• BananaCake@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Sort of, a criminal is someone who has been found guilty of committing a crime.

    The way we prove that guilt, from the perspective of the US, is through the courts. Until the guilt is proven through the courts they are not a criminal but the accused of an alleged crime. Really seems like far to many people like to glaze over that part and just jump straight to an accused being guilty without due process.

    • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      2 days ago

      It doesn’t say have been found guilty, it says is guilty. Someone who has committed a crime is guilty of it, whether or not it has been proven in court.

      justly chargeable with or responsible for a usually grave breach of conduct or a crime

      https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/guilty

      “Innocent until proven guilty” is a legal principle. Like I tried to explain, there’s different context where in a court you could say that they can’t consider someone guilty (and a criminal for that particular thing) until proven so, but you can still be a criminal outside of specific legal language for being guilty, meaning having committed a crime.

      Guilt also means different things, it can mean you have actually committed it (factual guilt seems to be the term for it) and legal guilt is the one proven and assigned in court.