Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
You definitely have the burden of proof backwards. His story doesn't need corroboration. It's presumed to be true. Only if the defense thinks that the crown witnesses are likely to be believed beyond a reasonable doubt would he even need to present a story at all.
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You aren't on trial because your story is presumed to be true. It is provisionally true unless contradicted by evidence, which is not the same thing. The argument otherwise is semantics, the whole point of a trial is to decide the truth - if that doesn't involve having to corroborate the accused's story, that's certainly possible, but I'm arguing this particular story isn't believable without some kind of evidence, so the presumption of innocence isn't going to help him.
To make an analogy, if I was accused of murder, and my story was that I was seen fleeing the scene with blood all over my clothes because I was in training to be a butcher but got horrified and sick, and then ran away, I am not going to be believed if I don't back that story up with some evidence. That my story is "presumed true" is going to help me not at all. I don't find Ghomeshi's narrative credible either, so to me, he needs to provide some evidence that it's true. And actually, that's pretty well my whole argument, so I'm not sure what the purpose is of pointing out that the burden of proof is on the Crown, I'm well aware of that, I'm saying that there is plenty of proof by testimony, context, and logic, so he'd better have more than "Nope. Didn't do it! They're all liars!" as a defence.