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An Emphasis on the Rights of the Accused

Among the phrases from American legal language that have entered the common usage are "burden of proof" and "presumption of innocence." In legal actions against someone accused of a crime, the burden of proof is on the state to prove its case, not on the accused to prove his innocence—and certainly not for the accused to prove his guilt. Closely tied with this is the presumption of innocence: the defendant is always innocent until proven guilty, and never the other way around. These ideas are usually associated with the system of trials, but they are in fact associated with the entire cycle of criminal procedure that begins at the point when a law enforcement officer makes an arrest.

Hand in hand with these principles go a number of others, embodied either in the Constitution or in its amendments. Article III guarantees that the accused has a right to appear before a judge to...