: the same has always been so here- innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt- of late some laws the otehrway round ahve been passed- I have been sorely mis-informed. Thank you for setting me to right.
:the crime of carrying an offensive weapon- if you are cuaght with an 'offensive weapon' its up to you to prove that you weren't carrying it as such (i.e. the ammer was for hammering, etc.). but thats a marginal area ...
Yeah, I think that was what I was thinking about when I wrote. I had heard some media ghoul somewhere using this as a basis for expositing on the whole of UK law, and (because I had no other data other than the Guilford Four stuff,) I guess I supposed it was representative. Sorry.
: : I suspect that was a typo. However, it raises an important distinction. In the US system, the accused is never declared "innocent," only "not guilty."
: but they are innocent until proven guilty. The distinction is made best in Scotland, where there are three porrible verdicts- Guilty, Not Guilty, and the venemous and unjust 'Not proven', if found not guilty you are innocent, if found not proven, well, they just dunno...
Right, that's more or less what I was trying to say. Over here, "not guilty" doesn't mean innocent. It's roughly equivalent to "not proven." I agree that it's a travesty of justice, but hey, it's a late capitalist, post-industrial state, what do you expect? ;-)
: The guilford four were conviced by dodgey forensics...
and outright lies, and xenophobia, and paranoia. All classic traits of a failing empire...the atitude is not "how can we do better?" but "who should we blame for our failings?" Find a scapegoat. Hippies and Irishmen are easy targets, I suppose.
: AFAIK they transported the Jury system and the judicial system in toto from the UK... except we scrapped Grand Juries in the nineteenth century as unjust...(bet Clinton would've liked that).
Heh heh, yeah. The jury system is definitely a British invention. I think there are some differences with legal counsul as well, but I admit to a pronounced absence of knowledge on the subject of British law. I suppose I'd better look into that, before I tarnish my "Mr. Know-it-all" image, eh? ha ha ;-)
Thanks, again, for the insights.
-Floyd
None.
