cicerone imposter wrote: In this country, we must be presumed innocent until found guilty of any charge of crime.
The
court must go by that standard. The
state must do so. But
you are wholly free to form our own opinions.
Sometimes the court gets it wrong, after all. We can freely think the court's got something wrong - sometimes there's really good reasons to believe so.
For example, I believed all this time Killen was guilty of that KKK murder in the "Mississippi Burning" case. It had never been established by the court, but I thought so. Didn't you? Now the court finally found so too.
I believe Michael Jackson probably did sexual things with those kids. I dont have conclusive proof, and thus in a way I'm glad he wasn't convicted, because you shouldn't be convicted without conclusive proof. But I hope there will be a next court case where the prosecutors do a better job, because I'm pretty sure the proof
is out there.
Thats what I think on the basis of what I've read. I dont sentence people so I dont have to go by the criterium of "beyond reasonable doubt" - "reasonable assumption" will work for me, when I make up my mind and express it. Same goes for you, on countless issues.