The presumption of innocence is a very slippery concept.

The fact that all of us have to be reminded of that, on a consistent basis, reinforces

the reality of the situation, that when someone is arrested, damn near everyone presumes

their guilty.

I suppose that that's a natural thought progression.

I mean, we've all been taught to believe that cops are the good guys, and many of them

are.

And some of them aren't, just like any profession.

Does some cops plan evidence?

Yes, of course they do.

Is it a rampant plague that infects every department and every cop?

No, I don't believe that it is, but at the heart of it, most of us have a somewhat blind

faith that what real cops are doing out there is akin to what happens on law and order

or CSI or any procedural cop show, where they track down witnesses and clues and somehow

always get witnesses to crack under intense interrogation, and by the end of the episode,

the case is tied up in a nice, tidy package, and then handed to the prosecutor.

Yeah, that's fiction.

Do cops close cases?

Yes, of course they do.

And I would hazard to guess that they close a majority of cases, some of them very quickly.

But you know what?

Most people that commit crimes are not criminal masterminds, they are people that are acting

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