From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of JAY JG Sent: Monday, 5 December 2005 09:43 To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] David Hager is listed as convicted rapist
From: Matt Brown morven@gmail.com
I responded to this user previously on the helpdesk. The
issue is that
David Hager was accused of marital rape by his former wife,
who got an
article published in The Nation about this, among other places. Thus the allegations, true or not, are documented and citable, and thus cannot be removed as unsourced attacks.
However, he should NOT be listed in any categories that imply he has been convicted of a crime, because he has not.
I've been have a months-long debate with another editor on this topic. I've been stating that we include people in "Criminals" categories if they have been convicted of a crime by an independent judiciary. The other editor insists that we have to decide (by some means) whether or not they have actually committed a crime, conviction is not enough a good enough yardstick. I'd be interested in other thoughts here.
Prisons are full of innocent people. Just ask them.
If a person has not admitted a crime, then it may be that they did not do it and the legal system made a mistake. It happens. Or that the prosecution case accepted by judge and jury was inaccurate. Or the defence was incompetent. Or that the convicted criminal has rationalised his crime in his own mind to something else, something justifiable.
How can we possibly know?
If a person had admitted guilt, then there is no problem. We may describe them as a criminal. But if they maintained their innocence and were found guilty instead of pleading guilty, then we should use conventional phrasing to indicate this, by describing someone as a convicted rapist, rather than a rapist.
In a case like marital rape, where much of the evidence would neccesarily revolve around the conflicting statements of the two participants of an act presumably performed in private, then how could we know what did or did not take place? We know that he was found guilty of rape, we don't know if he did it. Best to stick to the facts.
Peter (Skyring)