Erring on the side of caution is not merely cowardly, not merely corrupt, it is evil.
We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not.
But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever.
— John Adams
(emphasis added)
Erring on the side of caution when it comes to allegations of spousal and/or child abuse is a blatant violation of the preponderance of evidence standard. When courts err on the side of caution, when they take a better safe than sorry approach to allegations of spousal or child abuse, they aren’t doing anything virtuous, but the polar opposite. The guilty until proven innocent approach is a violation of the other spouse’s/parent’s civil rights. Any judge who issues a restraining order or protective order or supervised parent time order on the basis of erring on the side of caution has committed misconduct. Such is clear error and grounds for appeal from “correctness” (the appellate court decides the matter for itself and does not defer in any degree to the trial judge’s determination of law [1]) to “abuse of discretion” (when a serious inequity has resulted [2], when a judge acts outside the law [3], when a ruling is beyond the limits of reasonability [4], is inherently unfair [5], fails to consider all the legally relevant factors [6]) and all the way up to “clearly erroneous” (findings made by the trial court are not adequately supported by the record, resolving all disputes in the evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court’s determination [7] and findings are clearly erroneous if they are against the clear weight of the evidence or if the appellate court reaches a definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been made. [8]). [9]
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