Non-Jury (Bench) Trial

A non-jury or "bench" trial is when the judge, rather than a jury, decides guilt or innocence. The defendant (Nickel), though he now bitterly regrets this decision, did in fact choose to go with a bench trial. Why? He believed that a judge would be more objective, and not easily inflamed by the nature of the charges and other extraneous issues. He was, clearly, quite wrong.

Perversion of Justice

Is deliberately finding someone guilty of things he did not do ever justified? If we convict people for acts of child sexual abuse that never happened, does that somehow 'make up' for all the past abuse that went completely unpunished? Is it okay to pervert justice in order to punish people wrongly perceived as perverts?

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