Guilty Until Proven Innocent?

In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman writes how different civilizations have different methods of solving conflicts.  He uses Africa as an example by writing "When a dispute arises, the complainants come before the chief of the tribe... the task of the chief is to search through his proverbs and sayings to find one that suits the situation" (18).  In America, the term "innocent until proven guilty" is used to determine whether or not someone is guilty of a crime.  It's a good idea but it has some flaws in it.  By allowing the jury (a set of U.S. citizens who are not fully trained to understand the law) to decide if a defendant is guilty or not through the idea of being "innocent until proven guilty," an unfair trial is often produced.  Sometimes, even though there is reasonable doubt that the defendant is innocent, the jury submits a guilty verdict.

However, there does not seem to be any alternatives to this issue.  One idea, crazy and horrible as it will seem to mostly everyone, has a chance of working.  Instead of having a set of jurors, the entire court system would be replaced with nothing.  The plaintiff would be in charge of determining how or if they punish the defendant.  It sounds like a horrible and chaotic idea at first, but it is perhaps the best alternative to the juror system.  In general, people should be able to settle disputes without a third party.

Another possible alternative would be to train people in the law and to replace the jury.  However, this could cause corruption because of how much power these people would have.  Even if a large, odd number of them were chosen for each different case, corruption would be very likely to still occur.