Terry Mitchell

The British Have One Thing Right



Posted: Wednesday, June 23, 2010

by Terry Mitchell
http://commenterry.blogs.com

We Americans should adopt the British rule of law which bans pre-trial publicity or news reporting about any pending criminal case. All too often in this country, people are tried and convicted in the media long before their cases are argued in a court of law. It is practically impossible for those people to get a fair trial. That's a crying shame.

I understand the fact that a free press is a key tenet of any free nation, but should it come at the expense of anyone's right to the presumption of innocence? Which is more important? My sense of common decency tells me that, when weighed in the balance, the latter should always take priority.

The press would have plenty of opportunity to report on the case once the trial is over and a verdict has been reached, or when the accused pleads guilty to the charges or accepts a plea bargain. But before that point, they and everyone else should just hold their peace.

Terry Mitchell is a software engineer, freelance writer, amateur political analyst, and blogger from Virginia, USA. He posts a least one article a day to his blog - http://commenterry.blogs.com - on subjects such as current events, politics, technology, society and culture, religion, health and well-being, self improvement, personal finance, trivia, and sports.

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