Zzyzx wrote:
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shnarkle wrote:
. . . one doesn't become guilty or innocent when they are proven guilty or innocent. They were always guilty or innocent.
Who decides the ‘always guilty or innocent’?
A decision doesn't make one guilty or innocent.
If a person is found guilty by a jury, were they 'always guilty'?
You're just substituting "found" for "proven", and they both mean the same thing, which is that the jury or judge decided that they were guilty or innocent. Again, this decision doesn't make them guilty or innocent. They are either guilty or innocent, and someone else's decision doesn't change that fact. It only determines what society is going to do with them
If it is later shown that they were falsely convicted and were truly innocent, does the 'always guilty' change to 'always innocent'?
Nope. They were always innocent.
Being innocent until proven guilty is no longer the case today in many countries, the most noteworthy example being the US.
This seems to suggest that ‘innocent until proven guilty’ was once more applicable to the US than it is presently. When was that the case? What years or decades? Evidence?
It is still possible to force one's way into a court trial if one has enough money to defend themselves. THEN the prosecution must prove guilt which presumes innocence. However, this is becoming a rarity today as most courts are so backed up, plea bargaining is now the norm, and plea bargaining presumes guilt.
It's not only a revenue producing endeavor for the courts, but many courts now have contracts which guarantee private "for profit" prisons 80% or better occupancy. That isn't going to happen with a presumption of innocence. The US imprisons more people than any other country in the world. It's become a thriving industry. The authors of "Three Felonies" point out that it is practically impossible to walk out your door without committing three felonies a day. There are somewhere around 80,000 SWAT raids carried out in the US every year. The Department of Education has its own SWAT team. While it isn't widely reported, it isn't as uncommon as some might thing for a SWAT team to get the wrong address, only to maim, disfigure, and kill innocent people with practically no repercussions whatsoever. Prisons used to be one of the few places where there were cameras everywhere monitoring anything and everything the inmates were doing. Now look around. Cameras are everywhere. When some of the inmates get into trouble, they have a "lockdown". This is no different than what happened after the Boston bombing. When you live in a police state, everyone is presumed guilty.
