Accused Equals Guilt

Such an interesting time in our nation as many values and practices garner new scrutiny.  Accusing someone of sexual harassment is one of the areas where dramatic change is occurring.  We have moved from a culture where women were shamed and threatened and castigated when making such claims against men to a time where once someone claims to have been assaulted by another the verdict is immediately assumed to be “guilty” and the punishment is handed down before there is even a trial.  Neither of those responses is appropriate in my book.

It takes great courage to step forward and accuse someone of committing sexual harassment, or worse.  The harasser or assaulter is usually someone more powerful, more influential in some way than the victim.  Those who accuse know they will likely be put on trial as it is a “He said, she said” kind of case with no witnesses, or the even happened in the past and the opportunity to collect any kind of evidence is long gone.  I tend to side with the accuser, with the victim.  As a school superintendent when either students or employees came to me with stories of harassment or worse I tended to believe them.  In those cases the accused was never likely to pay millions to hush the complaint.

And yet, I remain deeply disturbed with how we are responding to those who are accused.  In every criminal or civil case where someone is alleged to do have done wrong and/or broken the law we typically begin with the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven.  What I see in these guys is assumption of guilt and the meting out of punishment before the accused has little more to do in their defense than to say, “I am innocent.”  A list of accused can be found at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/10/us/men-accused-sexual-misconduct-weinstein.html

Most interesting is that of the 22 who have been accused, some (9) have confessed their guilt, and most have claimed innocence.  All of them have already been punished.  They have been fired, replaced, removed from positions of responsibility, etc., and none of them have been found guilty in court.  Those who confess their guilt and throw themselves on the mercy of the court and of public opinion are to be commended for their honesty.  The others deserve their day in court before they are punished.

Accusation cannot equal guilt.  Not in a land where we cherish freedom, abide by law and trust our peers to judge us in an open courtroom.