Until vs. Unless

Have you ever stopped to think about the phrase " innocent until proven guilty"? Shouldn't it be "innocent unless proven guilty"? This may seem like a matter of simple semantics, but really I think it's more than that. "until" presupposes guilt in a way that "unless" doesn't. I had never thought much about it until recently. As I wrote earlier in the week, I have been trying to find opportunities for my big volunteer group (which is still proving more difficult than it should be). One of the organizations I called was the Florida Innocence Project. Because it's a small office based in Tallahassee, our volunteering there isn't practical. But at least someone called me back (as no one did at Habitat for Humanity); I asked the attorney I spoke with to hang onto my information in case there was an event we could help with in Jacksonville, or if she needed some writing and/or editing help. I am intrigued by the Innocent Project overall, and I'm not sure whether I have ever mentioned that if I were starting out my career (which you could also read as "if I were thirty years younger"), I would become a forensic profiler. In my mind that kind of work is closely related to exonerations, even if the connection isn't immediately apparent to others. I suppose the reason I see them as connected is that whatever can be used to convict someone can, possibly, also be used to exonerate him or her. Or, more precisely, the absence of that thing can exonerate. Now I'm confusing myself.

Anyway, I've also been reviewing textbooks because one of the colleges where I teach has decided to limit our choices. We have several lists from which we have to pick a book, three for my Comp I class, for example. I received most of my desk copies earlier in the week, but one came today that is a full-length book (as opposed to writers' references and anthologies). I had heard of the book but had never read it. I opened it around 3:00 and didn't put it down until 7:00. It addresses the very topic I've been thinking of this week: exoneration. I have no personally compelling reason to take an interest in exonerations, other than my humanity. No one I know is in prison (at least as far as I'm aware) or on death row. However, as our world becomes more inherently dangerous -- and, no, I'm not going to get into what exactly I mean by that -- it seems that any of us could find ourselves in a position of defense, of "guilty until (or unless) proven innocent". I do realize that it's more likely for some of us than others, whether because of the company we keep or the choices we make. Still, can you imagine being incarcerated -- and especially sentenced to death -- for a crime you didn't commit? In the book I'm reading now, a man was misidentified (by the victim) as a rapist and spent eleven years in jail. From what I read on the Innocence Project website, eyewitness testimony is the usual culprit in wrongful incarceration cases. It is often the most trusted kind of testimony, by judges and jurors, by is wildly unreliable. That's very interesting, don't you think?