the.com/innocence
the only thing you can't fake, can't earn back, and never knew you had
means the state of being free from guilt, wrongdoing, or corrupting knowledge — moral purity, or simple legal blamelessness.
from From Latin innocentia, 'harmlessness, blamelessness,' built from in- ('not') plus nocere ('to harm') — the same root that gives us 'noxious' and 'innocuous.' So at its core the innocent are literally the un-harming, those who do no injury. It reached English through Old French in the medieval period, carrying both senses we still hold: free of guilt, and untouched by the knowledge that does the harming.
- legal default
- presumed innocent until courts prove otherwise
- latin root
- innocens means harmless, literally not-hurting
- costs nothing
- only obvious in hindsight, after it's gone
- jury check
- twelve strangers decide if yours survives
central park five — five teenagers wrongly convicted of 1989 assault in nyc, exonerated in 2002 after dna evidence
west memphis three — three men imprisoned 18 years for 1993 arkansas murders, released 2011 via alford plea when dna cleared them
amanda knox — american student convicted of 2007 murder in italy, acquitted and exonerated in 2015