More on Sherry Ann Duncan

[Brink15]

CHANG NOI (Is this our own Chang Noi?)

 

 

 

The court of public opinion

 

16 April 2001

 

 

 

In two high-profile court cases over recent weeks, the accused have effectively been tried and condemned by the media. Both cases are sensational. One has a murder victim sliced into bits. The other has 14-year old girls lured into sex by offers of lots of money. The accused in the first case is a respected doctor, in the second, the ex-deputy president of the Senate. Blood, sex and big people is a sure-fire formula for attracting readers and viewers.

 

But the reporting of these two cases has gone beyond simple sensationalism. Some media have reported the evidence as if they were the prosecuting attorneys. Editorial writers in some newspapers have described the accused in the first case as a ?murderer? without qualifying with words like ?suspected? or ?alleged?. Debate around the senator has generally assumed his guilt. In the court of public opinion, the two accused are now guilty until proved innocent.

 

But it would be wrong to heap blame on the media. They are simply reflecting public opinion. What distinguishes these two cases?apart from the gut sensationalism?is that the accused are people in positions of high status. There are good reasons to fear that the courts will not deliver justice in cases where the accused have high social standing, political position, or just plain lots of money. Conviction in the court of public opinion is an attempt to preempt failure in the formal judicial process. This is just another example of the new public assertiveness which has grown enormously since the early 1990s, and which Thailand?s formal institutions still do now know how to handle.

 

The police too are important figures in this court of public opinion. It is they who make the evidence available to the ?prosecuting journalists? and the ?public judges?. For many years, the front pages of the popular dailies have served as virtual court rooms. More recently, this practice has spread to the television news. Large portions of the nightly broadcasts are now taken up with senior policemen offering evidence to the camera. Perhaps it is good for general police PR (we?re doing a good job). Perhaps too it helps in the competition for promotions. But perhaps mainly it?s a tactic to reduce the chances that a case will derail after it is handed over from police to judiciary.

 

Consider the history which encourages the court of public opinion to act in this hasty way. The current murder case inevitably recalls the famous case of Sherry Ann Duncan. In 1986, a 16-year old girl was strangled and dumped in a field. Four construction workers were arrested and convicted. Eleven years later?by which time two were dead and one disabled?their conviction was overturned. The ?godmother of Patpong? was then accused of ordering the killing because Sherry had pinched her boyfriend. The godmother was found guilty in two lower courts, but escaped on appeal. In an extraordinary judgement, the higher court accepted the hitman?s confession, but rejected his claim that the godmother had hired him. The case left behind a heap of questions about the conduct of police and judiciary.

 

Because the accused is a senator, the sex scandal recalls the many cases against ministers, MPs and their relatives in recent years. Initially these people are suspected of smuggling cars, manufacturing illegal CDs, beating up people in pubs, manipulating land laws, encroaching on forests, building houses from illegal timber, gerrymandering elections, running over policemen, or consorting with gangsters. But as the investigations proceed, witnesses suddenly suffer from instant and total amnesia, police lose enthusiasm, prosecutors lose files, and judges dismiss the cases ?for want of evidence?. The pattern is so regular it qualifies as ?tradition?.

 

Fears that the two current cases might go the same route are far from unfounded. In the murder case, lots of socially powerful people leapt forward to deliver character references for the accused, before the sheer grisliness of the evidence reduced them to silence. In the sex scandal, the key witnesses were allegedly offered amnesia-inducing sums of money. Traditions persist.

 

In a national survey of household heads last year, 31 percent of those who had been involved in court cases reported they had been asked for a bribe. In half the cases where the amount of the bribe was specified, the recipient was a public prosecutor. Others included police, judges, court officials, and agents offering to ?arrange everything?. The estimated total money involved was over 3 billion baht a year.

 

But the same survey found people believe that most public prosecutors are honest, that by a narrow margin the judicial system deserved the public?s trust, and that among the whole spectrum of official institutions the judiciary is relatively uncorrupt. The fact of lots of bribe solicitation and the perception of honesty might seem mutually contradictory. But perhaps there is an explanation. People think the judicial system works quite well most of the time. But not when it involves the rich and powerful.

 

Since the early 1990s, people have become more and more assertive about their rights, less and less tolerant of the abuses of power and privilege which were once hallowed by tradition. People go out to vote, stand guard over the count, sign petitions, march in demonstrations, block roads, and push for political change. The media react to this popular sentiment. They cover elections in numbing detail, treat protest leaders like celebrities, and expose corruption on candid camera. The rise of the ?court of public opinion? is part of this trend. At base, it?s a signal of the public?s doubt whether the judicial system can cope with the rich and powerful.

 

A few days ago, Thaksin asked the media not to act as prosecutors and judges in his assets case. Please leave this work to the constitutional court, he said. But as one of the richest and most powerful figures in the country, he cannot escape. The court of public opinion is in session.

[Khun_Kong]

Brink15 said:<big snip> A few days ago, Thaksin asked the media not to act as prosecutors and judges in his assets case. Please leave this work to the constitutional court, he said. But as one of the richest and most powerful figures in the country, he cannot escape . The court of public opinion is in session.

 

Well, they got that one wrong, didn't they?

[changnoi]

CHANG NOI (Is this our own Chang Noi?)

 

In a word: No.

 

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