In reference to criminal procedure a hearing refers to a proceeding before a magistrate subsequent to the inception of the case and without a jury especially a preliminary hearing, in which a magistrate or judge, in the presence of the accused, determines whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceeding with the case.
But recent press accounts in Britain casually refer to M.S.B.P. as a "discredited" diagnosis — as though the issue weren't whether people had been falsely accused but whether the syndrome itself was real.
Last August a debate on transgender identity on Newsnight fell apart when the programme was accused of questioning "whether or not trans people have a right to exist", something it plainly was not doing.
In Chicago, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin set up a panel of church officials and lay people to handle accusations of abuse and to advise whether accused priests should be reassigned to other parishes.
They joust over the finer points of this unusual tribunal, debating whether the Fifth Amendment protection against forced self-incrimination applies to a foreigner accused of terrorism, whether hearsay evidence is allowed, and whether a confession extracted after 13 days of grilling under hot lights and with truth serum can be admitted into evidence.
But because it had been "lawyered" and "complied," meaning it had passed the requisite legal and compliance tests, and been "referred up" the chain of responsibility, the piece was considered sound — even though no one, apparently, had asked standard questions like whether the accuser was credible or whether the accused had had a chance to respond to the accusations.
"Without fair trials, it is impossible to know whether these accused are properly charged or whether these are politically motivated arrests and hangings," she said.
You'll get accused of this whether you are or not, and apparently it pays well.
It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.
That population consists disproportionately of black and brown people, whether accused and convicted of crimes or held by immigration authorities.
