In a message dated 3/30/2002 3:22:25 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

> the opinion of several contemporary county prosecutors from Maryland and
>  Virginia, certainly strong enough to meet in practice the legal standard
>  "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Professor Hardwick:
And as I responded privately, "I know an expert, blah, blah.." is not an
analysis or even an argument. Proof of paternity is no longer an issue of
"circumstantial evidence," and with the DNA only implicating the Jefferson
line to Eston Hemings and not Thomas Jefferson alone, and without the mother,
your "prosecutors" need more than Gordon-Reed's book, which by the way, only
proposes a probability, not a conclusion "beyond a reasonable doubt."
But you are right, all academics are not in the same barrel. The group that
comprised the Scholars Commission, some of the most distinguished in
Jefferson and colonial history, issued a report that it is unlikely that
Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings.
 ____________________________________________________________________
Richard E. Dixon
Attorney at Law
4122 Leonard Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
703-691-0770 fax 703-691-0978
____________________________________________________________________

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