Presumption of Innocence. . .

A criminal defendant is supposed to be given a weighty presumption of innocence.

An early U.S. Supreme Court case stated that the “principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.” Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 453 (1895).

This is what we tell a jury before we send them off to deliberate on someone’s guilt:

“The defendant is presumed innocent of the charge made. This presumption remains with the defendant unless and until the defendant has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That the defendant has been brought before the court by the ordinary processes of the law and is on trial should not be considered by you as in any way suggesting guilt. The burden of proving guilt is on the State. The defendant does not have to prove innocence” [emphasis added].

Minnesota Crim JIG 3.02.

Presumption of Guilt:

But when I walk into the courtroom with someone who’s been charged with DWI, everyone in the courtroom, from the prosecutor to the court reporter to the other people charged with crimes, thinks he did it.  The fact that “the defendant has been brought before the court by the ordinary processes of the law and is on trial” is precisely suggestive of his guilt.

People ask me why I defend criminals.  I answer that I presume they are innocent of the charges and need my help proving their innocence.  This protestation is often met with an indulgent smile.

Police Are Often Wrong:

But, however well-intentioned, honorable, and dedicated to the truth they may be, police get facts wrong much of the time.  Written police reports are full of the sorts of honest errors that occur when someone tries to figure out what happened immediately after it happened.

Recent high-profile news events make this point.

Newtown:

As the tragic shooting of children in Newtown, Connecticut unfolded, news accounts reported a lot of information about what had happened, much of it wrong.  The most egregious of these errors was misidentifying the shooter as Ryan Lanza, the brother of the actual murderer, Adam Lanza.  The media also reported that the Lanzas’ mother (also killed in the shooting) was a teacher at the school and that the victims were the students in her class, or that she was a teacher’s aide, or that she was a volunteer at the school.  In fact, however, Nancy Lanza had no connection to Sandy Hook Elementary School.  There were also reports that a second gunman had been arrested in the woods behind the school.

The media have been roundly and rightly criticized for sloppy reporting in their rush to be first with the story.  But look at where the media got their information: the source of the media’s information, by and large, was identified as a “law enforcement source” or a “law enforcement official.”  Here are two typical such reports citing police as their sources.  These reporters cite their sources as “law enforcement” precisely because of our inclination to believe that the police got it right. 

I have nothing but respect for these first responders who risked their lives to save people’s children (they did not know if there was still someone shooting when they went into the school).  Furthermore, what they saw inside the school is too horrible to imagine, yet they are stuck with those images for the rest of their lives.

But note: for all of their training, good intentions, and heroism, the police were the source of the wrong information about what happened.  They got a lot of facts wrong, including the identity of the person who killed 20 children, his motive (something about his mother’s classroom), and whether he had an accomplice.

Cold Spring:

A similar thing happened locally when a Cold Springs (Minnesota) Police Officer was murdered.  Ryan Larson was identified as the cop killer, he was arrested, and his picture was in the paper.  He says his life is ruined.   He’s certainly going to be “that guy” for the rest of his life.  Eric Joseph Thomes was later identified as a suspect, found to have had access to the murder weapon, and he later committed suicide as police closed in on him.  The current state of the evidence makes Thomes a more likely suspect to have killed Officer Decker.

Again, the police were determined to find the person who killed their colleague: their intentions were certainly pure.  They did not want a cop killer to go loose.  But they got it wrong.  They misidentified who killed their brother police officer.   They released his name and mug shot to the media.  They reported on their impressions of his mental state (suicidal), even though that information had no basis in fact whatsoever.

Police Reports Are Error-Prone:

Errors in figuring out just what happened are ubiquitous in police reports.  And yet how often do we assume the police accounts are presumptively true?

People in my profession spend a lot of time trying to suppress evidence from faulty breath testing machines, sloppy crime labs, poor chain of custody procedures, and hearsay.  I cross examine police on what they saw and what they didn’t see. I don’t do this to spring some criminal on a technicality.  I do it because I presume my client is innocent.

But when someone accused of a crime, from DWI to murder, walks into a courtroom and a police report or a uniformed police officer says he did it, how many people believe he didn’t?  Seriously.

You are entitled to a presumption of innocence and you are entitled to it for good reason.  Call me if you have been charged with a crime.