I swear people online never actually think about anything, it's all just knee-jerk reactionary crap.

Honestly, it is totally expected that some/most friends would stand by their friend when being accused of something, especially if they never saw anything like that. Supporting a friend being accused of something means absolutely nothing on its own, especially in the beginning. What people need to be thinking about is if/when they stopped being supportive.

For whatever reason, people seem to believe that everyone that's a predator is making that obvious to their friends, and those friends were either in on it, or at least not opposed. Sometimes, it is the whole group, like with the recent college rape stuff.... but quite often the predator is hiding that side of them both publicly and privately, even from their friends.

Not all allegations are real, it's just as easy to falsely claim abuse as it is for an abuser to lie about doing it. One is not inherently easier to lie about. Some people abuse this to try and destroy someone's life, especially out of spite or if they think they can get something out of it.

Given that Emily only went to the first preliminary hearing, and dropped supporting him after... it seems most likely that she never saw any of that behavior herself and was there to support a friend she thought was being falsely accused (or at least giving him the benefit of the doubt), and once there were actual facts showing the allegations were true, she stopped supporting him. Which is what you would expect from everyone not involved.