Back to Basics, Again

Speaking of the U.S. Supreme Court, we shouldn’t have to rely on the country’s highest court to decide some questions correctly. But we do.

This week, the Court issued a friendly reminder about the presumption of innocence.

If you’re convicted of a crime, but your conviction is overturned on appeal, and there won’t be a retrial, the government has to return any money that you paid toward fines, fees, or restitution because you’re presumed innocent again. You’re presumed innocent until you’re proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a fair trial where the verdict holds up. Until then, the government can’t make you prove your innocence to get your money back.

Here’s what happened. In two separate cases, a man and woman were convicted at trial, and they were ordered to pay fines, fees, and restitution as a result. Then both had their convictions reversed on appeal. One was retried but acquitted. The other wasn’t retried because the state dropped the case.

With the charges dismissed, the defendants asked for their money back, but they lost in the state courts because a new state law required them to sue for their money and prove their innocence by clear and convincing evidence.

But that can’t be right, and it wasn’t. Without a conviction, the state had no right to their money, and under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution, it couldn’t shift the burden of proof to them to prove their innocence.

Good for them that the court of last resort got it right.

But that court hears fewer than two percent of all potential cases each year. And it wouldn’t have heard these cases, either, if it weren’t for a pro bono clinic at the UCLA School of Law.