Schapelle - fair trial?
These days, it isn't fashionable to be a Schapelle Corby supporter.
People are sick of it. Or she must be guilty because her brother James did something stupid. And her Dad's former next-door neighbour is facing marijuana charges. And anyway there are worse things happening in the world so it's time to move on.
I'm going to do a number of posts over time to outline my views about some of this stuff, but let's start with the question of why I became a Schapelle supporter in the first place.
I guess there are two dimensions to that question:
(1) Why care about her at all?
(2) In a world of appalling natural disasters, African children being boiled alive, millions of people starving in poverty, political activists disappearing in the night, glaciers melting and species on the edge of extinction why care about Schapelle in particular. A valid question, but I'll talk about that some other day.
I support Schapelle because she didn’t get a fair trial, because the sentence she received was outrageous even if she were guilty and because she may be innocent.
But in a single post, I’ve only got space to address the ‘fair trial’ aspect. I’ll talk about the other stuff later.
My concern with the trial is that it failed to redress the appalling treatment of evidence by the arresting authorities. On the night of her arrest, Schapelle asked for all of the bags to be weighed for which she was holding a luggage tag. The authorities laughed at her request and refused to do it. She also asked that the authorities stop handling the bag of marijuana so as not to contaminate fingerprint evidence. Again the only response was laughter. In a capital case, they laughed at her!
The courts and many commentators have made light of this. They have said that the evidence against Schapelle was strong enough that there was no need to gather further evidence. Yet I contend that the evidence they allowed to be contaminated or failed to collect was the only evidence capable of clearing her. Detractors seem to be fond of pointing out that she failed to provide evidence to support her claims of innocence. Yet clearly, she has been denied the possibility of doing so by the shonky handling of critical evidence by the Indonesians.
And that evidence really did have the capacity to lead to a not guilty verdict. We know that the weight of luggage for which she held tags was 65kg at check-in at Brisbane airport. If the weight in Bali had been 69.1kg, she would have been enjoying the rest of her holiday within a few days.
In the case of the fingerprint evidence, detractors are quick to claim that the absence of Schapelle's prints would have proved nothing. And they're right. But the presence of somebody else's prints, particularly those of a known criminal, a Bali Customs Officer or an Australian baggage handler, would have at least given her a good chance at trial. We'll never know!
In my view, the only fair redress, for what was a blatant disregard for her legal rights, was for the trial judges to have refused to admit the cannabis bag as evidence. Yet the trial judgment talks of the defence ‘making much of small things’. Hardly! The only evidence that could reasonably have led to her being found not guilty was deliberately contaminated or not collected. That is a very big thing.
People are sick of it. Or she must be guilty because her brother James did something stupid. And her Dad's former next-door neighbour is facing marijuana charges. And anyway there are worse things happening in the world so it's time to move on.
I'm going to do a number of posts over time to outline my views about some of this stuff, but let's start with the question of why I became a Schapelle supporter in the first place.
I guess there are two dimensions to that question:
(1) Why care about her at all?
(2) In a world of appalling natural disasters, African children being boiled alive, millions of people starving in poverty, political activists disappearing in the night, glaciers melting and species on the edge of extinction why care about Schapelle in particular. A valid question, but I'll talk about that some other day.
I support Schapelle because she didn’t get a fair trial, because the sentence she received was outrageous even if she were guilty and because she may be innocent.
But in a single post, I’ve only got space to address the ‘fair trial’ aspect. I’ll talk about the other stuff later.
My concern with the trial is that it failed to redress the appalling treatment of evidence by the arresting authorities. On the night of her arrest, Schapelle asked for all of the bags to be weighed for which she was holding a luggage tag. The authorities laughed at her request and refused to do it. She also asked that the authorities stop handling the bag of marijuana so as not to contaminate fingerprint evidence. Again the only response was laughter. In a capital case, they laughed at her!
The courts and many commentators have made light of this. They have said that the evidence against Schapelle was strong enough that there was no need to gather further evidence. Yet I contend that the evidence they allowed to be contaminated or failed to collect was the only evidence capable of clearing her. Detractors seem to be fond of pointing out that she failed to provide evidence to support her claims of innocence. Yet clearly, she has been denied the possibility of doing so by the shonky handling of critical evidence by the Indonesians.
And that evidence really did have the capacity to lead to a not guilty verdict. We know that the weight of luggage for which she held tags was 65kg at check-in at Brisbane airport. If the weight in Bali had been 69.1kg, she would have been enjoying the rest of her holiday within a few days.
In the case of the fingerprint evidence, detractors are quick to claim that the absence of Schapelle's prints would have proved nothing. And they're right. But the presence of somebody else's prints, particularly those of a known criminal, a Bali Customs Officer or an Australian baggage handler, would have at least given her a good chance at trial. We'll never know!
In my view, the only fair redress, for what was a blatant disregard for her legal rights, was for the trial judges to have refused to admit the cannabis bag as evidence. Yet the trial judgment talks of the defence ‘making much of small things’. Hardly! The only evidence that could reasonably have led to her being found not guilty was deliberately contaminated or not collected. That is a very big thing.
posted by True Blue at 5:28 am
2 Comments:
Excellent post, True Blue. I am disappointed to hear that supporting Miss Schapelle is "unfashionable" in some places -- I would hope people would step back from such a superficial "what does the crowd think" view and examine the facts as you have done.
In my country ( USA) we are not inundated with news about Schapelle Corby; I saw her on television only once, standing in a bank line watching a cable news station I don't get at home. I had never heard of her and did not in fact catch her name at the time, just her nationality -- had to go home and google on "Australian drug charge Indonesia" to track down the story. I can't remember when a news story - other than Sept. 11 - has moved me more deeply. One reason for this is that it is ongoing, it does not have the wrap-up that we get with most tragedies on the news, the sort of "that's awful, that's over, that's that" feeling that most of us get from hearing about plane crashes or tornadoes. Those kind of stories make me wonder why I watch the news at all, since they just play on our emotions while giving us nothing constructive to do, which only makes us cynical. But this case is so different. I find myself thinking of Schapelle at unexpected times at any hour of the day or night, wondering what she is doing or how she is feeling at a particular moment. She is so obviously innocent, the "case" against her so Twilight Zone-crazy, for all the reasons you have articulated and for several others. I have never heard a good explanation of the MOTIVE for the alleged crime - why anyone would buy marijuana in Australia and smuggle it into Indonesia where it could be sold for far less than the smuggler paid for it. Few smugglers would choose commercial air travel as the best avenue for smuggling; it is in fact the worst because of the high security associated with all modern airports. And surely no one who had ever gone through customs before would imagine that he could simply walk through undetected with a large bundle of mj unconcealed in a transparent plastic bag. We used to have an amusing cable tv show called "America's Dumbest Criminals" which I enjoyed, and which convinced me that the dumbest criminals in this country are the dumbest in the world, for whatever that's worth - but no criminal anywhere is THAT stupid. Does it bother any of Miss Schapelle's detractors that she is the ONLY person ever "caught" doing what she is alleged to have done in that way, in an airport? Or that in 500 previous cases her three judges had never found anyone innocent of anything? Cleaarly if this could happen to her it could happen to anyone, and while I have a sister Schapelle's age I do not often think "what if it were her?" but rather "what if it were me?" - could I exhibit the same kind of character and conduct that she has exhibited in her situation? NO WAY - I am in awe of her courage, her strenth, her graciousness as this horrible inhustice stretches on and on, one day at a time. In her place I would long since have told the authorities whatever they wanted to hear, even told them to shoot me and be done with it.
Australia could not have a better living representative of all that is best in your country, but this cannot be merely an Australian issue or an issue for people with a particular political viewpoint. I know nothing of Australian politics and am not a "lefty" however loosely that term is defined - I am something of a libertarian in economic matters but strictly a law and order conservative when it comes to morals. This case is not about drug legalization ( which I am against) not about national sovereignty ( which I believe in), not about what the penalties for real drug mules should be. It is rather about the rule of law, a law above the king or the temporary majority, a law based on God's law as written in His word and in every human conscience. Regardless of our personal preferences or politics we all KNOW what has happened to Schapelle is wrong, unless we are being deliberately obtuse. And it is a clear call for all of us who say we care to prove it by remaining steadfast for as long as it takes -- to continue praying for and writing to the gallant and gentle one, and reminding the authorities that we still care about her, until she is home.
Thanks for your comments, Desert Rat. Great to have intelligent thoughtful support from the USA. I'd direct you to the Spirit of Schapelle forum (as per by links) but Ithink you've found it already. But it'd be great to hear more from you on the forum as well. Thanks again.
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