Originally Posted by
Bob Viking
AH’s defence team went to great lengths at his criminal trial to have him found not guilty because nobody could prove that cognitive impairment had not happened. The coroner stated that there was no evidence of impairment due to G forces. That is a very interesting clash of legal standpoints.
I realise it is probably too late for anything else to happen now but if I were a family member of the deceased I would still not feel that justice has been done.
We could argue about this until our dying days but the bottom line is that an inexperienced and under qualified individual was doing low level aerobatics at a venue that was unsuitable (at least unsuitable for an inexperienced and under qualified pilot).
I was not at the trial and I have not been through everything with a fine toothed comb but I have watched the videos in the public domain. That aircraft was being flown until impact.
I understand that there are those that still wish to defend AH and all credit to you. But there are those of us that have enough experience of flying jets to still know that a clever legal defence cannot change facts.
BV
This is really just an illustration as to how our legal system works, and why it should (in my view) continue to work this way. To be found guilty the jury need to be convinced "beyond all reasonable doubt". It is the prosecution's job to do that. In the criminal hearing the defence introduced enough "reasonable doubt" for the jury to remain unconvinced that the prosecution had made a strong enough case. That is how it should be - if we lower that standard then we risk more people being wrongly convicted.
The flaw with the height of the bar we have fixed in place before someone can be convicted is that some of the guilty walk free. I think we all know this and see this every day in our courts, even if most cases don't make the headlines as this one did. Nothing that Andrew Hill's defence team did was ruled as being wrong or unlawful: had it been, the judge could have intervened to resolve any points of law involved (with the jury out of the court whilst this happened). The judge was content for the evidence of impairment to be heard, and that evidence most probably swung the verdict.
I'm sure there are lots of detailed legal points surrounding both the competence of expert witnesses and whether an expert witness may be biased.
The question this case raises is whether the defence expert witness was competent. My instinctive feeling is that he may have been a very good doctor, and well-qualified, but that he lacked experience of aero-medicine, and that may not have been made clear to the jury.