Earlier this week I had a court appearance, walked in without a clue that it was going to be on TV – the station was there for another case but decided to cover my hearing as well as it was about something that was very much in the news at the beginning of the summer.
The hearing was short and sweet and went really well. A good day. That evening, I found the video on Myrtle Beach Online, and shared the link to Facebook with the caption: I made my quarterly TV appearance yesterday, check it out if you have 2 minutes and two seconds.
Well, a lot of you did have 2 minutes and 2 seconds and your responses were great. I checked the page a few times that day and into the next, felt good, went on with everything else – it is a busy time of the year. Then a friend from Connecticut – he has a law degree but no longer practices, he’s a consultant of sorts – called and, well, put this is a vastly different perspective.
He was ‘blown away’ by the post’s reception. He said, clearly and often, that ‘no New England attorney would have posted that video.’ Doing so, he went on, ‘would have invited every kind of Facebook troll known to man.’
As he explained it – and he is in a position to know – there are areas of the country where an accused getting bonded out of jail is not looked at the way my friends and followers and clients looked at this case,that is, as a function of our inherent right to be viewed as ‘innocent until proven guilty.’
“Sure,” he said, “everyone gives great lip service to ‘presumed innocent’ but the reality up here is more along the lines of ‘you get arrested, you must have done something. It’s simply pervasive.”
Pervasive and no one is very shy about sharing their beliefs by commenting on Facebook and LinkedIn posts.
He gave me enough examples that I not only completely believed him but just shuddered at the images he conjured.
So, consider this a Thank You to everyone who takes the time to read my posts and say such nice things and share with their friends. You get it, you understand, and I applaud you for it … not that I expected much different from fellow South Carolinians.
