Presumed guilty
By 
Here are a couple of good comments about what will forever be the most famous photograph of Donald Trump:
And while the rousing meme sent Trump up in appropriate fashion — and certainly wasn’t alone in that regard — it served a dual function, proving that while the legendary director Stanley Kubrick is no longer with us (he died in 1999), his legacy has stood the test of time.
In the meme, Trump as jail bird joins a photo montage of villains from three of Kubrick’s Warner Bros. classics — Malcolm McDowell as Alex in 1971’s “A Clockwork Orange,” Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in 1980’s “The Shining” and Vincent D’Onofrio as Private Pyle in 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket.”
“‘The Kubrick Stare’ is one of director Stanley Kubrick’s most recognizable directorial techniques,” the X user Cry-Baby Chloe’s tweet reads atop the montage. “A method of shot composition where a character stares at the camera with a forward tilt, to convey to the audience that they are at the peak of their derangement.”
The second comment is from LGM commenter Gm517:
Some media talker asked why is the mug shot such a big deal?
Because, it is a solid form of accountability that can’t be taken back. No mistrial, delay, objection, election. Judge, Supreme Court or pardon can undo this photo being published. It’s for ever, a legacy.
Also because powerful political criminals are treated with impunity so reflexively, if not by statute outright, that scarcity drives up the value of even a crumb of what normal people think of as “justice”.
There is a humiliation inherent in mug shots that everybody understands is a little bit of punishment before any verdict. Your face photographed while you are a prisoner is something that aboit 100% of convicted criminals deal with, its not good.
Understanding how monstrous of a person and a rampant criminal Trump is would answer the question. He took out a full page add to try and legally lynch 5 innocent kids because he is a racist asshole. He was very heavily rumored to be laundering money, cheating on his taxes,, and bribing prosecutors for decades.
On a related note, one thing that has always driven me batty is the abuse of the concept of the presumption of innocence. For example:
Trump’s mug shot – stark in its simplicity in a way that must surely grate for an ex-reality star for whom image is everything – is a metaphor for an election in which the potential Republican nominee and possible next president is facing 91 criminal charges across four cases. Trump denies all wrongdoing and is innocent until proven guilty in all cases, including in the racketeering accusations in Georgia related to his bid to overturn the 2020 election. . .
For those who revile Trump for his autocratic instincts, demagoguery, vulgarity and self-obsession, the mug shot may offer feelings of vindication. For the millions of Trump supporters who believe he is a victim of persecution, it will enshrine his status as a living political martyr on which his bid to regain the White House is rooted. While Trump’s team said he wanted to look defiant, the ex-president’s booking photo is likely to polarize Americans as much as his politics.
To say Trump is innocent until proven guilty is to reference a very narrow and technical rule of criminal law — the burden of proof in a criminal trial — that has quite literally nothing whatsoever to do with the presumptions that ought to be made about him outside of that extraordinary situation.
Any sentient non-delusional person who has paid attention to Donald Trump’s career knows to a moral certainty that Trump has committed countless serious crimes, from sexual assault to tax fraud, to money laundering, to the countless high crimes he committed while leaving a sinuous trail of slime around the White House, culminating in conspiring to overthrow the lawful government of the United States.
Proving all or any of this in criminal court is a very complicated matter, but knowing it to be true for the purposes of political action is extremely simple, because as a historical, empirical matter, it is extremely simple. Trump’s whole adult life has been a one-man crime wave, that had been waved away until 15 minutes ago, because rich powerful people remain immune to the criminal justice system unless something goes very seriously wrong with their power and privilege.
To fail to presume Trump’s guilt when considering appropriate political action is like failing to presume the reality of climate change, or the Holocaust, or any other historical fact that’s not in question for any sane person.
Whenever I read a standard mainstream both sides comment like the one quoted above, I’m reminded of one of Kafka’s parables, which could be an epitaph for journalism in America in the 21st century.
They were given the choice between becoming kings or the couriers of kings. In the manner of children, they all wanted to be couriers. As a result, there are only couriers. They gallop through the world shouting to each other messages that, since there are no kings, have become meaningless. Gladly would they put an end to their miserable existence, but they dare not, because of their oaths of service.