Authored by Karl T. Muth
Abstract
This brief essay in criminal law and criminal procedure exploits the recent failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump, America’s 45th (and, at the time of this writing, possibly 47th) President, to explain why the word “guilty” is so easily, perhaps even uniquely, confusing to use precisely. If the assassination attempt had been successful, Trump would have been not guilty as to the 34 criminal counts in New York, as he would have died in July 2024, prior to sentencing in September 2024.
“Guilty” is a difficult word to use even for those with legal training as it transits back and forth between its everyday meaning and its legal meaning; the concept of the “guilty defendant” versus the “falsely accused defendant” is attractively dichotomous at a distance but rather worthless when examined closely. Even in courtrooms and law school classrooms (and disturbingly-often and occasionally-defamatorily in journalism), some discussions omit or forget that no one is guilty until the finding of guilt is entered, something only a judge’s order at the conclusion of a criminal trial can accomplish.
This Article interrogates why we have such trouble using this word “guilty” properly and discusses when one may invoke the word “guilty” correctly without needing to police one’s speech tediously or redact one’s vocabulary unnecessarily.
American Journal of Trial Advocacy 