<p>First, if you read the first line of my post #39, you’ll see that I agree with you about there being a difference between being found innocent and being found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It IS rare that the outcome of an arrest is one in which it is proven that the accused is innocent. We don’t disagree. </p>
<p>Yes, the pizza place owner did lose, but not quite in the way you might suspect. </p>
<p>I doubt that he would have made his money selling just pizza–it was the beer and wine that lured the kids in. It does not really matter though. Technically, the pizza place was owned by a corporation.The corporation held the liquor license. The punishment was a whopping fine. The owner decided not to pay the fine and the pizza place went out of business as a result. I don’t expect you to mourn the loss of the business, but I assure you that underage drinking did not suddenly disappear. The real world effect of forcing the pizza place out of business is now the kids go further from campus. </p>
<p>My point really wasn’t what happened to the business owner though. It was that the kids who refused to testify against him have convictions on their records and those who did do not have convictions on their records. So, I was really making your point that dismissal of the charges doesn’t necessarily mean the accused was innocent.</p>