Innocent until proven guilty

It is commonly believed in this country that people are innocent until proven guilty (except in a tax court where it is the opposite). But outside the court system, I have been noticing a trend that is counter to this policy of mercy. It seems to me in several of my recent conversations that when it comes to our personal views of others, we tend to quickly judge without much research.
In my limited understanding of the judicial system, I think both the plaintiff and the defendant have representatives that spend a good deal amount of time looking into the 'facts' of the case. Then these representatives (lawyers) use their rhetoric skills to convince a jury or judge that 'x' is what should be concluded from the facts.
When we interact with other people, we must be able make some basic judgments about them in order to make decisions. But I think that there is a line between judging someone and judging someone's deeds. We are called to 'hate the sin, and love the sinner.' But what does this mean? I think that it means that we should treat people with respect and dignity even though we may disagree with their actions or beliefs. I think it means that even if we don't like someone, we should give them the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to a conclusion like, "see I told you he was like that..."I think that we would be shocked to find out that some people aren't as bad as we think they are. Remember, we are all people here and we are all capable of making bad decisions. (although some more than others it seems)
In my experience, people often make choices that are logical and right given the knowledge and experience of the person. If we think that people are dumb to choose 'x' and then someone chooses 'x,' we naturally call them dumb. But do we ever care to find out why they choose 'x' or are we content just calling them dumb and being done with it? If we walked a mile in the other persons shoes we would probably be more compassionate toward them. But that takes work and a desire. We have to be willing to make the effort. In my experience, a lot of people are not willing to make the effort. It is easy to judge and condemn, but difficult to understand and have mercy.
In our culture it is my experience that the media loves scandal. They latch onto anything controversial. Just look at the popular TV programs: reality TV, Wife Swap, etc. It seems like the American public loves to watch other people go at it. They love to see anger and hate and violence. They love revenge, manipulation, and backstabbing. The public eats it up faster than it can be produced. Look at the news - full of stories of hate crime and scandal as well.
It is no wonder that people here tend to latch on to anything bad they hear about people, or directly experience themselves. It is so easy for us to build a bad profile of someone. I don't know why, but it always seems easy to remember the bad stuff and forget the good stuff.
In a recent conversation with a friend, he was telling me that he has encountered a lot of negative aspects of someone. The encounters of my friend have been so impacting that he has difficulty seeing this other person as fit for his job, and has taken the stance that someone else should have the job. This was a shock to me because my experiences of the same person are quite the opposite. What I can take away from this is that neither of us really knows the whole truth about this person. I was unaware of the bad things going on, and he is limited in his knowledge of the good things going on. But what annoys me the most is that neither of us have talked to this person directly about it. We put him on trial and do not let him have a personal word on the final judgment. We simply take the actions we see as his testimony. But do we really his motivations? Have we seen all his actions? I doubt it. So why so quickly judge him as unfit? If we walked a mile in his shoes, we still may disagree with him, but we would probably have more mercy and less judgment.
So we conduct these unfair trials on people all the time without their having any personal say. We take their actions as words and overlook motivations and reasons. We judge based on output and effect. I think it is time for a revolution in this. People deserve the dignity and respect of being innocent until 'proven' guilty - not our own proof of 'I see and hear bad things', but proof based on research and effort. This does not exclude the possibility that someone may be guilty, but at least they maintain their dignity in the process.
I take the stance that mercy should come before justice. There is a lack of real genuine love in this country and there is no need to perpetuate that. We need to love the person even if we hate their actions. If God treated us like we often treat others, we would never get into heaven.