It was designed this way on purpose. Most criminal justice systems are designed to protect the state. Ours was designed to protect the individual.

In a notable trial in 1728, a defence lawyer (Robert Dundas) persuaded a jury to reassert its ancient right of acquitting, of finding a defendant "not guilty". The case involved Carnegie of Finhaven who had accidentally killed the Earl of Strathmore. The law (as it stood) required the jury merely to look at the facts and pass a verdict of "proven" or "not proven" depending on whether they believed the facts proved the defendant had killed the Earl. As the defendant had undoubtedly killed the Earl, if the jury brought in a "proven" they would in effect cause this innocent man to hang. To avert this injustice, the jury decided to assert what it believed to be their "ancient right" to judge the whole case and not just the facts, and brought in the verdict of "not guilty".

The (re)introduction of the "not guilty" verdict was part of a wider movement during the 16th and 17th century which saw a gradual increase in the power of juries, such as the trial of William Penn in 1670, in which an English jury first gained the right to pass a verdict contrary to the law (known as jury nullification), and the trial of John Peter Zenger in New York in 1735 in which jury nullification is credited with establishing freedom of the press as firm right in what would become the United States.

Although jurors continued to use both "not guilty and "not proven", jurors tended to favour the "not guilty" verdict over the "not proven" and the interpretation changed.

The state has practically unlimited resources to find evidence, interview potential witnesses, and explore legal theories. One of the more important reasons that we require a jury of the defendants peers to find him or her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is to somewhat offset this enormous imbalance of power.

Our legal system is designed as an "Innocence Presumed" institution for a very good reason. A person is either proven guilty or their innocence is maintained; notice I did not say "not guilty". The third option you mention still leaves a considerable cloud of legal suspicion. There is nothing that can be done about the public's perception. The legal system does not need to fuel it. Now, the juries should be afforded protection under the law as shown necessary in this situation. If, in fact, someone lost their employment due to a hostile work environment, then the person has legal recourse against the company for them not providing a safe work place. I do agree with the concept of one or two well-scripted interviews.

A circuit board fragment, allegedly found embedded in a piece of charred material, was identified as part of an electronic timer similar to that found on a Libyan intelligence agent who had been arrested 10 months previously, carrying materials for a Semtex bomb. The timer allegedly was traced through its Swiss manufacturer, Mebo, to the Libyan military, and Mebo employee Ulrich Lumpert identified the fragment at al-Megrahi's trial. Mebo's owner, Edwin Bollier, later revealed that in 1991 he had declined an offer from the FBI of $4 million to testify that the timer fragment was part of a Mebo MST-13 timer supplied to Libya. On 18 July 2007, Ulrich Lumpert admitted he had lied at the trial.[49] In a sworn affidavit before a Zurich notary public, Lumpert stated that he had stolen a prototype MST-13 timer printed circuit board from Mebo and gave it without permission on 22 June 1989, to "an official person investigating the Lockerbie case".[50] Dr Hans Köchler, UN observer at the Lockerbie trial, who was sent a copy of Lumpert's affidavit, said: "The Scottish authorities are now obliged to investigate this situation. Not only has Mr Lumpert admitted to stealing a sample of the timer, but to the fact he gave it to an official and then lied in court". Traces of high explosives RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) were found in close proximity to the explosion.

Comms: What's a "Dug Syndrome"? The only reference I could find was a medical one very much unrelated to notoriety.

I was under the impression that the founding fathers who formulated the US constitution based the law on pre US revolutionary English common law. The US founding fathers may have taken on board the philosophy of Scottish enlightenment of Hume and his associates but the day to day pragmatic business of practised law was based on the English system of jurisprudence.

The not proven ruling introduction into Scottish Law was actually a way of protecting an individual from the state using a 'ancient right'

Injustice is in itself a function of the ability to be able to afford or not afford the best representation. i.e. the wealthy are more likely to be set free (less likely to be convicted) than the poor.

Not looking for an argument, just curious

Everyone in this thread has been very civil. One of the things I treasure about ETS is our ability to air strongly-held conflicting opinions about emotional topics without unpleasantness. Thank you all for that.