58 ms·

Isn't that a matter of custom, given that there is no judicial outcome that specifies complete innocence.

• sowbug 7y ago
  "Found" is a special word in the U.S. legal system. Juries are factfinders. They make findings, which means they answer yes/no questions about whether specific things happened. Juries are typically asked to make affirmative findings, and only very rarely negative ones. So a "not guilty" finding doesn't mean innocent in the sense that the jury is sure the accused didn't do it. It only means they are not sufficiently sure the accused did do it. Thus there is no such thing as being "found innocent." There is only "found not guilty." An example why this matters is the Simpson case itself. A 1997 civil jury went on to find him liable for the deaths of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. The two findings are consistent because they applied different burdens of proof. The criminal jury said they weren't sure beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed them. The civil jury said it was more than 50% likely he did. Thus Simpson was criminally "not guilty," but civilly "liable" for the damage he caused. Taken together, these legal rulings say he was absolutely not "found innocent."
• stan_rogers 7y ago
  That depends on the legal system in place. For instance, Scotland has "guilty", "not guilty", and "not proven", with a distinct difference between "not guilty" and "not proven". There are other legal systems as well where a verdict that amounts to exoneration exists, some with a sort of presumption of guilt, where the exoneration is simply a finding against presumption, and others where there's the same difference between "you probably have the wrong guy" and "you haven't met the burden of proof" as in Scotland.