A Term Paper on the Comparison Between Innocent Until Proven Guilty vs. Guilty Until Proven Innocent, and the Role of the Prosecutor in the American Judicial System

"Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed."[1] In plan language, a defendant should be considered innocent until it can be proved that he/she is guilty. If they are accused of a crime, he/she should always have the right to defend themselves. Nobody has the right to condemn a person and punish them for something they have not done. The purpose of this paper is to explore the long debated question of, "Does/Should the 'system' try to prove the defendant guilty?" This paper will visit theories of innocence until proven guilty vs. guilty until proven innocent. In the United States of America, an accused party is to be "presumed innocent until proven guilty." Notice that the word presumed stands out in that sentence. As per Webster's dictionary, the word presumed means: to take for granted as being true in the absence of proof to the contrary: (e.g. we presumed she was innocent).…