Geoffrey has hit the nail on the head here. x killed y. That much we agree on. x is accused of murder by the family of y, but the court found him innocent. The family of y think this is a travesty of justice. Mark
--- Geoffrey Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
Many years ago, I took a couple of journalism classes in college. One of the few things I remember is that when writing about unlawful activities, one must carefully use specific words to qualify the charge, such as "accused", "alleged", "indicted", & "convicted". For example:
*President Bush, alleged cocaine abuser
*The CIA allegedly sold drugs in Los Angeles to fund the Contras in Nicaraugua
*Kenneth Lay, indicted for corporate fraud
*Martha Stewart, convicted of insider trading
Note carefully that what is being asserted is not whether or not any of the people mentioned _actually_ committed the crimes, merely the opinions of a large number of people, or the official verdicts of the American legal system. And it has been documented that individuals are occasionally arrested, tried & convicted for crimes that they are later shown not to have committed -- thus we cannot assert that conviction for a crime means that it was an NPOV fact that they actualy committed that specific crime.
Also note that these phrases are based on Anglo-American law, where people are arrested, indicted by a grand jury, then found innocent or guilty by a court. I'm not sure just what the equivalent terminology in Civil Law would be. If a prosecuting judge charges someone with a crime, would it be correct to say that the person charged is indicted?
I think is a solution that would nicely fit with the rules of NPOV.
Geoff _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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