I don't believe the presumption of innocence has any thing to do with it being better to allow 10 guilty people go free than one person serve in prison. The presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt have do with protecting the individual from the state.
Exactly and this is why the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, not the defense. Guilty beyond reasonable doubt is the million dollar phrase and that phrase accounts during the arrest, the trial and yes...even during imprisonment. It is that concept that protects the individual from the state and why there is an appeal process. It is taught in most any credible law school that this ideal serves to law in a democracy because if you establish a totalitarian style of guilt...then the state becomes powerful and the people then become answerable to it. A certain "safe number to get it right" scenario with capital punishment goes directly against the ideal of our democracy. The state murders a citizen in that scenario...not acceptable.
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Also, had we stood by our constitutional values we would not have participated in the trials of the Nazis.
Why is everyone going to war criminals in an international setting? I am talking about American law, violations and victims both being American citizens taking place on American soil. We did follow our ideals of democracy with Nuremberg but there was a heck of a lot more to it as it was a collaboration with other democratic nations that changed international law as people knew it back then.
Ex Post Facto, Constitutionally, in the USA you can't be tried for actions that at a later become illegal. The USA didn't stand by that constitutional principle by participating in the Nuremberg trials. That said, our non-participation wouldn't have changed the outcome.
Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
H. L. Mencken
