Human Right #10: The Right to Trial

Have you ever been accused of something you didn't do? Maybe took the blame for something simply because your reputation implied that it could have been you? Or because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time?

I was a total punk ass when I was a kid. I was always getting into trouble, usually for things that I did do. But there were a couple of times when I got busted for something that I didn't do. Once I was accused of flipping off the bus driver, and once I was accused of yelling in the library. I pled each case with fervor, but it was my word against that of the bus driver/librarian. In both instances, I got sent to the "Solution Center" (the place for bad kids). Maybe I should have demanded my right to trial?

Obviously my situation wasn't serious. At all. The point is, what the accusers think happened isn't always true. We are human - sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes our senses trick us - so sometimes it takes a lot of good evidence to prove that something happened one way or the other.

I, for one, am glad that it would take more than one pointing finger to put me in jail, even if it could put my elementary-school self in the desolate corner of the special education room known as the "Solution Center".