Should persons accused of child sex abuse be presumed guilty?

Anyone accused of any crime should be presumed innocent.

While you will find no stronger child advocate than myself, I'm not in favor of being able to condemn someone with a mere accusation.

Yes.

Hey don't forget, plenty teachers are wrongly accused by wilful and malicious pupils of all sorts of wrongdoing. That's a fact.

Accusations should be investigated. Assumptions are often wrong.

I think you misread my post.

No I didn't Joe, and I totally agree with it (who could disagree?). I just clicked REPLY on the wrong post. I was replying to the questioner.

my bad.

Jeez. Rydinearth, do you attend some sort of fundamentalist church?

No problem. I know your heart was in the right place even if your cursor wasn't.

I was going to quote that very same sentence ... "collateral damage"??? No! There have been many instances of false accusations for a variety of reasons, some of which occurred where I lived and which gained great notoriety for their falseness.

Anybody see Oleanna? A David Mamet play about a professor falsely accused of sexual harassment of a student? That was playing across the country around the same time a female swim team member falsely accused her coach of sexual harassment and at the time, the public was very much pro-complainant. He was fired, I believe, but he fought it and proved it was SHE who was doing the harassing. He was reinstated and the president of the university had to quit/resign or was fired over the whole mismanagement of the investigation, which I think was cursory, at best. It was a shameful example of how we pander to public opinion. The poor man's whole life could have been shot to hell, all because of a wrathful, vengeful woman.

THAT is why we need to investigate and presume innocence until proven otherwise.

No need to refer to fictional cases.

McMartin Pre-School Trial

I detailed an actual case which occurred at Simon Fraser University. The play I mentioned because it reflected what was going on in society at the time.

Whatever your answer to this question, the fact of the matter is this:.
In this country, no matter who you are, no matter where you live, no matter how "upstanding" you may be, no matter your social standing, your career or your reputation, all it takes is for one child to become angry enough at you to SAY that you sexually abused them, and it is the beginning of the end of your life. Period.

Regardless of how innocent you may be, regardless of whether the child was coached, or influenced by their peers, regardless if there is no evidence, no witnesses, no criminal history. No matter if you take a lie detector test (or 2, or 3) and pass, or bring in 50 witnesses to your character. It doesn’t matter if the child has previously made demonstrably false allegations against others. It doesn't even matter if the child later voluntarily recants their testimony against you. None of it matters. From the moment that child accuses you, there is absolutely NOTHING you can say or do to clear your name. NOTHING. Nobody is interested in the truth. You are PRESUMED guilty, and every piece of evidence, no matter how exculpatory, will be turned around and used against you. The normal requirements for evidence are thrown out the window. No evidence is required.

Once you get caught up in this nightmare, the first thing that will happen is that you will be removed from your home and separated from your family. Not after a conviction by a court, but just on the weight of the accusation itself. A police officer will arrive at your front door, and you will be given ten minutes to get out of your own home, and forbidden to return on pain of immediate arrest. No place to go? 20 below zero? That’s your problem. Even if your family believes thoroughly in your innocence, you will most likely have a restraining order preventing you from going near your own children. If your spouse expresses the belief that you are innocent, he/she will be labeled as a “non-believer” and charged with “failure to protect”, and also separated from the children.

Once the ball is rolling, it is almost impossible to stop. They don’t have to prove you did it, or even present convincing evidence. The burden is upon YOU to prove that you are innocent. And this is nearly impossible to do. There is a a very good chance that you will spend most of the rest of your life behind bars; not merely as a prisoner, but as the most hated of all prisoners; a convicted “child molester”. Such a prison sentence may very well turn out to be a death sentence. Even if you avoid jail time, your career, your family, your reputation will all be ruined. Old friends, even family members will begin to look at you with suspicion. And all the while you’re thinking that sanity must eventually take over. It never does.

If you think your innocence will eventually come to light, you could not be more wrong. And if you think it can't happen to you, you'd better think again.
Does this sound like cold war Russia or Nazi Germany? Nope, my friend, it’s the United States of America, right now, today!!
This happens EVERY SINGLE DAY in this country.
If you think I'm exaggerating, ask a lawyer or a judge.

As we speak, the prisons in this country are filled with men (and women) who would never even think of touching a child, but who now may never see the outside of a prison again as long as they live. Why? Because, in response to the public outcry against child abuse in this country, the child protective agencies have been given virtually unlimited power. Feeding on public hysteria about child molesters, they have fostered a perception that there is a sexual predator hiding behind every bush and tree, just waiting to grab our children, that children NEVER lie, and that the loss of the constitutional rights of the accused are a small price to pay to ensure that the guilty do not go free. They are not bound by the constitution or by due process of law. In cooperation with the courts and law enforcement, they comprise an unstoppable legal jaugernaut whose purpose is not to protect children or families, but to preserve their own existence, no matter how many lives and families they have to ruin in the process. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Quite the contrary. In every possible respect.

Quite the contrary, in every possible respect.

Exposed a raw nerve, rydinearth?

It this were true, and you have not established this to be true (ipse dixit ain't gonna cut it)--but if this were true, one's life is not ruined by the legal system, one's life is ruined by the gossips, quidnuncs and scandal mongers whose whispering might influence potential employers, or bank loan officers, or one's acquaintance or individual members of police agencies acting from personal prejudice rather than policy.



What needs to change? The judicial system? I suggest to you that fault lies in our stars, dear Brutus, not in the legal system (to mangle a phrase). If, however, you mean that the way individual members of society might treat someone so accused, then you're attempting to push back the sea with a broom. Good luck changing human nature.

One might give some thought to avoiding compromising situations.

Seriously, if we presume innocence why do we lock people up while they wait for their trial to start? I think we presume everyone to be guilty.

Not everyone accused of child molestation is convicted.

Actually, we only lock up people too poor to make bail, or those who are, in the opinion of a hearing judge, too great a flight risk.