What's with all these dumb rules about not chasing people and always assuming the guy being chased is the guy in the right?
This is because in American law, a person is (supposed to be) presumed innocent until they are proven to be guilty according to the standards of the court system, and if the crime is a felony or if requested, before a jury of their peers. This law, which has been held to be a Constitutional right since the ruling
Coffin v. United States (1895) does not have any direct antecedent in Hebrew law, but there are somewhat equivalent commandments.
Deuteronomy 19:15-20 spells this out:
“One witness is not enough to convict anyone accused of any crime or offense they may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If a malicious witness takes the stand to accuse someone of a crime, the two people involved in the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD before the priests and the judges who are in office at the time. The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness proves to be a liar, giving false testimony against a fellow Israelite, then do to the false witness as that witness intended to do to the other party."
There was no such thing as a police officer at the time when this was written, but presumably in Judea as well as here, one person's testimony would not be enough to justify an extrajudicial killing even if that person were a police officer.
