Demjanjuk - guilty or not guilty?

[August West]

rjmacs wrote:
Scapegoats aren't by definition blameless or innocent...

OED wrote:
scapegoat noun
a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.

A scapegoat is by definition blameless.

By whose definition, I do not read "a blameless person" in the definition. I read "a person." If a scapegoat has murdered, and the person who enabled or assisted the murder is not held to account because "for reasons of expediency" it is easier to shift all the blame to the scapegoat, that does not mean the scapegoat was blameless when he pulled the trigger. If two people conspire to commit a crime, and only one is held to blame, it is reasonably possible for the one held to blame to be considered both worthy of blame and a scapegoat for the other.