[CobaltBlue]

But common law does not require a finding of innocent. The accused has no obligation to prove actual innocence. The burden is on the state to prove guilt. It's binary, guilt or not-guilt.

Not-guilt isn't the same as innocent. Well and good. But not-guilt is all that's required.

This is entirely different than proving the truth or falsity of a proposition.

I think what's acting as the attractor in this argument is the similarity to the fact that scientists can't prove that natural laws occur all the time, either, at least that's the way I understand it. Somehow the fact that the sun rises in the east is subject to scientific dispute in a way that logic and mathematics have no difficulty with.

But the law doesn't require a prosecutor to prove guilt with the same level that science requires a scientist to prove causation. If, for example, the police find a man on top of a woman who is struggling to get away, the law doesn't require the jury to consider that he might have been praying for her.

[donh]

Not-guilt isn't the same as innocent. Well and good. But not-guilt is all that's required.

I would argue to the contrary. I think

NOT(guilty()) = innocent

and

NOT(innocent()) = guilty

is a pretty reasonably accurate summation of the state of closure concerning these sets of qualities. All fiddles about partial guilt, or sociatal guilt aside.

If the law was serious about accurate usage, and not serious about double jeopardy, the law would succumb to a previous gentleman's argument about using the scottish phrase, "not proved guilty". For then, your argument would hold: the opposite of "not proved guilty" isn't the same thing as "proved innocent".

But, that isn't what the law says--what the law says is "not guilty". The opposite of "not guilty" is, in fact, innocent.

But, that aside, my argument is a moral one, not a set-theoretic one, and it is an argument pitched against the assumption you make that "not guilty" really means "not proved guilty".

If the state, in it's wisdom, devotes its full force and authority into proving you guilty, and fails, the morally correct assumption, in a state you don't want to see being run by tyrants at their own whim, is that you are innocent. Otherwise the principle of double jeopardy has no teeth, and it should have teeth. The state can keep you a virtual prisoner, and bankrupt you at trial, whether you are repeatedly "not found guilty" or not; you do not pose a similar threat to the state.