[luke0016]

Some of us, governments included, believe that the presumption of innocence is a fundamental right.

"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved."

That quote is from Benjamin Franklin, one of the founders of the US government.

[mc32]

That is the principle, but, being a society made up of fallible people, we do have false positives.

All systems of justice contain false positives. There is no escape from it.

It’s a balance between order and disorder where too much disorder results in chaos and too much order in tyranny.

[Wiseacre]

> All systems of justice contain false positives. There is no escape from it.

They should inscribe that at the entrance of court buildings. Really drives home the aspirations of the justice system.

[jcranberry]

Its somewhat important that this principal only applies to criminal court.

[luke0016]

Why?

[jcranberry]

presumption of innocence is a legal principle that only applies to criminal court.

so i assume when youre equating the fundamental right to what governments believe, youre talking about specifically presumption of innocence before convicted criminally, and being jailed or executed.

the government does not fundamentally believe in presumption of innocence in civil law. for example, you could sue a bank for losing some of your records it's required to keep. the onus is on the bank (the defendant) to prove they did not lose those records, rather than on the plaintiff to prove that they don't have the records.

[lordnacho]

Because that's where the most severe officially imposed sanctions can come from.

Less severe stuff like parking fines can be done wrong and it's not such a big deal.

[luke0016]

I suppose that's a practical argument for it. Philosophically it still doesn't seem right, though.

[lordnacho]

What's philosophically right about no-false-positives? There should be a debate about whether it's not more right to balance the different injustices (innocent people in jail vs guilty people going free), rather than install a very high bar for conviction as the desired outcome. Perhaps I just haven't come across the argument.

[luke0016]

For me, it's more what's philosophically right about an innocent person enduring suffering or punishment through no fault of their own. To me, that appears to be a great (maybe even the greatest) injustice.