Any day, Republican nominee Roy Moore will almost certainly end his campaign to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate. When that happens, his partisans will say—as they are saying now—that even though he’s been accused of sexual misconduct, none of the charges have been proved. In other words, say Moore’s supporters, the candidate has been denied the presumption of innocence.
They’re at best half right.
It’s easy to misunderstand the presumption of innocence. When a defendant faces criminal trial, the rule is part of the tool kit that reduces the likelihood that the state will take away life or liberty unless we are very sure of guilt. Although mistakes still happen, there would be a lot more of them in the absence of the presumption.
If Washington tells her buddy Adams that there was a rat under her table at Jefferson’s restaurant, Adams won’t say, “I’ll wait for formal adjudication.” Adams will stop going, and will probably spread the word.
Each voter is a jury—a jury of one. Each voter has to weigh the evidence and decide whether the charges are likely to be true. Ideally, we should be principled about the whole thing, especially at election time. If a certain amount of proof will suffice to persuade us of wrongdoing by a candidate we abhor, the same amount of proof should persuade us of wrongdoing by a candidate we adore.
One is reminded here of New York Times columnist William Safire’s 1994 defense of President Bill Clinton against Paula Jones’ charges—Clinton and Safire, as you may recall, being sharp political enemies. “I mistrust sudden memories and late hits and lucrative victimhood,” Safire wrote. He argued that although “sexual harassment is widespread, wrong, unlawful and should be stopped,” the best way to do so would be to discourage complaints years after the fact as a way of encouraging victims to file charges promptly. Maybe that’s right, maybe it’s wrong. But at least Safire, to his credit, applied the same standard to those he supported and those he opposed.
In all of this, we as citizens should apply our faculty of reason. We should not sputter “presumption of innocence” when what we mean is “burden of proof.” And we should not treat the casting of a vote at election time the same as the casting of a vote on a jury.
All of which brings us back to Judge Moore. He’s not in trouble because of something terrible he’s supposed to have said. He’s in trouble because of something terrible he’s supposed to have done. Of course it’s possible that he’s done nothing at all. But the court of public opinion has its own rules. The job of voters is to set partisanship aside and exercise their reason, in order to decide whether the accusations of misconduct are too plausible to ignore. If they are, that plausibility alone is enough to guide the decision.