No justice can be had if we don't presume innocence.

There's a serious reason why the exoneration of Anthony Broadwater after forty years of being falsely treated as a rapist - sixteen years in prison and subsequent years on the sex offender registry - should be talked about more. There are deeply relevant cultural and ethical lessons to be learned here.

Especially when the #metoomovement was at its peak, a lot of people, way too many people started to view anybody, including myself, who dared to utter the words "presumption of innocence" in relation to a rape case as a rape a apologist or somebody who thought that most accusers were liars. On the other side, too many people started digging for the rare cases of alleged victims who were eventually found to be lying.

There's a reason why it requires zero cognitive dissonance to believe in the presumption of innocence while also not immediately assuming that accusers are lying. Really, there are several reasons; but, this case is illustrative of an important component.

I have no reason to believe that Broadwater ended up in prison because Alice Sebold told a lie. Really, I have every bit of evidence that I need to believe that she always believed her testimony. It's just not beyond imagination that a teenager who just experienced the most terrifying experience of her life might get her facts wrong and that problems with law enforcement might have lead her to thoughly believe that they had her attacker in custody.

It's possible for everybody to be telling the truth as he or she saw it and still get things wrong. Presumption of innocence isn't the same as presumption of lies from alleged victims. Presumption of innocence is the acknowledgment of human fallibility and the consequences of false imprisonment. You see, for the last forty years, the man who really raped Sebold has escaped punishment because people didn't presume the innocence is Broadwater.

Justice could have been done if we went with what I believe, "Trust but verify." We didn't and an innocent man was condemned for forty years. A woman who was raped never saw her real attacker punished. A real rapist has gone without punishment this whole time.