DSK卡恩案的酒店清潔女工

《新聞週刋》(Newsweek)昨天刋登了卡恩案的酒店清潔女工Nafissatou Diallo 的獨家專訪，以The Maid's Tale為題，在證人的律師Thompson Wigdor陪同下接受訪問，細訴事發經過。Newsweek的立場並非完全中立，我不懂新聞從業員在這訪問的取向，有些文字帶着明顯的貶斥性。

Occasionally as Diallo talked, she wept, and there were moments when the tears seemed forced. Almost all questions about her past in West Africa were met with vague responses. She was reluctant to talk about her father, an imam who ran a Quranic school out of the family home in rural Guinea. Her husband died of “an illness,” she said. So did a daughter who was 3 or 4 months old—she wasn’t sure. Diallo was raped by two soldiers who arrested her for a curfew violation at night in Conakry, the Guinean capital. When they had finished with her, they released her the next morning, she said, but made her clean up the scene of the assault. At first she said she couldn’t recall what year that happened, but later she said it was 2001. Diallo had managed to get her surviving daughter, now 15, out of Africa and to the United States “for a better life,” she said. But precisely how that happened was not a subject she or her lawyers would explore. Again, her eyes stared downward, welling with tears.

這段報導使人對受害人的可信性置疑。我一向對傳媒在刑事案預審式的報導極為反感，不要以為新聞自由大於一切，過份報導將審訊的案件，對於審訊的公正存有一定影響。我對審訊之前訪問控方證人及被告尤其討厭。

受害人這次的獨家專訪，目的十分明顯，對控方是否繼續檢控卡恩施壓，希望扭轉先前有關她的可信性的負面報導。就算控方撤銷刑事控罪，受害人還會提出民事索償，那才是戲肉。如果刑事檢控成功把卡恩定罪，民事索償也必勝無疑。我一直留意美國傳媒的報導，卡恩刑事定罪機會渺茫，若果我是DA，我會撤銷控罪，受害人的veracity已破壞了原本鐵證如山的因素。就算卡恩真的對受害人性侵犯，案中的合理疑點足以使其脫罪。

受害人製造輿論壓力，未必完全對她有利。若果開審，訪問內容必定被辯方盤問，加上報案時的口供，庭上的證供，證供版本越多，出現差異(discrepancies)機會越大。我在在地鐵及巴士上發生的非禮案一文也講過，版本多所產生的差異，會減低檢控的成功率。

如果控方證人及被告都接受訪問，各自表述，大家都描繪成苦主，再來個網上投票決定是否有罪，由網上陪審團來決定，豈非美哉！這不是打破法官飯碗的問題，而是有些報導看到的未必是可呈堂的証據(admissible evidence)，加上受訪的人的講法又未經對手盤問，可靠性未經測試就給人先入為主的印象。萬一審訊結果和大眾的意願分歧很大，可能產生很多不必要的猜測，對司法的公信力帶來不公平的打擊。傳媒那些搜尋真相式的報導，不能在毫無限制之下進行，適可而止，點到即止便可。有時傳媒對被告負面的評論，可以是作為得不到公平審訊申請終止聆訊(stay of proceeding)的理由。