There is no such thing as "Lawish", there are only two meanings of "presumption of innocence". In the English language it plainly and simply means that an accused person is regarded in law as innocent unless proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt in a competent court. In American English it apparently means the opposite, that an accused is presumed guilty unless he can prove his innocence beyond reasonable doubt. ^^^^^^ CB: Let me first say I agree with your sentiment that the U.S. legal system should be scored for, in many ways, false advertisement in declaring that all accused persons are _treated_ as innocent until proven guilty. On the song case you address, a legal presumption of innocence or otherwise may be rebuttable or irrebuttable. The presumption of innocence is rebuttal by evidence adduced by the prosecution. From another angle, the burden of proof is on the prosecution at the outset of a criminal case. In the course of the case, the prosecution can rebut the presumption ( or meet its burden of proof) , thereby shifting the burden of proof to the other party, the defendant. Then the defendant has to adduce evidence creating a reasonable doubt that the evidence put on by the prosecution proves guilt. In this song case, I would guess that prosecution put on a case with some evidence from which the jury could reasonbly conclude the defendant committed the crime. As Joan said, there were witnesses for the prosecution who testified against the defendant. The burden then shifted to the defendant to rebut that evidence against him, and evidently , the alibi witness's testimony would have done that. I leave it up to you to decide whether this makes the presumption of innocence phony in principle. By the way, "police state" is a redundancy. States in essence or definition have police and armed personnel who have major force.