Why Does the Law Say “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” and Not the Opposite
No, I didn’t learn it from Suits.
The law is established to prevent crime and bring justice when it’s committed.
Depending on the rules ( say constitution ) in each country, the same crime can result in different punishment levels.
The default truth
Before the accused appears in court, the status before the verdict is “innocent until proven guilty”.
Why do we assume this default decision and not go with the opposite one — “guilty until proven innocent”? That’s because the court verdict follows the rule of hypothesis testing. Or you can say the hypothesis testing follows the pattern from the court. It’s a whole chicken and eggs kind of situation. Just think they are related [ please ], and don’t bash me.
Hypothesis testing simplified
I have studied hypothesis testing in Data Analyst Nanodegree from Udacity. I watched the lessons multiple times to finally get it right. That’s because this concept can often get confusing because of the technical terms often used in statistics.
I have condensed the process into three steps:
- If we want to prove some statement, we call it the alternative hypothesis. This can be true or false. We cannot know it before we perform a test ( trial in a criminal case ).
- The situation far before the incident happened is called the null hypothesis. This statement holds if we cannot gather enough proofs. This statement is even true if we conduct no tests ( or trial in a criminal case). This statement is true if nothing happened.
- The verdict is out when we gather enough evidence to support a claim. In statistical terms, this means we reject the null. Or when there is not enough evidence, we say — fail to reject the null. “Reject” and “fail to reject” are conventions developed from this concept — we are trying to go against the prevailing truth ( that the accused person was definitely innocent until now ) to prove something different.
Less technicality, more practical examples
Now I would go more deeply about how the statistics play a role in making the right decision and why this innocent-first method is better than the guilty-first one, but I’ll explain it with the example of an extreme case for a clear understanding. A case that will show you how dystopian our planet would be if we went with this decision — guilty until proven innocent.
Consider 100 criminal cases are going on for 100 individuals. I mean one case for each person, you sadist!
You don’t know how many people are innocent or guilty. There are four possibilities if we make the combination of the court decision and the actual truth:
- decision: innocent, truth: innocent
- decision: guilt, truth: guilty
- decision: innocent, truth: guilty
- decision: guilty, truth: innocent. This is the worst decision, more on this below.
The first two possibilities are crystal clear. The last two are what inspire crime thriller movies based on “true stories”.
In the last two, the court has made an error in judgment. Which one do you think is the worst? The worst case is when we go against this original truth — assuming the accused person is innocent.
Why the fourth case is the worst one
Now consider an extreme version ( of the fourth case ) where the judge is on acid and sentences all the accused ones to jail. He might have given punishment for the deserving perps, but the innocent ones are behind bars for some imaginary shit!
I’ll explain by taking the third case now. Let’s say the evidence is not enough in all the cases. Now every criminal gets free. Does this mean the system is largely at fault? Yes, it might be, but does it mean they didn’t even try?
Not at all. They did try. Although the judiciary freed some criminals, it happened because of the lack of evidence. The one thing that history has taught us is — those criminals won’t be free forever. They will eventually end up behind bars for a future crime or even darker — die a horrible death.
There was no name dropping for TV series so far, but I saw this terrific show and its snowballing in my head — binge Narcos on Netflix. There, I said it. You won’t stop just at this show now. Here is another one — Narcos Mexico. Shit! Somebody stop me!
Final words
I haven’t studied law, neither am I planning to do soon. But I did finish watching Suits this February. Some terms might seem esoteric for you above. That’s because I learned those fancy words from Suits, not the way the judiciary works, but just the words for the sake of clarifying the technicality.
I learned hypothesis testing four years ago, back when I knew little about law. Since then, I wanted to share this concept with you because it was tough to understand when you blend the entire mathematics.
I learned it the hard way. I want to make it easier for you without being pedagogical.
Now that I have started blogging, it felt the right time to explain the reason behind this statement — “innocent until proven guilty”. After reading this article ( maybe even multiple times like I watched those videos, believe me this concept is tough ), if someone explains this concept to a person in need, I achieved something worthy here!
Sanjeev is a mentor at Udacity who writes about mental health, productivity, fitness lifestyle, and mindfulness in his off-work time. When he is not clearing students’ doubts or grading projects, he is burning oil either in a workout or playing badminton.
