A few weeks ago I spent some hours in a courtroom as a witness to injustice. On one side, an eye witness acted as the sole accuser but offered no physical evidence to back the accusation. On the other side, the accused denied the allegation, and supplied an eye witness to corroborate her denial. Theoretically, the judge sat in the middle, although soon enough, he made his leanings abundantly clear.
The case involved a woman accused by a company of violating the judge's injunction concerning her proximity to that company's operations. The company's only evidence of the alleged violation came from eye-witness testimony given by a man who works for a subcontracting outfit employed by the company, which basically makes him a second-hand employee of the company. The woman denied the allegation, and offered as evidence corroborating eye-witness testimony from a man who had been there with her. Another witness appeared on behalf of the accused, but that witness did not have complete knowledge of all that occurred during the time in question.
The only physical evidence presented at this hearing in relation to the charge was a picture taken by the company man. This picture showed the woman, not in the place where the company man claimed to have seen her, but rather, in exactly the place she had claimed to be -- in other words, the picture proved nothing.
So basically, I was looking at a case where a judge had to make a decision based solely on conflicting eye-witness testimony, with a complete lack of physical evidence. Eye-witness testimony, by itself, means nothing, and any judge worthy of the title should know that. Presumably, the judge did not know which witness was lying and which was telling the truth, so how should he have decided? If the woman in question was truly innocent until proven guilty, and the best the company could offer as proof of an accusation was the testimony of a single eye witness, in conflict with the testimony of the accused and her corroborating eye witness, then I don't know how a judge could decide that the company had proven that accusation beyond a reasonable doubt, but of course, that is what the judge decided.
Welcome to the latest episode in the ongoing campaign by Cabot Oil and Gas to keep Vera Scroggins from showing the world what they and other frackers are actually doing in her slice of northern PA. Even if I didn't know Vera personally, I know who I would be inclined to believe in this case, but honestly, I wasn't in Susquehanna County on that cold January day, so I don't actually know what happened there. I do know what innocent until proven guilty actually means, though, and what happened on the morning of February 25th in that courtroom in Montrose, PA, did not even remotely resemble that phrase.
Absent from the proceedings, as I recall, was any discussion of motive. As Perry Mason reminded us a few decades ago, motive, or lack of one, does not constitute evidence in a trial, but it can fill in a lot of the blanks, if properly understood. In this case, the company man had a much stronger reason to lie (keeping his job) than Vera's friendly witness could have had (friendship). Or, as that friendly witness put it to me shortly after the hearing, he knew that no matter what he said on the stand, he would still have a job the next day, and the same could not realistically have been said about the company man.
Anyone familiar with this case also could have asked what motive Vera could possibly have for violating the judge's injunction. What gain could she possibly receive from doing so? She certainly could have a lot to lose, in her current legal environment, if an incriminating picture popped up, showing her in open defiance of the court order, but, interestingly enough, no such picture has emerged, despite all of the tours she leads. From all I know about her interactions with the frackers, she has evidently done her best to stay within the boundaries set for her by this corporate-friendly court, and I can think of no logical reason why she would have chosen, in this one instance, to not do so.
I have no trouble, though, thinking of a logical reason why a fracking company would take her to court, falsely accusing her of something she didn't do -- the frackers have made no secret of their desire to silence Vera, by whatever means available.
One might also wonder about the judge's motives in this case. Could a gas lease on his property have predisposed him to lean in favor of the company? Does he have friends from the gas company who will happily buy him lunch when he issues a finding in their favor? Is this what passes for justice in Susquehanna County, PA, these days? Maybe it's time to start asking these questions, and perhaps a few more?
