In actuality, the presumption of innocence cannot always be achieved, even in American courtrooms. For many, innocent until proven guilty does not even make sense. The need to prove one guilty beyond reasonable doubt, to many, is unnecessary because this process will inevitably result in releasing many guilty men because of insubstantial evidence. Though the line of thinking which is a foundation to our judicial system is that no innocent should suffer, even if it means many guilty will not suffer, those who participate in the court systems often ignore or are ignorant and do not follow this line of thought. The consequence of those who aren’t knowledgeable or ignore court standards is that the courtroom is not always just.
In the case of the Robin Hood Woods murders, I do not believe that the jury even knew or respected their legal obligation to presume innocence, and, though the judge must have known his obligation, he did not act in accordance. It is acknowledged by the Supreme Court of Arkansas that the only substantial evidence in this case is from the statement of a nearly retarded boy after being subjected to an unorthodox interrogation. The judge in the case of the Robin Hood Woods murder had the responsibility of filtering out evidence which does not pertain to the case, yet emotionally moving evidence such as an ‘expert’ proclaiming that members of Satanist cults wear black shirts made the cut for related evidence. Did the judge truly think that this person’s opinion served as germane evidence (there was not even evidence that the crime was performed by any sort of cult) or does this qualify as evidence which was meant to push the jury towards making an assumption of guilt based on fear and emotion? If the judge did indeed let the so called expert in for reasons which were not related, this argument is backed in that a leader of the court system allowed evidence meant to sway the jury, without basis in fact, to presume guilt before innocence and therefore violated the laws inherent in the legal system.
2 comments:
Interesting that you bring up the "innocent until proevn guilty" aspect of trials because I don't think that cases are done according to this concept. If someone is trying to prove that you are guilty it is because they feel that you are. Once a suspect is deemed a suspect the assumption is that they are guilty. In the case of Robin Hills, I believe the moment the names were given, the search for eveidence wasn't to prove them innocent, but to confirm the guilt. Yes, that sounds as if it goes hand in hand with the "proving guilt" line; however, it just proves that you're already guilty in a person's conscience. It should say "belived guilty until prove guilty" because that's how it seems.
It is great that you also think that the reality of the system is that defendants are presumed guilty; this is precisely the problem with our court systems. A suspect, according to the law, is to be supposed by the jurors to be innocent. You are right that someone who is trying to prove your guilt should themselves believe that you are guilty; however, this is the job of the prosecution only. The search for evidence in any case should be to establish what happened and not undertaken for the purpose of stacking the odds against an individual. If, in the case of the Robin Hood Woods murders, the search for evidence was to prove their guilt, no search for alibis or other suspects would have been undertaken. Your argument is great in that it illustrates the reality of courtrooms.
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