-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Experts: Ansel Adams photos found at
garage sale worth $200 million
From: Don Sweet <
don@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, July 28, 2010 10:50 pm
To:
pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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 -----
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
