It actually does. You can judge her, but she is not guilty. The more we as a society decide the justice system is just an arbitrary way of deciding who gets punished and not _the_ way of deciding if a person is or is not a criminal the more we slide towards oblivion.

If a person is found not guilty, they are not guilty. To argue otherwise is to undermine the core institution of western civilization.

Not guilty doesn't mean innocent. It means "guilt could not be proven", it does not mean "innocence was proven".

Seriously, this is why OJ was found liable for the murder of his wife in a civil case, as they're judged on the balance of probabilities.

And it's why people who have served time, then had a retrial ordered and then found not guilty, can be denied compensation, because decisions on compensation are also done on the balance of probabilities.

So yeah, "not guilty" != "innocent".

Important to note that western civilization is fundamentally ok with the knowledge that the statement issued by a jury or judge does not actually define whether a person is morally, factually or colloquially “innocent”. Disputes may be addressed c/o OJ Simpson and the Central Park 5.

The finding is ‘not guilty’, rather than innocent. It does not mean the accused is innocent. It means they could not be proven guilty.

there is no way to argue that without also believing that the millions of people the state has tossed into prison are all guilty, which is really not something that I can do.

I mostly agree with the idea, but to accept this as an absolute implies our justice system is infallible