[HPforGrownups] Re: DD's plan -- Minister of Magic

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 189159

On 4/19/2010 1:59 PM, dumbledore11214 wrote:
>> Bart:
>>       You are forgetting one key person who thought Sirius was guilty:
>> Sirius. Maybe not directly, but as the one who thought of making
>> Scabbers the secret keeper, but he felt responsible.
>>      
> Alla:
>
> Of course he felt responsible. I just did not think that him feeling responsible is relevant to the argument I was making. Whether he felt responsible or not, it is the conviction of the people that had the power to persecute and prosecute him what mattered,no?
>    

Bart:
     Well, just going by standard muggle legal procedure in English law, 
the prosecution had a prima facie case. For non-legal people, this means 
that if the defendant does not put up any defense, and the case was held 
in front of a judge, a conviction would be the result. It was strongly 
implied that Sirius never even stated that he was not guilty, much less 
put up a defense. Now, seeing what happened to Hagrid in COS, there does 
not appear to be automatic right to legal counsel in the WW. We are not 
really given any good information as to what would have happened had 
Sirius tried to mount a defense, it was made reasonably clear that he 
did not even declare himself to be not guilty. Consider that he didn't 
even tell Dumbledore or Lupin until Harry was endangered by his silence.

     Bart