Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Guilty until proven innocent


I recently had a talk with a good friend of mine about the law and the familiar maxim "Innocent until proven guilty". We quickly came to the realization that the accused person should be granted the option of complete anonymity until such a time that he or she is proven guilty. This is not to say that the trial should be closed to the public. It should definitely be open to ensure that the judicial process is running fairly. An open system with a "hidden" defendant would probably be a difficult thing to set up, but it seems to be necessitated by the maxim.

If a verdict of innocent was found, the defendant could then decide to make the proceedings public or not. If a verdict of guilty was found, then the case could be made public by the court

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