Yeah, I remember the author of Helter Skelter about Charles Manson wrote another book on why OJ Simpson was guilty.. he had 5 reasons.  Anyway, he wrote something to the same effect.. but it was in a different frame of thought.  Something along the lines of “the media can get sued for making a judgment before a trial which is why they use alleged and suspect etc.”  He mentioned that you’re basically proving yourself innocent, though.  I forget exactly, he said it pretty well.

 

As any seasoned criminal trial laywer will attest, most juries see through the transparent fiction of the presumption of innocence.  (Couldn’t the same be said of media and citizens?)  Whether they verbalize it or not, as reasonable human beings they know that if the defendant seated at he counsel table in front of them were truly presumed to be innocent in the eyes of the law, they would not have been empaneled to hear and adjudicate the charges brought against the defendant by the law.    http://books.google.com/books?id=lMWGu1ex4_YC&printsec=frontcover&dq=five+reasons+why+simpson&hl=en&ei=KxQ8TqzWKM600AHV3KyyAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=innocent&f=false     page 35 if your’e interested.  There’s other stuff in there, I can’t find the direct quote.  He’s definitely a very good writer.  His stuff flows.  Good book.  I should read other books by him.

 

I think the  bigger injustices in examples like yours are 1) the police erringly label a person as suspect even when there isn’t enough evidence  whether due to political and job pressures , lack of intelligence, lack of work ethics, whatever.  2) The media publishes/broadcasts it.  The media isnt’ in as much fault ‘cause they can only work with the info given to them by the law enforcement agencies. 

 

But yeah, once your name is out there, your life is screwed.  Too many articles I’ve read about that, including the Anthrax one, the bloodhound dog sniffers, and the black guy who was in jail for almost 30 years before released and not even given a financial reward for wrongful imprisonment ‘cause the state wasn’t at fault or something.   Not sure how someone could get wrongfully accused and then proven guilty.. people are too ignorant about specific things that go in trials to really make accurate judgements.  I had a talk with a lawyer patient almost 2 years ago about this.  He said the judicial system is flawed, gave me a lot of examples including that one, and then said it’s still the best one in existence.  Yeah, ‘cause how else could you do it.. you can only have people make the decisions, your peers, not a computer or algorithm.