innocent until proven guilty

"For a jealous man to murder a woman or his rival in love is
reprehensible enough, but for a man to plot such a murder and pay two
men to carry out the dirty work on his behalf, is infinitely worse.
Especially when the murdered man is a perfectly innocent individual
who had no possible claim upon the attentions of the woman with whom
he was accused of having a liaison: in fact the only time he ever met
her was when he passed her once on the stairs when she was staying for
a few days in the same house." --
http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/history-from-police-archives/RB1/Pt2/pt2ChalkPit.html