Emeraldlady:
Bradskii:
Lion_IRC:
Cardinal Pell is prejudged by the court as being so arrogant that he must have thought he could get away with anything, anytime, anywhere.
Where on earth is the evidence for that?
That was the Judges conclusion having systematically ruled out other reasons for this isolated, unconcealed, spontaneous, out of character sex attack.
There is not one person could be found who has known Cardinal Pell over 45 years of public life, who could provide propensity evidence to support that conclusion. I believe the Judge was pointing out publicly that there really is
no conclusion that can credibly explain the behaviour that Pell was convicted of. It highlights how many black and white facts normally influencing a verdict were dispensed with.
Well, it was found proven beyond reasonable doubt that Pell DID do this ‘isolated, unconcealed, spontaneous, out-of-character sex attack’. The judge could not speak as if Pell had not done the deeds. It was not his role either to give a separate verdict as to guilt (which was for the jury alone to do), nor to express doubt about the verdict (which is for the appeals court).
And isolated, unconcealed, spontaneous, seemingly out-of-character crimes of all sorts do happen, sex attacks included, very rare though they be. I say ‘seemingly’ because of course none of us really are 24/7 observers of any other person, so we none of us can say conclusively that we know their true character.
Absent other motives - such as sudden onset mental illness, drug use or some such - which would have been open to his defence lawyers to raise both at trial and sentencing if they could - what motives are left for someone to possibly do such a thing? More or less only those the judge has outlined.
