Under our Constitution, every American is innocent until proven guilty.
I am currently not implicated in any of hundreds of crimes that have recently been committed in the towns and cities I live near. If my attorney were to be asked, he would say that the police have not found any evidence implicating me in any of them.
I guess someone who plays with words, like you, could say I'm a suspect in every one of those crimes, because although the police haven't found any evidence implicating me, they also haven't yet released a statement exonerating me.
Eh. I was accusing the lawyer of playing with words, not playing with them myself.
Now I don’t think the cadet was guilty of anything more than at most wandering around aimlessly while under the influence, when he wandered into what Ms. LaBelle’s people perceived as her space.
The police saying “We don’t have any evidence that he picked a fight,” is not the same as saying, “The evidence shows that Ms. LaBelle’s bodyguards made an unprovoked attack upon him.” Which is what exoneration would be, and should be followed by criminal charges against the bodyguards.
We’re not really talking about the criminal law standard of presumed innocence here. We’re talking about West Point judging what conduct is befitting an officer and a gentleman, and their standards are not nearly so protective of the accused as criminal law is.
And that said, I think anti-white pro-black PC racism and Ms LaBelle’s celebrity influenced West Point’s original decision and I am glad the cadet has been reinstated. I just do not care for attorneys’ weasel wording even though that is their job.
Re my previous reply: “Exonerated” was Aunt Polgara’s term, which I felt went rather too far.
The attorney said “not implicated,” and I shouldn’t have accused him of weasel wording.
Please note, AP, I’m not saying you were weasel wording, just taking it a little far.
Polgara - is that from that foot-thick multi-volume fantasy by Eddings?