Probable Cause

Scott Greenfield’s blog, Simple Justice, is probably the only legal blog where I try never to miss a post.  If I fall behind, it bugs me, and when I get the chance, I’ll catch up by spending an hour or more reading every post I’ve missed.  One of these days, I’m going to continue digging back into the older posts, from before I knew about his blog, and read all those, too.  This is not to say that I agree with everything he says, but everything he says definitely makes me think.  And I agree with enough of it that I wish there was someone like him in my jurisdiction to mentor me.  (Scott’s been practicing a lot longer than I have.)

One of his posts from today — A Blog That Shouldn’t — gives me the chance to talk more about something that matters very much to me.  It concerns the question of defending guilty people.

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In 1895, the United States Supreme Court noted 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.¹

The Coffin Court, after stating this principle, pointed out that the concept is so well-established that “[i]t is stated as unquestioned in the text-books” and went on to explain that the presumption of innocence can be traced back to ancient Greek and Roman law and even to the book of Deuteronomy.²

So why has the United States Department of Justice decided to officially abandon the principle?

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1. Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432, 453 (U.S. 1895). [↩]
2. Ibid. [↩]