On hot-button issues like sexual assault allegations, conservatives have long rightfully stressed the importance of due process and the presumption of innocence. Yet a jury of his peers just found the British actor turned online commentator Russell Brand guilty of heinous sexual offenses — so why are major figures in right-wing media still defending him?
After considering testimony from dozens of witnesses, photographic and location-verifying evidence, and Brand’s extensive defense, a jury found him guilty of raping a fan in 2009 and 3 other charges from the mid-2000s. That same jury acquitted Brand of several other rape and assault charges for which it deemed there to be insufficient evidence. He’s now been sentenced to 10.5 years in prison.
