Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
This is a bit of an odd/broad take. IIRC the issues were around communications between the complainants themselves (something that prosecutors could/should have cautioned against, though there isn't/wasn't really a playbook of best-practices for #metoo kinds of cases)
The post-assault communications with Ghomeshi get into the muddy waters of sometimes irrational behaviours by victims of physical/emotional abuse, if not psychological warfare in this case.
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There were multiple issues with DeCoutere's testimony, and the other two complainants. Ghomeshi's defence team poked all sorts of holes. The post-assault communications with Ghomeshi wasn't at issue as much as all of the complainants
blatantly lying about having little or no further contact with him after the assaults. The contact could have potentially been explained away as the irrational behaviour of sexual assault victims, but testifying under oath in court that they had no contact with him because they feared him, and then the defence showing under cross-examination that
those assertions were demonstrably false, was a big ####ing problem.
The prosecution really did a piss-poor job preparing the complainants for court. DeCoutere and one of the other complainants had no less than 25 media interviews before the trial, and
Henein used their own statements to the media to contradict their testimony.
The fact that DeCoutere and one of the other complainants had sent thousands of emails' worth of correspondence pre-trial, which Henein demonstrated could be considered conspiratorial, was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Considering the contradictory testimony, certain facts in the complainants' testimony which Henein was able to demonstrably prove were false, and the 5,000 emails of correspondence between complainants, the judge pretty much had no choice to find Ghomeshi not guilty. Henein again was very shrewd to elect for a trial by judge alone, as
maybe a jury might have had some empathy for the complainants and believed them despite the inconsistencies, but she knew a judge would take a cold, dispassionate view of things. She planted the seeds of reasonable doubt and sowed them with the complainants' own contradictory testimony. The judge couldn't help but find him not guilty on that basis alone.
That said, did Ghomeshi really have violent romantic encounters with those women? Almost certainly. I absolutely believe the gist of the allegations were all true. I don't doubt Sarah Polley's revelations for a second; however, as sad as it is to say, the "lawyers she spoke with [who] told her she'd make a terrible witness because of inconsistencies in her story and how she interacted with Ghomeshi as a guest on his radio show in the years after the alleged incident" were absolutely correct. There was no court case there. There never was. He's a colossal piece of #### but legally he wasn't, and wouldn't have been, guilty of a crime.
