Except that’s not how it works. You can’t prove a negative. For example, you can’t prove you didn’t abuse your spouse or children.
Again, if I recall correctly, both the prosecutor that charged her mom and the judge not only dismissed the charge, but reversed their position to say that evidence led them to believe the mother had suffered an injustice in being charged.
How what works?
Depending on the specificity of the allegation, sure you can.
What @twoinanddone indicated is accurate.
I don’t understand your issue with “the statement” by Wiley. “The statement” addressed the reason she was removed, not whether that issue had been finally adjudicated against the parents.
So strange. I guess someone thought this helped them in fundraising somehow. The nexus seeems dubious to me, but I am not a fundraiser.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it helped them with fundraising. There are lots of gullible people. Just consider how effective politicians are with fundraising despite making false statements.
The statement said that her mother was abusing her, something that the judge said was likely not true given the preponderance of the evidence. Any lawyers out there who can comment on the legal liability of making an unsupported statement?
The statement indicated why she was removed from her home.
That’s not what the judge said and not what judges do. The judge found that the agency had not met its burden of proof based on the limited evidence they presented. That is very different from a judge saying that what was claimed was not “likely not true.” Even if the judge had said this, that isn’t a pronouncement of “truth” to which all who discuss the topic must adhere.
It a sense it is a rough estimate of probabilities based on limited information. If one believes, based on limited information, that there is a 49% chance that X is true, then is X false? Is it reasonable to insist that, from that point on, all must treat X as false?
As for “legal liability” I find it troubling that many seem to believe there is grounds for a defamation lawsuit whenever anyone says something with which they disagree, or for disagreeing with a judges finding.
For example, if I say “O.J. is a murderer” (because OJ is a murderer, despite the verdict) am I subject to “legally liability” for “making an unsupported claim?”
Reminder that this forum is supposed to be welcoming and friendly. One post hidden.
Interesting that people are still ready to pile on Mackenzie Fierceton after all this time. One doesn’t need to endorse her unequivocally to find Penn’s behavior in this case icky, first overpraising her, and then feeding her to the wolves.
Interesting that people are still willing to defend her after all this time. But then again, she’s very good at playing the media to ignore her falsehoods.
I appreciate the parallel construction. This is one of those issues that will continue to generate controversy precisely because of how it can be viewed from two sides.
Again, IANAL, but I wonder if there is a different expectation if you are a company making a claim that could be defamatory with the purpose of getting a benefit for your business, vs a random person stating their opinion.
Even if a judge dismissed the action against the parent(s), the matter was not dismissed by the dept of social service, Mackenzie remained in its custody until she aged out. Custody, physical or legal, was never returned to her mother. When she answered the FAFSA that she had been in state custody at ‘any’ time after she turned 13 that she had, that was a truthful answer.
I’ve not read anything that said her parent(s) stepped up and supported her at any time after she went to live with friends (as a ward of the state, with the permission of the department). They didn’t come forward until after she’d graduated and was awarded the Rhodes.
The Wikipedia entry on her disagrees. In any event, I am still at a loss for how this gains funds for a Boston charity.
This is from the Wiki article:
“Her mother was arrested and charged with child abuse, but those charges were later dropped; state courts later expunged the arrest and ordered her removed from the state’s child-abuser registry.”
The was the criminal case, and then she sued to be taken from the the state’s child abuse registry. That doesn’t mean Mackenzie was never in foster care (she was) or that the department’s case (usually called a Dependency and Neglect, or D&N) was purged. Parents involved in D&Ns (which is in civil or juvenile court) do not always go on the child abuse registry. It’s the legal custody that matters as that’s what made Mackenzie a ‘ward of the state’ but in this case they also lost physical custody; it was never transferred back and she remained in state custody until she aged out.
That wasn’t the section I was thinking of. It was your assertion that the mother didnt resurface until the student was graduating. Apparently the mother tried to establish contact with the student and sent gifts to her repeatedly in her time at college.
The Wikipedia entry also discusses the student’s claim that her mother engaged in drug abuse, which investigators found baseless.
No matter the author, defamation requires (among other things) a false statement of fact. Where is the false statement of fact?