[pure-silver] Re: Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale worth $200 million
- From: Don Sweet <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:50:13 +1200
Peter
Don't get me wrong, I love the legal system - it's how I make my living. But
the most a Court can do, in your country or mine, is to find on the basis of
the evidence the parties choose to call, that the particular case has either
been proved to the applicable standard or not proved. For the parties involved
in the case, the legal consequences flow accordingly (subject to any appeal
rights). The rest of us may or may not be impressed by the decision, but it
has no meaning or consequences for us; we are free to seek a different decision
elsewhere if we have different evidence. Better evidence later sometimes
results in sounder decisions (which is the best single argument against the
death penalty)
As there would therefore not be much point in starting a court case over the
authenticity of these negatives, I fail to see why these people are talking
like Melvin Belli.
Don Sweet
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Badcock
To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 3:57 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at garage sale
worth $200 million
Don,
Curators, colleagues, workmates and family certainly would have valuable
evidence to submit, BUT it is then up to one or more independent experts in the
fields of history, science, forensics etc to be consulted in order to asses
each piece of evidence and or garner additional evidence and come to a joint
conclusion/recommendation as to the authenticity of the origin/authenticity of
the negatives. Now if somebody then wants to make a civil litigious claim
because they dispute the expert's findings this is where the legal system gets
involved whether we like it or not.
If you are not willing to place a level of trust the legal system in your
country then you need to come up with a better method, convince the authorities
and have it implemented. All legal systems have accounts of wrongful
convictions (whether done intentionally or not), but if we automatically
distrust the legal profession because of a few bad apples then it all becomes
too big a problem to solve unless you want to devote a few lifetimes to it !
rgds
Peter
On 29 July 2010 06:48, Don Sweet <don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Peter
Surely you don't ask the FBI or the Attorney General or forensics experts
about the authenticity of artworks, and try to build a case "beyond reasonable
doubt". Using those strategies, commonly employed in adversarial litigation,
such as a criminal trial, just makes me more sceptical. Not to put too fine a
point on things, people have not just been jailed for life, they been sentenced
to death on the basis of statements like that, only to be pardoned posthumously
with the help of DNA analysis.
If these are Adams' negatives, shouldn't we be hearing from experts such as
curators, and colleagues and workmates of Adams, and of course his family?
My main point of course was that any coherent principle of compensation for
mistakes of this sort would need to work both ways.
Don Sweet
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