Hart, McLeod, Dube, Foote, Formenton found not guilty of sexual assault

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

I think there were many who felt that they may not get a conviction, but with the story being told, these players would pay a hefty price, conviction or not.

I believe they deserve what they are getting. Their expensive corrupt lawyers can save them from jail, but not from public opinion.

Why are you saying their lawyers are corrupt?

[MegaErtz]

They had the trial switched from a trial by jury to a trial by judge once they didn't like the makeup of the jury, that's why.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Probably not any more than we’re posting in it now. It’s not like it got changed to reflect that they were on trial.

I don’t know that it matters either way, I was just curious why it was suddenly a matter of respect.

I think we have a thread title calling Adam Fox a lying turd.

Well he is. A totally appropriate title.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by Eric Vail

I think there were many who felt that they may not get a conviction, but with the story being told, these players would pay a hefty price, conviction or not.

I believe they deserve what they are getting. Their expensive corrupt lawyers can save them from jail, but not from public opinion.

Well, this is outright bull####. Either provide some evidence or retract this statement. They did their jobs and deserve to get paid for it. There has never been any indication that they did a single thing to be labelled 'corrupt.' With everything going on in the world down south, this is not a charge that should be brought lightly.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by MegaErtz

They had the trial switched from a trial by jury to a trial by judge once they didn't like the makeup of the jury, that's why.

How to say "I don't have any idea how things work, but I will comment on them anyway" without actually saying it.

This is such a wrong statement. I am not even going to address it, other than to say that if they thought that was the right thing for their client, they did the right thing. As it turns out, they may have been right. This hardly makes them corrupt.

[Titan2]

These threads always remind me how little the average person knows about our system of justice. Our schools really do a bad job of preparing people to live in society.

[Monahammer]

If you believe that the lawyers are corrupt, then you are also implying that the judge is/was corrupt as well. Frankly it's not a surprise. It's the same people who came in believing 100% in the guilt of the accused, and so will not accept a reality in which legal guilt was not applied. Instead they will change their narrative so the resulting reality fits the view they had preconceived.

We are at the death of objective truth in society. Facts don't matter anymore.

[Titan2]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Im confused as I don't see why anyone benefits from ascertaining EM's purpose or goal in proceeding with the court case.

The court case is complete. If she elects to appeal the case (stated as unlikely at this point) then maybe it deserves discussion. But otherwise, IMO, it's just being pointlessly hyperfixated on this matter.

There are some things we will never know, and we have to accept that we don't need to know or maybe deserve to know. We don't need to know EM's intentions.

The judge has determined that the prosecution did not meet the standard for proving guilt on any claim. Further, it is a fact that the judge felt warranted to mention that they found EM's testimony unreliable, and that EM was not credible on the stand.

Those are pretty pointed statements from the judge. I would feel remiss if I didn't point out that those who are most acidiously attacking that statement and coming up with invented rationalizations for why EM needed to pursue this are also those that take abnormally strong and hyperfixated views on many other subjects inappropriately. Probably best to ignore their "Participation".

This is how we learn. Examining things that have happened to try to figure out why and then apply those learnings to help make things better overall.

It would be very beneficial to determine her intentions so we can help future SA victims process their feelings, choose the right course of action for them and provide insight on what happens in a trial of this type. You acting as the thread police serves no purpose, and censorship is not the proper way to learn. I don't think I have heard any unreasonable hypotheticals, and most that have been presented are worth at least considering. And if you are going to use big words to try to sound smart, at least spell them properly.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Well he is. A totally appropriate title.

I’m fine with that title as well!

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Titan2

This is how we learn. Examining things that have happened to try to figure out why and then apply those learnings to help make things better overall.

It would be very beneficial to determine her intentions so we can help future SA victims process their feelings, choose the right course of action for them and provide insight on what happens in a trial of this type. You acting as the thread police serves no purpose, and censorship is not the proper way to learn. I don't think I have heard any unreasonable hypotheticals, and most that have been presented are worth at least considering. And if you are going to use big words to try to sound smart, at least spell them properly.

Relax guy.
No one is trying to police any thread, outside our intrepid moderating team.
I'm just pointing out how futile an exercise people are engaged in. I disagree with your assessment of the utility of digging into EM's motivations entirely, and when the hypotheticals devolve into calling her defense lawyers corrupt and implying that the justice system is corrupt as a consequence I do find them unreasonable.

The most unreasonable person on the whole forum is floating around here trying to score internet points by... ensuring everyone knows that these guys did something wrong? Ok? I guess. I find it unreasonable to still be taking up space on the hockey board when no one is discussing any part of the hockey side of this anymore.

Yes, I misspelt assiduously. You assiduous reader, you. Gold star!

[Eric Vail]

Originally Posted by Titan2

Well, this is outright bull####. Either provide some evidence or retract this statement. They did their jobs and deserve to get paid for it. There has never been any indication that they did a single thing to be labelled 'corrupt.' With everything going on in the world down south, this is not a charge that should be brought lightly.

Maybe greasy would be a better term than corrupt.

[GioforPM]

I will say the lawyers strayed close to the line I had thought was previously held to be irrelevant in dealing with the victim's behaviour.

[FlamesAddiction]

I thought E.M.'s own testimony and previous statements did most of the work for the defense lawyers. I'm also still not buying that there was some grand plan to get the jury dismissed. It may have worked out in their favour, hard to say for sure, but I don't think they concocted a plan to make it happen.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

The judge has determined that the prosecution did not meet the standard for proving guilt on any claim. Further, it is a fact that the judge felt warranted to mention that they found EM's testimony unreliable, and that EM was not credible on the stand.

People are speculating about EM's motives or mindset which are unknowable, but the judge's motivation for making direct comments about witness credibility are understandable: appeal-proofing. Attempting to make this the last word in the case. An appellate Court is going to be far more hesitant to interfere with a judge's decision where that decision is clearly based on an assessment of witness credibility. The Crown knows this and is disincentivized to pursue that appeal where the risk of success is lower. I'm not a criminal lawyer but I'd think you'd need some pretty strong grounds for it to be worth taking this any further.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

People are speculating about EM's motives or mindset which are unknowable, but the judge's motivation for making direct comments about witness credibility are understandable: appeal-proofing. Attempting to make this the last word in the case. An appellate Court is going to be far more hesitant to interfere with a judge's decision where that decision is clearly based on an assessment of witness credibility. The Crown knows this and is disincentivized to pursue that appeal where the risk of success is lower. I'm not a criminal lawyer but I'd think you'd need some pretty strong grounds for it to be worth taking this any further.

The exclusion of evidence is the main ground here I would think. That would be an error of law, and the standard is correctness, for the most part (versus patent unreasonableness for the weighing of evidence).

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Im confused as I don't see why anyone benefits from ascertaining EM's purpose or goal in proceeding with the court case.

The court case is complete. If she elects to appeal the case (stated as unlikely at this point) then maybe it deserves discussion. But otherwise, IMO, it's just being pointlessly hyperfixated on this matter.

There are some things we will never know, and we have to accept that we don't need to know or maybe deserve to know. We don't need to know EM's intentions.

The judge has determined that the prosecution did not meet the standard for proving guilt on any claim. Further, it is a fact that the judge felt warranted to mention that they found EM's testimony unreliable, and that EM was not credible on the stand.

Those are pretty pointed statements from the judge. I would feel remiss if I didn't point out that those who are most acidiously attacking that statement and coming up with invented rationalizations for why EM needed to pursue this are also those that take abnormally strong and hyperfixated views on many other subjects inappropriately. Probably best to ignore their "Participation".

It is kinda funny that you point out the futility of speculating on EMs underlying intentions and then proceed to speculate the potency and reasoning for certain statements in the judge's decision.

Both points are worthy of discussion. It is interesting how the judge supports her statements on credibility with arguably trivial examples. And then her statements on the men's credibility are supported by certain text messages - while other texts that arguably undermine that narrative were excluded from evidence.

It's all worthy of discussion.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

It is kinda funny that you point out the futility of speculating on EMs underlying intentions and then proceed to speculate the potency and reasoning for certain statements in the judge's decision.

Both points are worthy of discussion. It is interesting how the judge supports her statements on credibility with arguably trivial examples. And then her statements on the men's credibility are supported by certain text messages - while other texts that arguably undermine that narrative were excluded from evidence.

It's all worthy of discussion.

Maybe some of them were arguably trivial, but some of them weren't and the judge was considering the totality of the evidence. It's like circumstantial evidence in a trial. It might vary on how significant each piece is in isolation, but when there is a lot of it, it becomes harder to ignore. The case seemed to really fall apart when she pretty much admitted that she was acting sexually aggressive but because she was so out of it or afraid. It seemed outlandish when it was first mentioned by the defense that she would be acting that way, but when she couldn't deny it, the credibility shifted.

The judge then had to decide if the video evidence and her actions during and immediately after corroborated her state of mind. It was in her qualified opinion and assessment that they didn't. That was not a small thing IMO, and when you add the smaller or "trivial" things on top of that, the questions of reliability and credibility increase or decrease by increments.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

It is kinda funny that you point out the futility of speculating on EMs underlying intentions and then proceed to speculate the potency and reasoning for certain statements in the judge's decision.

Both points are worthy of discussion. It is interesting how the judge supports her statements on credibility with arguably trivial examples. And then her statements on the men's credibility are supported by certain text messages - while other texts that arguably undermine that narrative were excluded from evidence.

It's all worthy of discussion.

Speculating on EMs "intentions" and a written judge's reasoning, are two drastically different things. Both are not equally worthy of discussion

[Ryan Coke]

But her intentions are pretty important, when the bottom line is she was either a willing participant who felt regret, vs an unwilling participant. The judge had to make the decision based on the evidence presented.

Feeling regret after the fact doesn’t make it a crime, doing things against your will does.

[Ragnar]

nm