Mike Castellano will have his day in court next month on a charge of misdemeanor driving while impaired.

In the meantime, he’s being tried — and quite harshly — in the court of public opinion.

A flood of online comments followed the news Sunday that the first-year Richmond Senior High football coach had been arrested Saturday night on suspicion of DWI in Cary.

Richmond parents and Raider fans were eager to weigh in on the punishment Castellano should receive. Nearly all assumed he is guilty as charged. That, of course, flips an underpinning of the American justice system on its head.

Defendants are innocent until proven guilty. Not the other way around.

The presumption of innocence dates to Justinian law in sixth-century Rome and influenced the English common law from which many of our legal principles are derived.

In the 1895 case Coffin v. United States, Supreme Court Justice Edward Douglass White wrote for the majority that defendants’ presumption of innocence “is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.”

For whatever reason — perhaps our desire for swift justice, our tendency to assume the worst of others or the great trust and deference we give law enforcement — that fundamental principle is routinely ignored in everyday life.

Self-styled jurors who convicted Castellano in their minds simply don’t have the evidence to back up their verdict. As of this writing, Cary police have declined our public records request for the full arrest report and haven’t even said whether the coach’s breath or blood were tested for the presence of an impairing substance.

There has been a rush to judgment. And this case is far from the only one.

Television and newspapers deserve a share of the blame. Headlines trumpeting each arrest accompanied by frowning, full-color mug shots have a not-so-subtle influence on public opinion. It’s our duty to report these developments, but when we fail to state what ought to be obvious, it becomes less and less so.

“All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.”

From this day forward, the sentence above will appear in every Daily Journal story reporting on an arrest.

Richmond County Schools said late Tuesday that Castellano will serve a one-week suspension without pay. While public debate is likely over whether the punishment is appropriate, we suggest the school board develop a policy for use in all cases when an employee is charged with a crime.

Castellano’s high-profile perch subjects him to more scrutiny than his fellow teachers and school employees, but another fundamental principle of justice holds that all are equal under the law.

School officials should be wary of making decisions with permanent consequences before the criminal justice system has had its say. A charge is not a conviction.

To those who called for Castellano’s dismissal: If a teacher, administrator or coach is ultimately exonerated, but loses his or her job anyway, what kind of lesson does that teach Richmond County students?

Innocent until proven guilty. No ifs, ands or buts.

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A Daily Journal editorial