He blew her shit away
Now that would be funny, if the judge had stated that. I'd have more respect for her if she had.
Colloquial maybe, but at least you are in touch with reality and have the intuition to observe that something wasn't quite right.
I understand the innocent until proven guilty rule as millions are innocent and perhaps only one is guilty. To then pick a suspect and say he is guilty until proven innocent, would be totally nuts.
....
However, the
burden of proof itself, is the problem here I believe. The judge is constrained by the law.
The problem with the justice system/s, is that they don't allow the
burden of proof to
shift, they instead FIX it in place even if the facts of the cases differ greatly from one another.
Logically this is a problem, because in a case such as the Pistorius case, we have
strange circumstances that lead to a genuine
rational incredulity. And logically, the burden exists to be placed upon the claim that is most incredulous/fantastical/not plausible/silly/improbable/incredible. Otherwise it should at least be equalized, because one party is claiming he murdered and another party is claiming he didn't, but the strange facts themselves show that he was DIRECTLY INVOLVED.
Think about it - it has nothing to do with the positive or negative, it has everything to do with the claim that runs counter to
reality. If someone said, "prove you are human", they would
have to prove I am not even though they are requesting I prove something, so the burden would be upon THEM because of REALITY.
For example, the reason you don't have to prove Christ rose from the grave as an atheist, is because the claim is fantastic. The burden of proof is upon me to prove it.
AXIOM: "The greater a claim, the greater the evidence must be to support it."
The burden-of-proof should always be placed upon the claim running counter to reality, probability, plausibility, etc...IMHO, for the sake of fairness.
With the Pistorius-case, I would say there are enough facts for the burden to be
equalized which would obviously mean that both the defense and prosecution would have to equally prove their claims, respectively, and the best theory to fit the facts would then, "win", so to speak. But this rule could only apply
depending on the circumstances of each case. For example, if you were being prosecuted based only on tenuous, circumstantial evidence, then the burden should be on the prosecutors. Example, "you were seen in the area of the crime".
That's my opinion. I could be wrong but I think it makes sense - some stories people give are utterly counter to reality, they should also have to prove their silly stories. (Dr A would love to get me here and say, "like the resurrection!!" - but don't be opportunist, I am being honest, isn't it enough that I admit that the burden is upon me?)
I don't think the resurrection is silly, I am not saying that, I am only saying that claims that go against the inductions that have been observed to churn out the same results forever and a day, don't need to "prove themselves". We accept oxygen, germ-theory, gravity, et al. It is merely
reasonable for someone to ask we prove or heavily evidence a fantastic claim.
Chances are he was guilty in this case, if we estimate based on the facts. Objectively, all the people I have asked would not pump bullets into a door if someone was behind it, no matter if panicked. The power of having a gun in ones hand gives them the power to threaten and make a loud warning-noise, that alone would be enough to stop people shooting at a door that is closed, meaning there is no threat except behind the door, locked away. It makes
ZERO rational sense.
Alas, mine is but one opinion, perhaps of little worth. Sorry for rambling.