BREAKING NEWS: David Swain Wins Appeal Against Murder Conviction

[VooDooGasMan]

There are more than a million murders running around freed from prison right now. david has done his time, Invested his money over it, the citizens have invested money In it. At some point the judicial system has reformed this person, guilty or not guilty.

David Swain is now another tax paying american, and if he is habitual it will show up later on.

This person that has left his life is a lifetime inprisonment, that will never leave or go away.

It would not surprize me if he never experiences underwater again.

 

[txaggie08]

Some of you really need to take a look at the difference in the burden of proof set forward by civil vs criminal trials.

I personally know of an officer(not at my department) who was assessed civil penalties through a civil trial for allegations of misconduct, even though there is verifiable video evidence he was not in the same COUNTY as the defendant. The judge in the civil trial excluded video evidence, kept other officers from testifying, and allowed a person who had been convicted of perjuring themselves to the police to testify for the defense....


Civil trials are NOT indications of guilt

 

[vladimir]

Civil trials are NOT indications of guilt

Civil trial verdicts are not determinations of criminal guilt.

To ignore the verdict of a civil trial would just be silly. We are not bound by the rules of evidence. This is not a trial--the trials are (probably) over. We aren't judges or jurors. In forming our own opinions of his actual guilt or innocence (no amateur lawyering--did he do it? would you let him date your sister?), the civil verdict certainly is an indication.

indication

— n
1.	something that serves to indicate or suggest; sign: an indication of foul play

 

[txaggie08]

You really didn't read the justification I gave behind that assertion did you? Civil trials are bought and paid for, usually by one side or the other. It has been proven over and over again, and will continue to be that way until discovery and evidenciary reforms are imposed in civil courts.

Please understand that until about 4 hours ago I had no idea who this man was or that this trial had occurred. I'm simply stating a fact that allowing the outcome of a civil trial to be the lone basis for propping up a guilty argument is circular reasoning, "I want therefore I find evidence it is".

I work in law enforcement, and I will tell you that from the time i take the 911 call in, to the time it goes to trial, the story typically never even resembles what's given, and the crap the media releases is usually skewed at least 90* off the truth.

This man may be guilty as sin, he may be innocent. Certainly he would be my primary suspect in the initial investigation, but unless there's a significant amount of evidence not being reported on, he likely would have never been indicted in the US

 

[nolatom]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he sit out all or most his civil trial, put on no evidence of his own, and not attend much of it? Now one could draw opposing conclusions about this (no defense because he had none, or no defense because he had no money for one, while decedents family did) but it is much less an "indication' to me than would have been a contest between equally solvent and participating parties. Civil trials can be much more about "winning" vice "ultimate truth", in practice.

Not saying the result was right or wrong. Could've been same result with the best (and most expensive) expert witnesses from *both* sides? I don't know that.

 

[AfterDark]

You are correct, IMO that is where this case came unraveled. Swain didn’t take the civil trial serious enough and then not fighting extradition to BVI. He had too much faith in the system. Better to have delayed what turned out to be a farce of a trial in the BVI. The system eventually worked for him but took the long away around.

 

[Dadvocate]

Civil trial verdicts are not determinations of criminal guilt… [T]he civil verdict certainly is an indication

Thanks for the clarification. The problem is that this little semantics game is getting us nowhere.

Indications of the “suggest” variety you have proffered can be and often are very misleading in reality. Humanity has strived in several fields of study (including criminology) to help us transcend our kneejerk reactions to life and to help us create better ways of determining truth.

One can look outside at the wonderful world around us and see signs that indicate the world is flat.

When looking at how the Yankees line up against the Tigers in this year’s ALDS, indications are that the Yankees should win fairly easily.

A friend of mine found out he is sick, even tough the tests he’d had only a few weeks earlier indicated that he was fine. Wrong tests unfortunately.

Indications are a place to begin a bigger investigation, something with more teeth, where truth proclamations are withheld until such time as research can be done.

A criminal court case would still have to go through the arduous process of actually proving (reasonably speaking) that Swain had a hand in Shelley Tyre’s death.

And appealing to the knowledge of a jury in a civil matter, well that is just fraught with all kinds of pitfalls, especially where our sport is concerned. How many divers were sitting on the panel in that civil suit?

Whatever anyone’s presumptions about Swain’s innocence or guilt, the fact remains that his original “trial” never met the burden it needed to in order to come to the conclusion some people are willing to jump to, including the biased judged who essentially poisoned the well which led to him being set free. This after officials completely botched the job earlier on in collecting evidence.

As others have already said, Swain’s guilt has never really been established. And given the egregious errors made, finding out in any way that remotely approaches a deterministic outcome is probably out of the question.

Cheers!

 

[vladimir]

You really didn't read the justification I gave behind that assertion did you?

I read your anecdote that, apparently, in your estimation, casts doubt upon the legitimacy of every civil court in the United States. Pardon me if I don't place the same weight on it as you do.

Certainly he would be my primary suspect in the initial investigation

So the civil verdict would be enough of an indication for you to make him your primary suspect, but it's not enough of an indication for me to form a preliminary opinion for the purposes of an internet discussion. Got it.

 

[vladimir]

Thanks for the clarification. The problem is that this little semantics game is getting us nowhere.

Where did you expect this discussion to get us? Somewhere that a civil trial in the United States and a criminal trial in Tortola couldn't? Good luck with that.

 

[Dadvocate]

Where did you expect this discussion to get us? Somewhere that a civil trial in the United States and a criminal case in Tortola couldn't? Good luck with that.

Is that a rhetorical question? It must be because you went ahead and answered it for yourself.

You did note that I don’t think a determination can be made either way on Swain’s actual guilt or innocence, right? So thinking this discussion is going to accomplish your flight of fancy above must be you projecting your assumptions on me.

Regardless of the obviously less-than-ideal realities related to this case, discussions on truisms and on the larger spectrum of jurisprudence are still germane and can at least be internally consistent.

Do you disagree?