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Maximum Leader = lawmaker, judge, jury, & executioner

Be very afraid if I get any of those gigs. :o)

Seriously though, if someone has committed a felony, he is a felon even before a trial, indictment or conviction (as you can read from the revelant Massuchessetts "aiding and abetting" statute that I've copied below). If you help some you know is a criminal escape justice, then you've become a criminal yourself.

Interestingly there is federal case law (I'm not licensed in Mass., so I don't know how the courts there have ruled) that even if the principal felon has been acquitted of the underlying felony, an accessory after the fact can still be convicted.

Chapter 274: Section 4. Accessories after fact; punishment; relationship as defence; cross-examination; impeachment.

Section 4. Whoever, after the commission of a felony, harbors, conceals, maintains or assists the principal felon or accessory before the fact, or gives such offender any other aid, knowing that he has committed a felony or has been accessory thereto before the fact, with intent that he shall avoid or escape detention, arrest, trial or punishment, shall be an accessory after the fact, and, except as otherwise provided, be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than seven years or in jail for not more than two and one half years or by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars...

People are not felons until convicted in a court of law. Criminal charges were not filed by the victims. Prosecutions did not take place.

People are not criminals because they break the law, people break the law because they are criminals, you see it is a condition of the heart or mindset, not a judical process. Don't get hung up on the formalities of a democracy when it declares that a man is innocent until proven guilty. This only pertains to the perogative of society to impose a sanction. If a man is guilty he is guilty whether it is proven or not. Your line of argument is reminicent of the "Lanny Davis" Bill Clinton defense when he attempts to deconstruct what we know (can prove) and don't know (can't prove) about Clintons veracity and honesty. It all seems to add a lot of nosensical "lawyerily" disinforming words to an issue that is obvious to most clear thinking people.