JUSTICE DRAMA TO PLAY OUT IN POLITICAL ARENA
Experts stress due process as more women come forward
Due process must be followed in the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, legal experts say, as sexual misconduct allegations mount against the judge.
“Any time you do have accusations of crimes or serious crimes, it doesn’t matter what the context is — our constitution presumes someone innocent,” said Boston defense attorney Brad Bailey, a former state and federal prosecutor. “The presumption of innocence of anyone accused of a crime must be upheld.”
Kavanaugh, 53, and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says he tried to force himself on her 36 years ago, are due to testify today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
While innocence must be presumed, Bailey said, because this is a political process unfolding outside the courts, it will be up to individual senators — and the citizens watching on TV — to choose their own burden of proof. Some might want to see guilt proven beyond doubt, while others might be willing to vote Kavanaugh down on a significantly lesser standard.
Kavanaugh continues to resolutely deny the allegations from Ford — and others from Deborah Ramirez, Julie Swetnick and a fourth, as-yet anonymous, woman.
Ford is the only accuser scheduled to testify today, on her allegation that Kavanaugh groped her in 1982 when they were both teenagers in Maryland. Ford hasn’t been able to say the location or the date of the incident. The other people who she says were at the party have not corroborated her story, though several people say she told them about these allegations in recent years.
Defense attorney Will Korman, a former Suffolk County prosecutor who now often works with people accused of sexual assault, said Kavanaugh should withdraw in the face of this many accusations.
“I don’t know how anyone with a straight face can say it’s not a credible accusation,” Korman said of Ford’s claims. “Why would she make the allegation against this guy seven years ago? One of the things you look for is whether there’s corroboration. That’s corroboration — it means she didn’t invent this when she found out Judge Kavanaugh was a nominee to the Supreme Court.”
Also accusing Kavanaugh is Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh thrust his genitals in her face at a college party — a claim also uncorroborated by witnesses she identified, while she herself has acknowledged uncertainty. Yesterday, Swetnick, represented by Trump foe attorney Michael Avenatti, didn’t allege assault against
herself but said she’d seen Kavanaugh commit drunken sexual misconduct during the early 1980s.
Last night, news leaked that senators looked into a fourth accusation, in which a woman claimed she saw a drunken Kavanaugh assault a woman they had just had dinner with outside a Washington restaurant.
Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz, speaking earlier yesterday, said all the first three accusations have problems. Of Swetnick’s allegation, Dershowitz said, “It’s a scandalously imprecise affidavit. Any lawyer would be able to tear it to shreds from a legal standpoint.”
Boston-based civil-rights attorney Harvey Silverglate said that people on both sides of the issue have already made their minds up heading into the hearing — and any changes in public opinion are unlikely to sway Senate votes either way.
“Proof has nothing to do with it,” Silverglate said. “If you think the Republicans are going to feel they have to deal with pubic opinion on this, I bet you’re wrong.”
Silverglate said he would vote against Kavanaugh because he disagrees with his legal positions — but does not believe these allegations from so long ago should have sway in either direction.