Anonymous said on August 27, 2008  

I think the problem I see with this is more of a social issue. Imagine if you've got these three options, and you find out that someone you know was accused of rape and found "not guilty" as opposed to "innocent." Wouldn't you have the impulse to say to yourself "yeah, not guilty, right, that just means he did it but they couldn't prove it" or something along those lines? I think it does shift the burden, not in a legal sense, but in a social perception sense - the outsider who knows nothing about the law is going to see a burden on the accused to have proved himself fully innocent.

 Ken Lammers said on August 29, 2008  

Unfortunately, this already happens. Employers attempt to find out the prior record of people all the time and will hold things someone has been merely charged with against them. This is why most States have some sort of expungement option.

 wdulaney said on December 07, 2009  

By allowing an "innocent" ruling in court cases, it would make some cases where the prosecution lacks serious evidence due to faulty eyewitness testimony or sworn statements go through more quickly. It would allow for the more serious and weighted court cases following to go to trial faster.

 Michael Donner said on June 18, 2011  

Holy cow, this has got to be the craziest argument of all time! Instructing juries is hard enough - now you want to include an instruction that makes them think about the preponderance of the evidence standard versus the beyond a reasonable doubt standard! They will just get confused and think that the prosecution has to prove its case by a preponderance of the evidence.

I have never represented a criminal defendant who was not ecstatically happy at "not guilty."