| i'm not sure im understanding your premise but if i'm at all close, you may be taking the word 'innocent' too literally or in a sense other than it's understood in the context of criminal prosecution. |
My whole point is twofold. 1. That there is no reason for it to be taken too literally because it has no place in the legal system. Vague or illogical wordings need to be clarified. There's no reason why we should have to
hope that jurors understand the distinction.
2. It is annoying in layman usage. OJ Simpson is not an innocent man or a victim because a jury found him not guilty (the corollary of a not guilty verdict is that, based on the concept of
innocent until proven guilty the defendent really would be deemed "innocent" if not proven guilty).
| in the strictest sense, noone is innocent. no jury is competent nor capable of declaring a defendant innocent. real life verdicts are formed very narrowly to find the accused either guilty of violating a specific statute as the prosecution alleges or not guilty of the charged violation. |
Absolutely not true. While the procedure is not set up for a defendant to be found "innocent," a defendant can be shown to be factually and functionally
innocent of a crime. When evidence submitted shows that it is physically impossible for a defendant to have committed a crime, a defendant has, in practice, been found innocent. Say a defendant is accused of committing a crime (not conspiracy) in Los Angeles. If it comes out during the defense's case that the defendant was actually in New York while the crime was committed, the man has been proven innocent. This is not the same as being "found innocent." The American legal system doesn't find people innocent.
| whether the terms 'innocent' and 'not guilty' are commonly used interchangeably, most people comprehend the difference. otherwise there'd be only convictions. |
No, that would be the case if everybody believed they were interchangeable. Hung juries are the more likely result. I served on a jury in a armed robbery before, and our deliberations lasted about six hours longer than they should have because three of the other jurors were cloudy on their understanding of "innocent" and "not guilty." When we came to the unanimous verdict of "not guilty," we faced the wrath of the victim, his family, and a handful of people from his neighborhood, who took our verdict to mean we thought the defendant was innocent of wrongdoing. The question during deliberations is supposed to be
did the prosecution prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt, not
did the defendent commit the crime or not.
You may find it hard to believe, but after driving for almost two decades, I have never received a ticket; not for a moving violation nor for parking violations.
