The fundamental principle of American law

It is a fundamental principle of English and America law, perhaps THE fundamental principle of English and America law, that a defendant is presumed innocent until PROVED guilty in a court of law. It is the principle that separates us from totalitarian regimes and banana republics and simple lynch mob rule. And we seem to have lost it.

I have no idea whether Professor Ford’s accusation is accurate, or whether she misremembered the facts and the people involved, or whether she made it all up. AND NEITHER DOES ANYONE ELSE!! Yet millions of our supposedly well-educated and sophisticated citizens, based on nothing more than what they have heard in the media or from friends, or what they want to believe for partisan or gender reasons, are absolutely sure (a) that her accusation is accurate, or (b) that she is lying, or at least has a faulty memory.

In fact, as several prosecutors have said in public, this is not a case any prosecutor would take – there simply isn’t any evidence, it is too far in the past and memories are unreliable that far in the past, she can’t remember when or where the party occurred or how she got to or from the party, and the three people she remembers as being there all claim under oath that they don’t recall any such party. No court in the land would convict on such flimsy hearsay evidence. Yet millions of citizens, and most of the media, are perfectly willing to convict.

This is trial by lynch mob, except that the rope has been replaced by the media and social media. And it is disgusting and immoral, just as it was when Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined careers with his unsubstantiated accusations. If this is what the nation has come to, then worrying about what Trump may do next is the least of our worries, because we really will have become like Nazi Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union or the Salem witch trials or Orwell's 1984 where anyone can be ruined simply by being denounced by someone.