Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Innocent Until Proven Guilty
One tenet of the American Judicial system is "innocent until Proven Guilty. As children we are persuaded this is the tantamount issue of all the accused. It is up to the accuser to prove the defendants guilt. There have been many trials of public opinion, or by the media that seem to forget this. In a recent issue of The Globe, they even have a wildly inaccurate email poll of its readers weather they believe President Elect Obama is or is not a Natural Born U.S. Citizen.
The Obama camp has produced a Certificate of Live Birth from the state of Hawaii. Pundits claim it is a forgery. In forgery cases, the person harmed must produce an affidavit of forgery for it to be even considered. Forged checks, identity theft and all this. You cannot just claim something is forged and have it be invalidated. An affidavit of forgery is a legal document in which the signer is attesting the truth and nothing but the truth.
Once when I was in the loan business, a lender once asked me to prove a borrower did not have any other loans outstanding. My reply was that was next to impossible, since the absence of proof there is is the best evidence available there is not. To prove there is not would take a certification from every lender in the U.S. that the borrower did not have an outstanding debt with them. The base assumption is some lender out there did not report a debt to the credit bureau.
Back to P.E. Obama. No Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama has been brought forward. This does not satisfy pundits that believe the Hawaii certification was fake. In the wild post territorial days was it easy for a new mother to get a CLB from Hawaii to insure her child was a U.S. citizen. If that was the case, assuredly it was wrong for that to happen. But, everyone involved should remain innocent until proven guilty.
Exhibit A: CLB 1961 Hawaii
(non)exhibit B: absence of CLB Kenya
Exhibit C: Anecdotal evidence that some CLBs were falsely issued in that time period
Exhibit D: Certainly babies were born in Hawaii during the same time period.
a second tenet of our Judicial system is Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. If I were to compute or assign numerical scores for these 4 exhibits, I would weigh A, B, D Much Heavier than C. While C is a doubt, given the other three it is unreasonable. In My Humble Opinion. and so it goes
The Obama camp has produced a Certificate of Live Birth from the state of Hawaii. Pundits claim it is a forgery. In forgery cases, the person harmed must produce an affidavit of forgery for it to be even considered. Forged checks, identity theft and all this. You cannot just claim something is forged and have it be invalidated. An affidavit of forgery is a legal document in which the signer is attesting the truth and nothing but the truth.
Once when I was in the loan business, a lender once asked me to prove a borrower did not have any other loans outstanding. My reply was that was next to impossible, since the absence of proof there is is the best evidence available there is not. To prove there is not would take a certification from every lender in the U.S. that the borrower did not have an outstanding debt with them. The base assumption is some lender out there did not report a debt to the credit bureau.
Back to P.E. Obama. No Kenyan birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama has been brought forward. This does not satisfy pundits that believe the Hawaii certification was fake. In the wild post territorial days was it easy for a new mother to get a CLB from Hawaii to insure her child was a U.S. citizen. If that was the case, assuredly it was wrong for that to happen. But, everyone involved should remain innocent until proven guilty.
Exhibit A: CLB 1961 Hawaii
(non)exhibit B: absence of CLB Kenya
Exhibit C: Anecdotal evidence that some CLBs were falsely issued in that time period
Exhibit D: Certainly babies were born in Hawaii during the same time period.
a second tenet of our Judicial system is Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. If I were to compute or assign numerical scores for these 4 exhibits, I would weigh A, B, D Much Heavier than C. While C is a doubt, given the other three it is unreasonable. In My Humble Opinion. and so it goes
