"Your honor, I was innocent of that prior crime and it shouldn't be used to enhance the sentencing of this current case, nor to influence the jury's perception."

"I'm sorry, it says you weren't found guilty; it doesn't say you were innocent."

Now extrapolate this to your friends or potential employers.

"Sure, LorenPechtel wasn't proven guilty of murdering 500 orphans as accused, but he never fully proved his innocence with a detailed and corroborated minute-by-minute log of his activities for the past 5 years. So maybe he did it!"

It's innocent until proven guilty. Not guilty until proven innocent. A third category would be abused to high heaven, and the courts already engage in far too much abuse.

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crote 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Except for plea bargains, where it is often "innocent until bullied into accepting a plea deal as the better option - even when you didn't do it". No need to prove anything there.

	▲	soulofmischief 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I am currently in the court system defending my innocence regarding a recent incident which I can't currently discuss, and the officer who charged me was literally bragging about how most of the charges would get "pled down"; he was openly and deliberately frontloading me with bogus extra charges hoping some would stick if I did a plea deal for the rest. He told me that if I talked back to him, he'd give me an assaulting an officer charge just because he could get away with it. The corruption is baked into the system from top to bottom.