I’m very aware that sexual harassment and assault needs to be confronted in all of its forms, but the 6th Amendment to the United States Constitution seems to have fallen by the wayside in the process, or fed into a paper shredder.
If an accuser isn’t prepared to go to court to seek either civil or criminal justice, does the accuser really have the right to go public with their accusations? If they can’t prove what they’ve accused their attacker of, does their target have the right to sue the accuser for damages?
The presumption of innocence is one of the founding principles of the American nation. The suspect is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but since people are being accused and tried in the media, it looks like the suspect is guilty until proven innocent. That’s not the American way.
I don’t know if there’s a silver bullet to deal with all of these problems, but the criminal justice system and Constitution should not become casualties of a problem that’s going to become much worse in the coming days and weeks, if the media rumors are even halfway accurate.
I think if someone who is accused decides to sue his accusers to get them to prove their accusations or pay for damages done to the reputation of the accused will be extremely ugly, and it will probably be the end of the accused’s career, especially if they’re some kind of a high profile celebrity. I think this scenario is very likely to happen than not.
Part of me is happy that these idiots are facing a reckoning of their own making, but the other part is concerned that laws are followed, and that if they can be prosecuted, they should be, with all the legal protections that they’re due as American citizens.
Sexual harassment is illegal. I want to see some punishments handed out by the courts, not trials in the media.
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