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HDPA: Justice must be respected - Spacey is innocent until proven guilty

Author
Heather du Plessis-Allan,
Publish Date
Thu, 18 Jul 2019, 4:50PM
Kevin Spacey lost work, may never work again, but he has not been proven guilty. (Photo / AP)

HDPA: Justice must be respected - Spacey is innocent until proven guilty

Author
Heather du Plessis-Allan,
Publish Date
Thu, 18 Jul 2019, 4:50PM

Today, we’ve learned again why #MeToo is dangerous.

Take a look at the case of Kevin Spacey. One of the first and biggest scalps in the #MeToo movement. He was accused of sexual assaults dating back decades, and when those allegations surfaced, he lost his career.

He was fired by Netflix, written out of the new season of House of Cards, and lost other acting jobs.

Today, the case against him fell apart. Of all the allegations against him so far, only one was recent enough and met the evidentiary threshold to actually go to court. Today, that case fell apart.

The guy who made the accusations against him lost the key piece of evidence at the last minute. He said he had proof on his phone, that he had been texting his girlfriend throughout the night that Spacey allegedly had a go at him.

And then, suddenly, the phone disappeared.

Prosecutors said he’d fiddled with the evidence, that he’d deleted messages, and reminded him that was a crime. And at that point, he refused to give any more evidence

And that was it, the case was closed.

But what about Kevin Spacey?

Here he is with no convictions. No charges pending. Nothing proven. And yet, he’s lost his jobs and his career.

Who do you think is going to hire Kevin Spacey? Even though he’s innocent,  it’ll take years before any employer touches him, if they ever do.

I’m not defending Kevin Spacey, I’m defending the principle. He has to answer for the accusations he faces, and he has a number of accusers, could be as many as 30. But the right place to answer those accusations is in court, not on Twitter.

And the justice system works like this: you don’t get punished until it’s proven, because otherwise, any one of us could be taken down as long as there are enough people saying we did something wrong.

So let me remind you, and the #MeToo movement, what the fundamentals of the western justice system are: Innocent until proven guilty.

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