First, do no harm.
Strike the Root links today to my recent post on the Presumption of Innocence, which largely consisted of quoting J. Tony Serra on the subject. I wanted to add one thing to Serra’s inspirational words: A recent Gallup poll found that, for the first time since Gallup began asking in 1969, more Americans support legalization of marijuana than oppose it. My view is that, so long as fewer than 92% of Americans (nevermind 50%) have supported the criminalization of marijuana, so long has the criminalization of marijuana been exposed as itself an infamous crime.
If 11 out of 12 jurors in a criminal case vote to convict, only 91.66% of those jurors have voted to convict. We righteously require more than that to overcome the presumption of innocence and convict a person of a crime.
If we the people really believe that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and that we are endowed by our Creator with the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, then we should presume innocent not only every person but every person’s pursuit of happiness, and it should take a lot more than just a bare majority of self-serving politicians to rebut that presumption and to deem anything anybody does a crime.
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