It is better to risk sparing a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.
This quotation has become an operational principle of most justice systems of industrial democracies.
People are innocent until they are proven guilty, and we will make sure that stays the case.
I never sympathise with the accused unless there's a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don't ever sympathise with the criminal.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
The prosecution has an ethical duty to ensure not just that they get a conviction when the defendant is guilty, but also to ensure that they get it by means of fair trial, and that means a fair trial for the defense as well as the prosecution.
I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty.
Trials are no longer about freeing the innocent, punishing the guilty, and making restitution to the injured. They have devolved into a contest over who will win.
I believe I am entitled like any other person to have the presumption of innocence.
I know of no case in which you are to have a judicial proceeding, by which a man is to be deprived of any part of his property, without his having an opportunity of being heard.