Sirius and jail

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 167366

katmandu wrote:
>
> Dumbledore was a member of the Wizard court, why would he allow a
man (sirius) to be sent to Azkaban without a trial?  Just sent away.
Did he know Sirius to be innocent?  Nobody bothered to use veriserum
or legimancy (spelling?) to see what happened.
> 
> Did Dumbledore trade Sirius for Severus?  Did he think--why not?
Innocent or not, he tried to murder a classmate a few years before?
Was he playing judge, jury and executioner?  Did he so believe that he
was guilty, that a trial was unneccessary?
> 
> They didn't even try a fake trial.  It seems that Dumbledore didn't
kick up any fuss whatsever.
> 
> Sirius doesn't seem to hold a grudge against him, and Dumbledore
says he trusts Sirius.
> 
> If he knew, because of Pettigrew, that Sirius was innocent.  Why
didn't he use the above means to prove his innocence?  After all,
there were 4 other people who saw Pettigrew.
> 
> Dumbledore is a very disturbing character.

Carol responds:
Which four people saw Pettigrew? When? If you mean that four DEs (the
Lestranges and Barty Jr.) knew that he was the spy who had betrayed
the Potters to Voldemort, they were most unlikely to provide that
information to Dumbledore.

All the evidence we have indicates that Dumbledore, like the rest of
the WW, believed that Sirius Black had betrayed the Potters, killed
the twelve Muggles and Pettigrew, and escaped from Azkaban to murder
Harry. No one (except Black himself) saw Pettigrew blow up the street
and transform into a rat to escape into the sewers. No one (except
Black) knew that Pettigrew had blown off his own finger and faked his
own death. The witnesses, all Muggles who subsequently had their
memories modified, testified that Black had blown up the street,
killing thirteen people. And Black, blaming himself for the Secret
Keeper switch, merely laughed like a madman s the Aurors took him away
and apparently made no effort to defend himself to them or to Crouch.
If he had only testified that Pettigrew was an Animagus and
demonstrated that he was one himself, people might have listened.
Crouch might have use Veritaserum or Legilimency to test his story.
But, AFAWK, he didn't speak up.

In any case, Barty Crouch Sr., not Dumbledore, was Head of Magical Law
Enforcement. It was his decision, not Dumbledore's or the Wizengamot's
as a whole, to determine whether or not Black went to trial.
Dumbledore merely testified (at a hearing, apparently) that Black had
been the Potters' Secret Keeper, which was the truth as he knew it.
(James Potter had refused DD's offer to be SK and had told him that he
wanted Sirius Black, the man he most trusted, to be the SK instead. DD
had no way of knowing about the Secret Keeper switch from Black to
Pettigrew.) He could not have known the truth until he talked to
Sirius Black near the end of PoA (an action that saved Black from
having his soul sucked out because it prompted DD to suggest the Time
Turner to Hermione). Had Black come to DD immediately after Godric's
Hollow to tell him about the SK switch and ask for his help instead of
going after Pettigrew to take revenge into his own hands, he would
never have been sent to Azkaban. Black's own recklessness (and
possibly desire to punish himself for suggesting the SK switch), in
combination with the ruthless administration of "justice" under Barty
Crouch Sr., led to Black's imprisonment. Dumbledore's testimony that
Black was the Potters' Secret Keeper (the truth as he knew it) was a
drop in the bucket. It merely confirmed the testimony of all those
Muggle witnesses, every one of whom "saw" Black murder Pettigrew, of
whom nothing was left (so Fudge and the others thought) but a finger.

Dumbledore has confessed to making huge emotional mistakes. I think
his assumption that an innocent man was guilty qualifies as one of
those mistakes. Under the circumstances, however, the mistake was
understandable (which must be why Black held no grudge against DD),
and it had nothing to do with Snape as far as I can see.

Carol, who BTW meant to refer to the house at Spinner's End (in
another thread) as Snape's "hideaway," not his "holiday"!