Even Now, Criminal Defendants Have Rights
During a pandemic, the presumption of innocence still applies.
In California, home to one in eight U.S. residents, emergency measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic have scaled back the rights of criminal defendants, raising thorny questions about what process is due while public-health authorities insist on strict social distancing. Everyone understands that the state is in a temporary emergency and that some changes to the criminal-justice system are defensible, or perhaps even imperative. At the same time, many bygone emergencies have triggered some excessive impingements on
