Ghomeshi walks

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Mendalla said:
Jian Ghomeshi's first trial has ended in acquittal on all charges.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...exual-assault/article29377074/?service=mobile

He has another coming up in June so he is not out of the woods yet.

I have heard some say that even if acquitted on all charges, a comeback will be difficult given the rep he has acquired.

Thoughts?
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My immediate thought upon hearing the news was, "He got off? Whaaat?"

I agree with you that it will be hard for him to make a comeback.
 
I didn't follow the trial, although I've come across articles and comments about it. It's difficult to comment accurately not having followed it, but I do feel frustrated by the situation. If someone isn't guilty, I don't want them to be punished for something that didn't occur. It seems like it's too easy to get away with things though as it just comes down to one person's word against another.
 
I'm not at all surprised. I'm not saying that he didn't do the things he's accused of doing, but once it came out in court that the complainants had exchanged emails in which they discussed details of the case and that they had all continued to be in contact with him after the alleged assaults it was clear to me that he couldn't be found guilty BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT - which is the standard in a criminal case.
 
Reminder that in Canada the verdict is "not guilty" and it is not legally the equal of "innocent."

Reporting on the trial indicated a number of things.

First and foremost that the witnesses were not only found to be credible, the trial judge found them to be dishonest. They lied and Ghomeshi's lawyer had a fairly easy time catching those lies and exposing them.

That said, the lies were never about any witness being assaulted.

The lies were about contact with Ghomeshi afterwards, had the witnesses been honest about that their entire testimony would have appeared more credible.

Given the testimony the court heard and the burden of proof required for a conviction I doubt any are truly surprised with this verdict.

What I found most surprising was the language the trial judge used to denounce each witness. It left no doubt in my mind that he found each of the witnesses to be liars.

Crown is looking into an appeal. Good luck to them. A judge finding witnesses to be less than credible is not going to win an appeal.
 
Inukshuk said:
Ghomeshi's lawyer, Marie Heinen, did her job ~ Now I wonder if she would agree to go out on a date with him...
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I've been doing some reading on her on the internet since the verdict came down. She's a fascinating woman. I snipped together some material from a few different sources:

Marie Henein was born in Lebanon and came to Canada as a very young child. She attended Osgoode Hall Law School and was a protege of Eddie Greenspan, another high profile defence attorney. She and Greenspan worked together on the trial of former Nova Scotia premier and federal cabinet minister Gerald Regan, who was facing 18 charges of sexual assault. Nine were dropped; he was acquitted on the other nine. Greenspan apparently felt betrayed when she left to start her own firm and his former colleagues have said that for months he would storm around his firm's offices when a crisis came up yelling "where the hell is Marie?" She supposedly has an enyclopedic mind when it comes to law and used to lecture as a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School without notes, roaming the classroom, citing case law and precedents, and no one ever discovered her making a mistake. She was described in Toronto Life magazine as "the smartest, toughest, scariest, most sought-after defence lawyer in the city." She once represented former Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant in a criminal case involving the death of a cyclist. She got him off. In fact, the case didn't even go to trial. She pummelled the evidence so well that the prosecutor admitted that there was no chance of a conviction and dropped the charges. But even Bryant was a little scared of her. He said that she wasn't a hand-holder; that meeting with her to go over the case was like going to boot camp. Once, when he was feeling sorry for himself, she hissed at him "I'm your lawyer, not your f-ing therapist, so get it together." Bryant said afterward that it was as if she "channelled Hannibal Lecter." Apparently she sometimes offers her services pro bono to handle appeals for people (many of them aboriginals or people with mental health issues) who had been refused legal aid and were forced to represent themselves in court and had been convicted. She wins about 20% of those appeals - apparently a pretty high percentage compared to other lawyers. Just a few days before she was hired by Ghomeshi she joked about the accusations against him in a speech: "We represent people who have committed heinous acts - acts of violence, acts of depravity, acts of cruelty. Or as Jian Ghomeshi likes to call it, foreplay." Once he hired her it was no joke. She very effectively shredded the evidence against him to pieces. She's been described as the Perry Mason of the Canadian world of defence lawyers - the one who makes prosecutors hang their heads as soon as they hear that she's handling the defence, knowing that no matter how hard they try they're going to lose to her. She takes losing very hard and obsesses over losses: "My view is that you should torture yourself if you lose because the stakes are so high. For your client, it's their life." But she takes on cases even if she's not convinced she can win because she believes in the principle that everyone deserves a fair trial and an aggressive defence. Unlike some lawyers who actively try to stay out of court by working on plea bargains, she relishes the courtroom - she says herself that she's like a" junkie" who needs "a fix" if she hasn't been in court for a while. Apparently when she argues a case other defence lawyers slip into the courtroom just to watch her. It's not likely that she'd date Ghomeshi, but probably not because she'd be afraid of him. I'm guessing she could kick his rear end across the city. But actually she's married (to the son of a retired United Church minister) and she has two children. Once asked how she balanced work with family she snapped, "You just do it. You’re going to f--k up, but I wish women would stop beating themselves up about not being the perfect wife and mother. It’s all part of the bulls--t Cinderella story.”

If I ever get in trouble with the law, I want her as my lawyer.

Here's a poster she once used to advertise her law firm. She's the one seated in the middle in case you couldn't tell:

henein-hutchison.jpg
 
revsdd said:
Here's a poster she once used to advertise her law firm. She's the one seated in the middle in case you couldn't tell:

henein-hutchison.jpg
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Looks more like the cast of some TV legal show (LA Law 2016 or something) than a real law firm. :D She does sound like a real-life version of one of those great TV lawyers, so I guess the image kind of fits.
 
Pinga said:
Wonder when the tv movie will come out.
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Not until the second trial featuring the CBC completes.

And in case anyone is interested it appears that Robin Doolittle (now with the Globe and Mail) who was part of the investigative team that blew open another story of notoriety. Claims to have interviews with several other women claiming to be victims of Ghomeshi.

Is it true?

Who knows.

Remember the last time someone of celebrity claimed Doolittle way lying?

Anyone nobody is making a movie about Ghomeshi until he is found not guilty or guilty in the next round.
 
There's also the small matter of the Crown having 30 days to file an appeal of this one.
 
Mendalla said:
There's also the small matter of the Crown having 30 days to file an appeal of this one.
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Yes, but you can't just file an appeal because you disagree with the ruling. You have to be able to point to an error in law made by the judge. Most of the early commentary from so-called "experts" seems to believe the judge did a good job and presented a solid ruling.
 
revsdd said:
Yes, but you can't just file an appeal because you disagree with the ruling. You have to be able to point to an error in law made by the judge. Most of the early commentary from so-called "experts" seems to believe the judge did a good job and presented a solid ruling.
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I agree, but it wouldn't be the first time they've found some picky detail to go after anyway. The "experts" aren't the ones handling the case. I wouldn't say "no" until the 30 days is up.
 
revsdd said:
Yes, but you can't just file an appeal because you disagree with the ruling. You have to be able to point to an error in law made by the judge. Most of the early commentary from so-called "experts" seems to believe the judge did a good job and presented a solid ruling.
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Which is why some are suggesting that the Judge really wanted to fix his verdict on the fact that the witnesses failed to be credible.

Sucky witnesses is not grounds for appeal because no appeal court, not having sat through the trial and heard the testimony, is going to say that the Judge was way off base finding the testimony to be flawed. Particularly when the witnesses were caught lying. All of them. Multiple times and over things like have any of you been communicating with each other.

Witness testimony was a farce.
 
One of the challenges is that the testimony was proven false on many areas other than the one of the actual crime....but...there were only two witnesses to the crime, the defendant and the victim. When the victim is deemed not credible on everything else and the defendant is not required to testify (which is part of our justice system), then, the case is basically toast.
 
Seelerman and I heard the news while travelling in the car. Started discussing - and the discussion got heated. Agreed to disagree and not discuss it further.

I wonder how many men support Ghomeshi; and how many women are upset, frightened, disgusted with this verdict.
 
Pinga said:
One of the challenges is that the testimony was proven false on many areas other than the one of the actual crime
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Which is true. The problem being that "beyond reasonable doubt" asks anyone with power to render a verdict to assess the truthfulness of the testimony presented. How many lies can you spin about simple little things before folk wonder about your credibility in bigger things?

Did you seek contact with the accused after the incident? No.
What are all these e-mails then? Uhhhhhhhhh.
Are you not asking to get together with the accused? Wellllllll.
Do you want to change your answer to the first question? Pardon?

Damaged witness.

With three witnesses maybe one can be a dud and you can still get enough testimony for a conviction. But when all three are caught in flagrant lies, particularly when two were discussing their testimony with each other and lied about it you would need a miracle for a conviction.

The court did not find Ghomeshi innocent of all charges.

The court found that based on the testimony of untrustworthy witnesses there was no way to move beyond reasonable doubt and thus the defendant is found not guilty.

If the witnesses had honestly commented on their activity it would still have been problematic. You couldn't find any grounds not to trust them.

They lied. And the crown couldn't build a sufficient case why their lies actually make them credible.
 
Mendalla said:
Looks more like the cast of some TV legal show (LA Law 2016 or something) than a real law firm. :D She does sound like a real-life version of one of those great TV lawyers, so I guess the image kind of fits.
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I actually recall a discussion about that, I think about that very picture! Not sure where, but it came up in the last few years.
 
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