This is a companion piece for the latest episode of Free Talk Cast, which is about the Diddy acquittal and the surprise that seems rampant following the verdict. 

When Sean “Diddy” Combs was acquitted on most charges against him, the internet exploded with surprise and outrage. Social media filled with comments like “How could they let him go?” and “The system is rigged!” But the verdict shouldn’t surprise us; what should surprise us is that these reactions came from people who hadn’t seen a single piece of evidence presented in court.

This isn’t really about Diddy. It’s about a fundamental breakdown in how Americans understand criminal justice—and why that breakdown creates the exact conditions that lead to wrongful convictions.

The Presumption of Guilt

The most telling aspect of the public reaction wasn’t the anger at the verdict, but surprise at the verdict. Surprise reveals that there had been an expectation, and that expectation was clearly that Combs would be convicted. This expectation was based entirely on media coverage of allegations, not evidence presented to a jury during a trial. While there were undoubtedly people paying close attention to the trial, that isn’t the case for the significant majority out there.

This inclination to treat charges as convictions represents a complete inversion of the presumption of innocence. Instead of requiring prosecutors to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, public opinion now treats charges themselves as evidence of guilt. Being accused becomes indistinguishable from being guilty.

The progression is predictable. “Police arrested John Smith for murder” becomes “John Smith, charged with murder” becomes “alleged murderer John Smith” becomes, in people’s minds, simply “murderer John Smith.” Each step moves further from the unknown actual facts toward a predetermined conclusion, one that is derived wholesale from media coverage of the charges.

The Evidence Few Saw

The people expressing surprise at Diddy’s acquittal actually knew virtually nothing beyond the initial allegations reported in the media, and hearsay bits of evidence that would never be admissible in court. People heard the alleged stories about Diddy, baby oil, sex, drugs, and money, and, despite all of these things being possible without breaking the law, the penchant that Diddy evidently had for boisterous and sexual parties meant, to the person reading mostly headlines and listening to 50 Cent, that Diddy was guilty of the charges.

They didn’t see witness testimony. They didn’t review physical evidence. They didn’t hear cross-examinations that might have revealed credibility issues. They didn’t observe jury instructions about the law [editor’s note: while jury instructions don’t actually mean much, they do put the law and actions into context to ostensibly help jurors determine if an action is actually illegal]. None of this stopped from from forming strong opinions anyway, based on the seemingly reasonable assumption that “they wouldn’t charge him if there wasn’t something there.” This reasoning is not only wrong—it’s dangerous.

Prosecutors charge people they believe they can convict, but they’re not infallible. Sometimes evidence doesn’t support charges. Sometimes witnesses aren’t credible. Sometimes cases fall apart under scrutiny. That’s exactly why we have trials instead of just letting prosecutors decide guilt or innocence. The adversarial system exists specifically to test allegations against evidence before an impartial jury. When public opinion short-circuits this process by treating charges as convictions, it undermines the entire foundation of due process.

This is critically important to understand, because the overwhelming majority of cases do not go to trial. This is because prosecutors stack charges against a defendant, and weaponize the law to turn one action into a dozen charges, which raises the stakes and leaves a person facing 20 years in prison. If this was the end of it, it would still be bad enough to warrant immediate skepticism of prosecutors, but in order to pressure defendants into taking plea deals, prosecutors then bring forward what is called a superseding indictment, which has even more charges. Before doing this, the defendant is told, “Plead guilty to charges 1, 2, 3, and 6, and we’ll drop charges 4 and 5. And if you don’t plead guilty, we’re going to keep charges 4 and 5 and bring an additional dozen charges against you.”

For a moment, put yourself in the shoes of a defendant. For our thought experiment, it doesn’t matter if you imagine yourself to be guilty of the alleged act or innocent, because the next few things will be the same regardless. Imagine being told that you’re facing 10 years in prison for 4 charges, but if you plead guilty, you’ll probably only get 1 year. And if you don’t plead guilty, they’ll being 5 more charges against you, and you’ll be facing 35 years in prison and will likely serve 20. This perverse choice is put in front of people every single day, and it doesn’t matter if they’re guilty or not. Innocent or not, it becomes a simple matter of cost analysis. 1 year in person or 20 years in prison? Do you want to roll the dice on that? Are you feeling lucky?

Media Coverage vs. Court Proceedings

The media’s role in creating these prejudicial narratives cannot be overstated. Crime reporting is heavily skewed toward the prosecution’s perspective, especially in high-profile cases. Dramatic details about investigations—raids, arrests, photos of evidence being carried away—create powerful visual impressions of guilt regardless of what that evidence actually proves.

Defense perspectives rarely get equal coverage, particularly early in cases. Defense attorneys are often constrained in what they can say publicly, and their arguments tend to be more complex and less dramatic than prosecutorial narratives. Even if defense attorneys do talk to the media, their stories are not nearly as shocking and attention-grabbing as those told by the prosecutors. “John Smith charged with beheading woman” gets the clicks. “John Smith’s attorney says he was home with a friend that night” simply doesn’t.

The result of all this is months or years of prosecution-friendly coverage followed by a trial that most people don’t watch, which is then followed by verdicts that “surprise” them because those verdicts don’t match the narrative they’ve absorbed.

Social media amplifies this problem exponentially. People share articles based on headlines without reading them. They form opinions based on memes, headlines, and tweets. They participate in online pile-ons that treat accusations as established facts. The distinction between allegations and evidence gets completely lost.

The Jury Problem

The people expressing surprise at Diddy’s acquittal reveal exactly the kind of prejudicial thinking that makes someone unsuitable for jury duty. If you’re surprised by an acquittal, it means you had already decided the defendant was probably guilty based on incomplete information.

During jury selection, attorneys routinely ask potential jurors whether they can set aside media coverage and base their decisions solely on evidence presented in court. Most people would readily say yes to this, and would believe that to be true, but their reactions to verdicts like this prove they don’t understand what it actually means.

A good juror enters the courtroom with no opinion about guilt or innocence. They listen to all evidence, consider witness credibility, follow legal instructions (or ignore the instructions when the law is unjust) and make decisions based solely on what’s presented in court. A bad juror enters thinking “this person probably did it or they wouldn’t be here” and then looks for evidence that confirms their preconception, which is exactly how innocent people get convicted.

Juries that have already made up their minds don’t actually evaluate evidence fairly—they go through the motions while unconsciously working backward from predetermined conclusions.

The Pattern Repeats

This dynamic isn’t unique to the Diddy case. Remember the Duke lacrosse scandal, where public opinion convicted the accused players before any evidence was presented? When charges were dropped because evidence didn’t support them, people were shocked. Or consider the Richard Jewell case—the security guard initially hailed as a hero for discovering a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics, then treated as the prime suspect, then completely exonerated. Public opinion cycled through the same pattern of presumed guilt followed by surprise at vindication.

The Casey Anthony case provides another example. Regardless of what people think about her moral culpability, the jury that actually heard all the evidence concluded that the prosecution hadn’t proven murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Public outrage at the verdict revealed how many people had convicted her based on media coverage rather than courtroom facts.

Beyond Individual Cases

This problem extends far beyond celebrity trials. The mindset that treats charges as evidence of guilt has real consequences throughout the criminal justice system:

• It creates pressure on innocent defendants to accept plea deals rather than risk trial before prejudiced juries.
• It gives prosecutors less incentive to ensure cases are solid before filing charges.
• It makes the process itself a punishment, regardless of ultimate outcomes.
• It corrupts the jury pool with people who don’t understand the difference between allegations and evidence.

When being charged becomes almost as damaging as being convicted, we’ve created a system where accusations alone can destroy lives. This gives enormous power to anyone able to trigger prosecutorial action, whether their accusations are justified or not.

The Path Forward

The solution isn’t to become cynical about all prosecutions (although we should always mistrust prosecutors and should always assume innocence) or assume that acquittals always mean innocence. Sometimes guilty people are acquitted due to procedural issues or prosecutorial mistakes. Sometimes the evidence genuinely is insufficient even when crimes occurred.

The solution is developing the intellectual humility to recognize the difference between what we think we know and what we actually know. Most of us know virtually nothing about the evidence in high-profile criminal cases beyond what’s filtered through media coverage. That ignorance should lead to suspended judgment, not confident opinions about guilt or innocence.

To successfully suspend decision-making, we must get comfortable with uncertainty. Sometimes we don’t know whether someone committed a crime. Sometimes the evidence is ambiguous. Sometimes a person probably did something wrong, but not the specific thing they were charged with. That uncertainty is uncomfortable, but it’s better than the false certainty that comes from convicting people based on allegations rather than proof.

The Real Surprise

The real surprise shouldn’t be that Diddy was acquitted on most charges. The real surprise should be how many people formed strong opinions about his guilt without seeing any of the evidence that the jury used to reach their verdict.

If you were surprised by the acquittal, ask yourself: what did you actually know about the evidence presented at trial? Did you read court transcripts? Did you watch testimony? Or did you just absorb a media narrative and assume it reflected courtroom reality?

The people who make good jurors are those who can honestly answer: “I don’t know whether this person is guilty or innocent, but I’ll listen to all the evidence and base my decision on what’s presented in court.”

The people who make bad jurors are those who think they already know the answer before the trial begins.

And unfortunately, the reaction to Diddy’s verdict suggests we have far too many potential bad jurors and not nearly enough good ones.

For more analysis of media manipulation and criminal justice issues, subscribe to Free Talk Cast wherever you get your podcasts.