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Trial bias

It was while reading this report about the farcical trial for the Omagh bombings that I realised something worrying.

I've unconsciously started to believe that, if someone's put up for trial, they're almost certainly guilty. Because people only get sent for trial if there's enough evidence to make the prosecutors believe they can get a conviction, right? Maybe it's the result of watching too many police / forensics TV dramas, but I've definitely started to pick up a belief in 'guilt proven by fact of trial, regardless of result'.

So, seeing the many high profile cases coming up on appeal here in Scotland or abroad (Kenny Ritchie (yay, finally free soon!), Luke Mitchell, William Beggs and Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi), I wonder how many of them who were vilified after their trial really were guilty? Or did people just start to think they were guilty as soon as we heard there would be a trial?
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