. The media is especially adept at vilifying and dehumanising people they care not for, and we need to be alert to this, on the left and on the right. This thread is not about the media, however the pervasive influence of the media makes it difficult to form valid conclusions after seeing and hearing 'comprehensive accounts' which are often seriously unbalanced and do not include all the matters that might be considered.

So yes, I get that there is a problem. And yes, I do not know what the solution is. As I alluded to in an earlier post in the thread, I don't believe that cutting down the laws that protect us is necessarily the right answer.

I too wish things were better.

 

[stevevw]

Don't get the wrong impression that people who defend Pell now are in it to cover up the sexual crimes that the Catholic church has done in the past. All of the people want to see all the perpetrators found and trialed.

What the people don't want is to target the group as a whole. If a person is innocent he is innocent. No such thing as breaking a few eggs to make an omelette. No such thing as collateral damage. These are tactics used by dictators like Stalin, Mao & Kim. If I can't get you I get your closest friends and family.

And no one is denying that justice has not been miscarriage before. Epstein, Wienstein & Cosby just to name a few (only later in their life is justice served). But don't deny there are people out there that fabricate sexual crimes to gain something in life. You already have one prominent case in Australia - Kenan Basic

And John Jarratt famous for Wolf Creek ironically. So was Geoffrey Rush one of my favorite actors. Their lives have been ruined just like Pells. Victims of abuse go through hell but so do people wrongly blamed.