[shadowgovt]

It's interesting that people have raised presumption of innocence until proven guilty to a philosophical principle, because its primary utility is as a legal principle.

Presumption of innocence in criminal cases has value because the state has all the power (including the monopoly on violence), so if they are to use their monopoly on violence to deprive anyone of their freedoms, the burden of proof should be extremely high to offset the inherent power imbalance. In other words, even if all other things are equal, we should make the state's job harder because if the state is "cheating" to get a conviction it's a lot likelier they will succeed than the individual.

As a larger philosophical principle, assumption of innocence isn't really proven out. Iterated prisoner's dilemma solutions suggest trust followed by tit-for-tat (i.e. presume innocence until someone shows they're willing to screw you over, then assume they're likely to continue screwing you over rather than assuming that was a one-off; this is a policy the law notably excludes, as past unrelated felony convictions aren't admissible evidence in a trial). I'm not saying we should toss presumption of innocence in the bin; merely that I'm skeptical of it as a deep true virtue to build one's values upon.

[drited]

I thought the solution to iterated prisoner's dilemma was what you described except with occasional forgiveness to see if both sides can get over the negative tit for tat spiral?

[koheripbal]

The reason the presumption of innocence is important is because it becomes way too easy to create false evidence (or highlight circumstantial evidence) in order to sway public opinion.

We should have a high threshold for evidence in any arena or we are otherwise way way too susceptible to manipulation.

...or perhaps, more generally - when an opposing entity exists that could conceivably manufacture poor quality evidence, then that should raise the bar of evidence required.

[shadowgovt]

What you're advocating for us "Be skeptical of unverified evidence of a person's guilt." It's good advice, but does/should it also apply to evidence of a person's innocence?