[arp242]

In principle I agree, but it also works the other way round: people get convicted for crimes they did not commit due to unreasonable and unsound reasoning. The fact that things like the Innocence Project exist is by itself already a huge red flag.

On balance, I'm not sure if it's biased towards letting people go free. It might be interesting to compare e.g. the UK with some European countries (in the US the justice system is too bananas on several levels).

[stevekemp]

Scotland has three verdicts for trails:

* Guilty

* Not Guilty

* Not Proven - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

The latter lets you off, but has the connotation the defendant probably did it, but it couldn't be quite proven.

I like that system, but it seems there is a legal review going on at the moment which might abolish it.