Just for fun, try this little game with me today:
Take everything you've read about the Ghomeshi case as it relates to presumption of innocence, balance of probabilities, and reasonable doubt -- all the articles, tweets, facebook posts, commentaries and columns. Collect them up and let them float around in your head for a few seconds. Got 'em in there? Good.
Now, replace the charge of sexual assault with impaired driving and do a gut-check on your reaction. Does it change anything? Why or why not?
Those accused of drunk driving automatically lose their licence for a week. Their car is impounded before they ever see the inside of a court house.
If they are acquitted, they do not get that week back, and they still have to pay the price of impounding the car and the tow truck fees. They might lose their job just for being accused. Their names are made public.
But, it's drunk driving, not sexual assault, so we believe the police that charge the drunks before we ever have a trial.
I'm not suggesting we take away anyone's due process; I'm saying we already have, and doing so is not as unprecedented in our legal system as some would have you believe.
Hey, I'm on TV! OK, cable. Tune in to the Penny Skelton show on Rogers 53 tomorrow to see me in fake eyelashes, talking about the fallout from the Ghomeshi case with Penny and Alison Fitzgerald, the ED of My Friends House shelter.
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