The following is quite a disorganized batch of thoughts out of my head....(I'm quite busy and drowning with numerous legal matters of my own or my family's...covers the gamut...civil rights violations, insurance company misconduct, neighbors trespassing, victimization by criminals)....
The public in the Anglosphere has ideals about their own legal system that cannot be further from the actual truth.
Ignorance of common law basically part and parcel for every non-lawyer in the various English countries. Tort law exists because people were pieces of garbage and well...disputes arose and some resolution was achieved.
This ignorance can be beneficial to society, as some individuals who think they got away with murder via insanity still has to foot the bill for satisfying the torts such as intentional infliction of emotional distress, civil assault, civil battery, etc.
The principle of "innocent until proven guilty" is a opiate of words and a misnomer. It's "not guilty until proven guilty". The reason it exists is to curb the power of an organization with the natural incentive to breach rights. But for an individual, curbing your own power to avoid loss or damage is not necessarily wise or intelligent, and there is no heaven for your sacrifice in clinging to the ideals(such as forgiving and sticking with an abusive, possibly murderous partner).
Not all cases follow the same standard. The public thinks the most favorable light in the defendant is the only way of thinking. This is not so in all situations. Appeals are reviewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.
Proving a civil case, though easier...is not easy. The logical chain still requires a proper chain of syllogism, just not every minutiae has to exist. There is a possibility someone could cook up a story, but it requires some experience. Perhaps someone else's story was taken, either personally or through costly "research", or training in duplicitiy at home via parents.
Police can be professional, but in my experience, they usually have ulterior motives or even preconceptions to interpret the evidence in their favor, and there is no such thing as peer-review or other checks such as voting to really dispute the facts. As far as rights breaching goes, they very well can do it and will do it because their de facto training basically teaches them how to get away with stuff. Self-advocacy is quite neceesary for many cases.
Don't have the name off the top of my head, but one mom had to spend her life savings to get her son's murder exposed; this was featured on True Crime Daily.
Not in collective conciousness, but very much in the realm law, plenty of suits get filed for rights violations in which only nominal damages are sought, and sometimes...the government has to pay the attorneys for their fees in doing the litigation to advocate for rights.
Sometimes yes, courts records are not fully accessible to the public. I wanted to investigate a sex offender, but he was able to make his main record of conviction private.
