In a news article in the Times-News it was announced that all the charges were dropped against Sonny Alt. Not only were the charges dismissed, they were dismissed with prejudice. Prejudice implies coming to a judgement on the subject based on false beliefs.
Many people in the community believed all along that Sonny Alt was falsely accused, now the court system seems to agree. Sonny falls in the same category as the Duke Lacrosse Team. Where does he go to get his reputation back? Who do you ask to fix all the damage done to his reputation by the false accusations?
What about the voters, how should they respond? In 2004 Sonny Alt was elected to serve a 6-year term as County Clerk, so now we have disenfranchised voters because he was removed from office based on false accusations.
There were people in Mineral County ready to tar and feather Sonny based on rumor and hearsay, but in today's world you get tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. Mike Nifong even when he knew the accusations were false, refused to drop the case of apologize. The Duke Lacrosse team eventually got a public apology from the North Carolina Attorney General, because he did the honorable thing when when nobody else would. Who will be the first in Mineral County government to do the honorable thing and publicly apologize to Sonny Alt for the damage done to his reputation?
Interesting question Gary, and, unfortunately, there are no easy answers. You mention the Duke LaCrosse team, still trying to recover from all the false charges placed on them. In fact, because of the circumstances beyond their control, Duke has petitioned the NCAA to give the entire team another year of eligibility. No ruling yet. That, however, is simple, compared to something like this, where apologies don't come so easily, and there's no guarantee that it'll get the same kind of press that the initial allegations did. He'll be stuck with it for a long time, as, even if an apology of proferred by those who accused him initially, the lack of press will make it near impossible to get to all those who heard, and beleived the initial rumor, and therefore, they'll continue to think Sonny's guilty as charged.
ReplyDeleteThe news business looks for what makes a good story, and, apologies don't. Sad state of affairs, but, it's the sad truth about the media.