what does “beyond a reasonable doubt” mean?
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In a criminal court case the prosecution must prove their case to the point where no reasonable doubts are left in the juror’s minds.
Say you’re charged with theft of a car.
An unreasonable doubt would be that aliens materialized and stole the car.
A reasonable doubt might be that 1) someone else stole the car or 2) that the car rolled away into the river because the parking brake wasn’t engaged or 3) the owner of the car sold it to you and claimed it was stole to so they could commit insurance fraud.
The defense team has to make arguments and show evidence to support the reasonable doubts and the prosecution has to make arguments and show evidence to knock-down those reasonable doubts.
After the prosecution and the defense have made their cases the jurors then argues with each other and decide if they have any reasonable doubts left. The jury has to make a unanimous decision.
If the jury decides to convict the person [find them guilty] then they have no reasonable doubts left. In other words, the prosecution has proved their case beyond any reasonable doubts.
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