what does “beyond a reasonable doubt” mean?
In: 7
“A reasonable doubt means just that; if you find that you hold doubt about how the crime occurred, or if the defendant committed it, you are free to vote not guilty. This doubt, though, must be reasonable. The prosecution is not required to prove guilt to a mathematical certainty. And your doubt must be based on a missing piece of evidence or testimony presented in the case.”
I haven’t done a jury trial in a few years, but it’s a question presented to the jury to solve if the defense has raised enough suspicion on the prosecution’s case.
So, there isn’t going to be an exact answer as it is argued among legal scholars to no end.
Some (usually defense focused) people will make the argument that it is such a high burden that you are 99.9% sure of something.
The ‘classic’ Blackstone ratio “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” is realistically to low in modern times for even the most pro-prosecution person. *That said Blackstone was alive before even the most rudimentary forensic science was a thing. Basically unless you were caught/scene committing a crime you’d get away with it unless you did something so blatantly stupid that you incriminated yourself*
The small town judge I used to clerk for would say things like ‘if you were driving to court this morning and became concerned that you didn’t lock your door and would actually turn the car around to check, that is reasonable doubt’
worth noting that even the most defense focused group will not try to turn it into ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt’ which is of course impossible because even right now there is a not zero % chance that as soon as I click comment that a meteor won’t fall from the sky and kill me. (but no one would claim that it is a reasonable concern)
I’ll just add, there’s no strict definition of “reasonable,” it is somewhat up to your interpretation what is “reasonable” to you.
I’m not competent to answer but it is a hugely subtle question, right? It must have to do with the jury’s understanding of the statistics of the evidence. I worry, like, if a witness says “the perpetrator had a red hat and a beard,” and if you go driving around and out of a crowd of 1,000,000 people choose one with a red hat and a beard, how that is so much different than if you are in a small town and only one guy in the town usually wears a red hat and has a beard. But the jury never sees this context. So ‘reasonable doubt’ whatever it means can’t just concern the quality of the evidence, but some wider context which I really can’t understand myself.
Another way of looking at is when the culprit is confirmed, establishing intent or negligence is key. In this cases it can mean that somebody’s actions were that of a reasonable person.
A reasonable person might shoot an armed intruder in the middle of the night. Do not try this in the UK.
An unreasonable person might shoot someone who did a uturn in their driveway at noon.
The definition that gets used around here is that jurors must be firmly convinced of the facts, that they’d be willing to rely on that level of proof for the most important of their own decisions.
To use an example from a textbook of mine, if you’re in a windowless building and someone walks in the front door carrying an umbrella and wearing a dripping raincoat, you’d probably be pretty well convinced it’s raining.
Or if you look up past weather events and history of flooding and insurance claims for a house you’re planning on buying. You can’t know 100% for sure that it won’t flood tomorrow, but you’re pretty sure it’s not likely.
If you forced me to put a number on it, I’d go somewhere in the 85-95% range.
In law, we have several different standards that apply to different situations.
In civil court (I’m suing you privately) we have a ‘balance of probability’ standard which essentially means 50/50. If the case I’m presenting is 51% likely to have happened and the case you’re presenting is 49% likely, I win on the balance of probabilities because I’m over 50%.
In criminal law, we use beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a much higher burden to prove. It’s not 51%, it’s more like 95% or 99% certain to have happened. In other words, if the defence raises an issue that tips the scale even only 5% in their favour (5/95 split for defence/Crown), you have to acquit them. We use the higher standard because the stakes are much higher, you’re taking away someones liberty. You’re sending them to jail/prison. If the evidence the Crown (or State) provides in a trial leaves ‘a reasonable doubt’ as to the persons guilt **you cannot convict them.**
So say for example the Crown has an almost bullet proof case to convict you. They have a weapon. They have your prints on the weapon. They have a potential motive. But one thing they can’t show is that you were at the scene of the crime at 8:17 PM, you were just in the area. This one little thing might be enough to leave a ‘reasonable doubt’ as to whether you were the person who did the crime, and thus you can’t be convicted. So even though it was maybe 90-95% ‘likely’ you did the crime, that 5-10% amount of doubt you poked in the Crowns theory is enough to get you acquitted, because you raised a **reasonable doubt**.
There’s a timeless saying in criminal law: It’s better to let 99 guilty men walk free, than convict one innocent person. This is the reason we have such a high standard in criminal law.
You’re so confident something happened that you’d be willing to make the most important decisions in your life based on what you know.
Thinking something is likely or that it probably happened isn’t enough.
The jury instruction that explains *reasonable doubt* varies by state. But in essence, it means a doubt that a reasonable person might have concerning the guilt of the accused. It does **not** mean pure mathematical certainty that guilt exists, or impossibility that any scenario where the accused might be innocent could exist. It comes down to the reasonableness of the doubt.
It’s like when your 5 year old child is standing there with chocolate all over their face, swearing blind that they have no idea what happened to your easter egg.
Nobody else was there at the time, and nobody saw what happened to it, so you have nothing more than circumstantial evidence, but it is pretty fair to say that it is “beyond reasonable doubt” that they ate it.
Latest Answers