Let’s be clear from the start. The allegations of sexual assault leveled against Tal, Oren, and Alon Alexander are abhorrent. The stories published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere describe acts of profound evil. Any person with a functioning moral compass should be horrified by them. If the charges are proven true, the perpetrators deserve the full force of the law.
But that is a question for a jury. The question for the public is different, and in some ways, more fundamental. It is about the architecture of justice itself. It is about whether the state, in its zeal to prosecute, can be permitted to inflict punishment before it has secured a conviction. For over a year, from December 2024 to the end of January 2026, that is precisely what happened. The Alexander brothers were imprisoned not on the basis of a verdict, but on the basis of a narrative.