h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You may wish to say "Miranda's *alleged* killer got off because of the Miranda vs Arizona case," since the suspect was judged innocent, so in the eyes of the law, he never killed anyone.

If you're referring to a different killer who was not the suspect getting off, it was simply because he evaded detection. He wasn't arrested, so Miranda Rights had nothing to do with it.

In the American criminal justice system, no one is found innocent. If they are tried, they are found guilty or not guilty. If they are acquitted, that doesn't mean that they didn't commit the crime. It only means that the jury didn't find proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean they couldn't be found liable in a civil case.

In the case of Miranda's killer, I don't think they ever brought the case to trial.

Is your aforementioned scenario similar to that of the O.J. Simpson trial?

Exactly. It's pretty clear he's guilty, but the defense team really outclassed the prosecution.

As Bill Maher is fond of saying, LAPD was so bad that they couldn't frame a guilty man.

Hello two bit trigger pumping moron, mad sash again. Do you have the rule in America where a person is innocent until proven guilty? Oh, what am I like, you must have. OJ would never have got away with it if you didn't! Let's face it, he led the LAPD on a fantastic wild goose chase! (brit colloquialism, I apologise) If people have not done anything wrong then why do they run away from the police? To me that seems like an admission of guilt. In fact I have known people who have been arrested because they ran. They did do the crime, but it may not have caught up with them if they had not run from a police officer.(notice i said MAY!)

Innocent until proven guiltily only applies in a criminal law. If I kill my wife when she gets home, the fact that I haven't been convicted of it yet, doesn't mean I haven't committed the crime. If I'm acquitted, it doesn't mean my wife isn't dead.

All it really means is that when it comes time to have a hearing, the burden is on the state to prove probable cause, by clear and convincing evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt (depending on the violation and the stage pf prosecution). So if you're a jury member at a trial, you can' assume that since I'm on trial, that I'm the person who committed the crime.

The presumption of innocence is actually a funny animal when you start reading case law, at least Georgia case law.

Funny Animal? Our entire justice system is based on the premise that you are innocent until proven guilty. Funny Animal? I would be incensed, except that you are probably right. (by the way incensed means angry)I have never studied law (not for the want of trying!) because it has always been too expensive. You say that the rule only applies to Criminal cases. What constitutes a criminal case? (Please tell me, I am learning far more from this conversation than any other!)

I have recently done jury service in Britain. The burden of proof was with the prosecution. At the end of our day, we still had to decide whether the man was guilty of the crimes he was accused of. Both sides set out the evidence, but I was not happy about whether we had received all the information, or not.

Take it with a grain of salt. I am a police officer who is very opinionated. I'm not a lawyer, and some lawyers might take issue with my views of things.

The presumption of innocence just means that at each stage of the prosecution, the state has to prove its burden of evidence. It doesn’t really mean that the person is innocent.

At early stages of the process (preliminary hearing and grand jury), the state only has to prove that there is probable cause that a crime was committed and that the accused committed that crime.

For instance, earlier this year I arrested someone for Peeping Tom. The next day, we had a preliminary hearing. It was my responsibility as the prosecutor to prove probable cause that this guy did commit that offense. I met with his attorney, and he waived the hearing. (It was pretty much a slam dunk case.)

Later, I was called before the grand jury. At this stage, I have to prove that there is probable cause to believe this guy committed this offense. The Assistant District Attorney questioned me, and let me lay out the case.

The presumption of innocent is sort of like this: The defendant has already admitted that there was probable cause during the preliminary hearing. Yet, the grand jury doesn't know anything about this case. So I have to explain it to them, and meet my burden of proof. They can't just assume that since it got passed the prelim, that they don't have to listen to the case from the beginning.

The reason I say that it's a funny animal is that it's often over emphasized. Like I said earlier, just because OJ was acquitted, that doesn't mean he didn't commit the crime. It only means that state couldn't prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. You can believe a person is guilty, and still vote for acquittal, just because the state didn't make it's burden of proof.

It's also sort of funny because when you read case law, presumption of innocence changes. Once you're convicted, you're presumed guilty. The burden is on the guilty person to prove that something is wrong. It's kind of obvious but it's peculiar to read.

Juries don’t receive all of the information. You only get whatever both sides think you need. There might have been evidence that was thrown out because it was improper. There may be stuff that it just didn't occur to the attorneys to present. By the time of trial, the facts are pretty much distilled down to the essentials. If you put too much in, the facts could easily confuse a jury, like the OJ case.

There is a movement afoot to let jurors ask questions. I've seen some attorneys talk about it. They're usually skeptical at first, but after they try it most lawyers like it.

In our grand juries, the jurors always ask questions, some of their questions can really come out of left field. Sometimes it's good sometimes not. I had a robbery case where the accused was manipulated into doing it. I wanted to charge the guy who manipulated him, but the judge, the DA, my sergeant all said that I didn't have enough to charge. When I presented the case to the grand jury, they were all chomping at the bit to indict him.