Half-completed criminal court stories ruin reputations forever

Former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn leaves a hotel in Lille, France, in February 2015 to attend his trial on pimping charges. PHOTO | FRANCOIS LO PRESTI | AFP

What you need to know:

  • It is critical for the Nation Media Group to follow through reporting criminal court cases to avoid the possibility of forever damaging reputations with half-completed stories.
  • Readers deserve the complete story.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a man who had immense international power and prestige, was charged with attempting to rape Nafissatou Diallo, an African hotel maid, in New York City in the United States in 2011.

Press photographers captured the image of the handcuffed International Monetary Fund managing director as he was in a perp walk. This is the act of law enforcement agencies creating an opportunity for the media to take pictures of suspects on their way to court.

It is a controversial practice, as it shames suspects who, in law, are presumed innocent until proven guilty. (The court dismissed the charges against the IMF chief after a hearing three months later.)

PUBLIC HUMILIATION

The nearest thing we have to the American media-police-orchestrated parade of shame is when our courts invite photographers to take pictures of suspects in the dock and overzealous police guards prop up their faces if they are trying to hide them so the photographers can have a better shot.

However, this is not the only way accused persons can be publicly humiliated. Take the case of a woman, who will remain anonymous for now, charged in April 2013 with forgery and attempted theft of Sh5 million.

The Nation reported the first court appearance but did not report subsequent court appearances, including the judgment delivered in August 2015 when she was acquitted.

GOOGLE NAME

Today, four years after the case was reported, she cannot get a job or business because when people google her name the story of her having been arraigned for theft pops up.

She is shunned and rejected. She told me: “All I’m asking is for a chance to have my life back. I’ve prospective business where the principals won’t deal with me due to this bad publicity”.

A THIEF

In court, you are innocent until proven guilty. But public opinion seems to hold you are guilty until proven innocent. Thus if the media report you have been charged with theft and they do not report the court’s decision, you will remain a thief in the eyes of the public even if you are acquitted. 

I suspected there were many other people whose reputations have been ruined because they were reported as accused miscreants, but there were no follow-ups to show they were found not guilty or their cases were dismissed. 

To confirm this suspicion, I randomly selected eight court cases reported in the Nation in which people were accused of theft, bribery, rape and the like.

Editorial assistant Caroline Waswa scoured the Nation archives to see if the stories were followed through. Only two of the eight stories were followed up and even then not to their conclusion. So those who read the eight never came to know the final decision.

One of the two stories partially followed up was that of a 30-year-old pharmacy attendant. He was charged on June 15, 2009 with defiling an eight-year-old girl, an offence punishable by life imprisonment.

He was also accused of child pornography. He appeared at Makadara Law Courts in Nairobi where photographers and TV cameramen waited to capture his image.

TWO PIECES

The Nation published the story with his picture on June 15 and a second story on June 19. The search of the archives did not yield any other story. So we, as readers, do know how the case ended. We were just left with the impression the man is a paedophile.  

There are many other cases in which people were charged with crimes but their stories were never followed through and if they were acquitted or their cases were dismissed we do not know.

All we know is that their reputations were forever ruined because of the uncompleted reporting and the tendency of the public to believe the worst about the accused.

It is critical for the NMG to follow through reporting criminal court cases to avoid the possibility of forever damaging reputations with half-completed stories. On top of this, readers deserve the complete story.

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