The reason to default to that is because a principle of our legal system is that people are innocent until proven guilty. On top of that proving someone guilty requires going beyond reasonable doubt.
The principle is the defendant is innocent until proven guilty, NOT that the accuser is making a false accusation.
There is a reason the verdict is "not guilty" instead of "innocent". After a not guilty verdict the legal system still does not assume the accuser was making a false accusation.
That this is a contentious topic with biases on both sides. One group clearly benefits from any accusations being squashed before ever being investigated. Another benefits from never having to prove their accusations hold merit.
> That is no reason to jump to a default "assume the accusation is false".
That's also not what I was trying to say. I only explained why testimony is far more doubted in rape cases than in most other cases. In general, I agree with you that accusations should be treated as unproven, so neither false nor true; we have a justice system to give a final verdict.
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