Jackson Not Guilty !!!

Ivan and danbo:

I stand corrected re the appeal issue.  I was not thinking; of course you are right that the prosecution cannot appeal a not guilty verdict without new evidence.  My bad.

Ivan:

For the record.  Although I am not a school-trained lawyer, I actually spent over 10 years as a legal assistant (primarily corporate, contract, real estate and IP law), and also spent 15 years as an "advocate" in Manhattan's civil courts, including litigating dozens of cases, from tenant-landlord to small claims to civil claims.  (This is permissible under New York State law under certain conditions, which I met.)  I litigated at least 40 cases.  My record?  35 wins, 5 draws, no losses.  In addition, I am one of only a handful of people ever to be allowed to argue pro se in a federal court.  I won that case as well.  This is not offered out of smugness or ego.  It is offered so you know that I am not simply talking out of my backside.

Thus, when I say I would "wipe the floor with you," I am speaking as an experienced litigator.  I don't know how the law works in Peru, but if you were across from me at the prosecutor's table, and we were arguing this case, you would lose because you offer your arguments almost entirely from "my experience" and certain presumptions - neither of which are admissible in court.  And even were they admissible, you offer not one shred of evidence - hard, submissible evidence - to support your arguments.

The downfall of every attorney who ever faced me in court was their reliance on unsupported (by evidence) claims and/or accusations, irrelevant statements, suppositions and the like, which they presented with all the pomp and grandeur one would expect of lawyers trying to impress judges.  However, I found that a reasoned, logical argument, based on the simplest citable laws, and supported by even a few pieces of hard evidence, went much further than all the supposed legal wizardry of lawyers who had decades of experience more than I did, cited obscure case law, and strutted around the courtroom like bigshots.  In one case, I took on the attorney for one of NY's largest real estate developers (bigger than Trump, though he's also quieter), and not only beat him, but got the judge to reprimand him for wasting the court's time with what amounted to a frivolous lawsuit.

The discussion in this thread is (or at least was supposed to be) Jackson's guilt or innocence, and how we felt about it, and why we felt the verdict was right or wrong.  Since some of us are either lawyers or have legal expertise, we have been engaging in what amounts to a sidebar "re-trying" of the case, based on what we know (which is admittedly not everything) about the evidence, etc.  It is in this regard that I believe that, based solely on your (and others') arguments thus far - i.e., "Ivan (and Tony and others) for the prosecution" as it were - if it were "Maani for the defense," I would, indeed, "wipe the floor with you" (in a friendly way, of course...); i.e., I would show more than enough "reasonable doubt" to obtain the same verdict with the same evidence.

Hope we're still friends...

Peace.

Great argument Maani:

I have attended Mass for 40 years and helped the Priest several times, also studied in a Catholic School.

So thanks to your inpiring post I will write a letter to the Pope asking him to name me Bishop 

Probably he will laugh, exactly as I am laughing now.

Iván

PS: This doesn't affect my frienship either, of course we're friends.

Just to end:

I stand corrected re the appeal issue.  I was not thinking; of course you are right that the prosecution cannot appeal a not guilty verdict without new evidence.  My bad.

Still wrong Maani, you can never appeal a not guilty veredict, not even whith new evidence, once you're declared not guilty, there's no chance for appeal.

The appeal process exists to help people who have been wrongfully found guilty, not for people who might have been wrongfully declared not guilty.

Once you're found not guilty you can not be judged for the same crime, as Garion said correctly this is considered double jeopardy.

Iván