presumption innocence

Editor's Note
I inform you that MSNBC legal talking head Dan Abrams has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today making a point that Your Editor has made at various times over the years: "Presumption of innocense" is for jurors inside a courtroom; for everyone else, "presumption of innocence" is bullshit. If the pre-trial public evidence is solid, he's guilty (only exception: if the prosecutor out-and-out made up the evidence). If the accused had exculpatory evidence (and you know the drill, e,g,, Oh, I'm looking forward to the trial so I can present my evidence and clear my name), guess what, he has already presented it to several prosecutors and their bosses, to no avail. Prosecutors hate like hell to embarrass themselves and raaaaaaarely go to trial exposed like that. Thus . . guilty! If you look carefully at the public evidence, you have no business according any "presumption" of innocence. The guy's only chance is if his lawyer can out-worm the prosecutor or smarm the jury. If that works, the guy'll be declared "not [proven] guilty," and he'll be free to go on that charge. But he'll never be "innocent" . . because he did it. The evidence says so. Wall Street Journal