The Power Of Accusation
Crime, Responsibility, blame, Laws Gone Too Far
A mother and her teenage daughter have a hate-filled heated argument. The mother kicks the daughter out of the house. On her way out, the daughter threatens suicide. Calculated stab at guilt or real threat? It doesn’t matter. The mother calls the police, the girl is remanded to 72-hours observation in a hospital psychiatric ward. No chance to explain herself, no advocate for her defense. Just an angry mother’s word.
Loving parents of three children bring their infant daughter into the hospital because the girl is sick and they do not know why or with what. The attending physician makes a diagnosis and orders medicine. The parents want a second opinion. The high and mighty doctor calls child protective services and the daughter - along with the 2 other children - are taken from the parents and put into the foster care system.
Early on during a bitter divorce, a soon-to-be ex-wife wants to force the husband out of the home. So she makes an unwarranted, unsubstantiated accusation of past abuse - she can’t claim current abuse because there is no physical evidence of what did not happen in the first place. The court orders the man to be removed from the premises immediately without either party actually stepping before a judge or any sort of police investigation being made.
The list of false accusations that have led to dire consequences could go on nearly forever. Witch trials, Tawana Brawley, Nifong and the Duke rape case. More often than not these accusations lead to one party automatically having to play defense. The notion of innocent until proven guilt has lost its meaning, driven into the dark by sometimes well-meaning, often times power-hungry parties looking to hurt somebody else, to cover up their own indiscretions, protect themselves from lawsuit, get their fifteen minutes of fame or perhaps even do some good, whether they understand the full situation or not.
We have become a country where justice now means that he who whines first and very loudly is made out as the hero, and the accused is surely guilty. Police arrest and detain on the word of one witness, family services serves only the upkeep of their own system instead of the interests of children and families, and the media is delighted to make today’s accused into tomorrow’s villain of the week.
It’s a tragedy really. The truth in these instances means nothing. In many cases, the truth never comes to light. But a person’s life is turned upside-down, families are torn apart, and reputations are destroyed forever.
The police - afraid of being pilloried by the press and being caught up in a life-changing vilification of their own - have gone far beyond erring on the side of caution and all the way over to accepting without investigating. Lawyers chomp at the bit, just waiting to sue somebody over a mistake.
The system needs to be fixed. The police must be allowed to exercise discretion, the accused must be allowed a defense, and the notion of innocent until proven guilty must be returned to the forefront of news reporting. Merely saying “the accused” during the news story so as not to get sued later is not enough. Evidence must hold sway if America is to be a land of liberty and justice for all.
I’m all for erring on the side of caution, for making sure a child is not being abused or a teen is about to take her own life. But incarceration based on hearsay or one person’s opinion? We need investigation, not annihilation… annihilation of reputations, families and lives. The cost is too high to make a mistake in either direction.
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TheWriteJerry @ September 10, 2007
How dare you include the Duke rape case in this! Didn’t you know that there were two female witnesses who rescued the poor girl and took her somewhere safe? Don’t you think one drunk girl in the center of a room of all drunk males, with her so out of it that she’s vomited, smacks a little of gang rape?
Sara - perhaps you are a bit behind on the news…
Her allegations were proven false, and Nifong, the prosecutor in the case is now in jail for withholding evidence that cleared the accused.
lol… hey sara. they were found innocent… and that hooker is facing jail time now for false accusations.
1 agree 100% reminds me of a song —- mind your own business// hank williams sr.
Interesting reading….good job
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http://ultraside.blogspot.com
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Well said. The law is just as knee jerking in the UK as well. The only winners appear to be the lawyers.
You need to include references. It is obvious you made up the first three paragraphs.
Wrong, Derek. Sometimes the truth just reads like fiction because we don;t want to believe how inhumane people can be. Example #1 and #3 are from personal experience. #2 is a “name changed/withheld to protect the innocent” of an actual event as reported, though I did not have first-hand contact with the accused.
I think that you make a great comment here about the state of things– where accusations are almost worth more than the truth…
What’s up with the John Q ad? Is it necessary to have two girls kissing on your site?
Good point about the John Q ad, MIn.It comes over from the ad network that feeds the site. I haven’t figured out how to keep some of the ads and not others. I’ll do some further checking.
My life was ruined by the lies of my ex-husband and his drama- poor me -i’m so scared trustfunder girlfriend. After ‘they’ decided he was the “good guy” they lied, suppressed all evidence to the contrary, treated me terribly in jail. I have lost a son, my dignity, lots of $ and my career as an educator, not to mention the trauma and losses associated w/going to prison and now parole.
Excellent article - very well written and readable. In the 1990s here in Ireland stories began to emerge concerning the starvation, beating, and raping of children in Institutions managed by Roman Catholic religious orders. These stories were pooh-poohed, the people telling the stories were called cranks, drunks, drug abusers, ne’er do-wells; liars basically.
But they refused to be silent and a Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was eventually set up. Some (only some) of the former “residents” of these Institutions were able to give their sworn evidence in front of the Commission - these particular hearings were heard in private. Also the representatives of the Religious Orders had their days in court too and these hearings were in public. Despite their denials archive records from the 1930s,40s, 50s and 60s existed to verify most, if not all of the allegations. These records include Government Inspection Reports by the Medical inspector of the Institutions. These particular reports include phrases like “..the children were … ill-fed, lice-ridden, bruised, filthy …”. I could go on … but I think the abuse of children is much more serious than a false allegation.