In order for the Jury to find O.J. Simpson guilty of murder, the prosecution had to prove that it was beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty. Is that a reasonable standard? Should it be higher or lower?
In general, beyond a reasonable doubt requires that there’s a 95% probability that an individual is guilty of the alleged crime.
I’ll give you an example from the real world. Each day we see the sun rise, then it sets, an hour later we see the moon. Then in the early morning the moon disappears and about an hour later we see the sun rising. With your own eyes the physical evidence indicates that beyond a reasonable doubt the fading of the moon causes the sun to rise. Also, the reverse is true the setting of the sun causes the moon to rise. This example shows that 95% probable sometimes just not enough.
For scientists and astronomers out there they know the sun set does not cause the moon to rise.
The standard really couldn’t be much higher unless jurors were not allowed to convict unless they knew for a fact the defendant was guilty. In that situation defendants would never be convicted. There are lower standards that beyond a reasonable doubt. For example there’s a preponderance (majority) of the evidence, which is the standard in civil trials. That’s how O.J. was found liable for the deaths of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman even though he was acquitted in criminal court. So “beyond a reasonable doubt” is not the only legal standard out there- but if you’re talking about situations where people can be sentenced to prison or executed, reasonable doubt seems like the way to go.
I don’t think your number or example really apply here, though.
The relative times of moonrise and sunset vary through the month, and are within an hour of each other on about 4 days out of a month, which gives us about a 15% correlation, not 95%.
pachaos You’ve only been here for a month, but you need to understand that you just can’t toss your own guesses out as fact and hope no one will call you out. Too many knowledgeable folks out here.
I Googled reasonable doubt percentage and the first hit was a 10-year-old Great Debates thread. I don’t see any particular legal authority assigning a percentage value to the concept of reasonable doubt, and I agree with some of the posters to the other thread: the idea of assigning a particular percentage is arbitrary and not very informative anyway.
This is an example you made up yourself, and I don’t think it supports your point. And I think if you keep defending it, it’s going to become a distraction from your argument.
Not really. This is one of those times when the state created reasonable doubt, instead of dispelling it. As a juror, faced with the fact that the state falsified evidence, you can’t help but wonder what else they did that you haven’t been told about.
I mean, everyone knows OJ did it, but that doesn’t mean the verdict was perverse. It means the prosecution was stupid.
Absolute agreement here. The prosecution did not present a case which convinced the jury that their case had sufficient merit, therefore he was aquitted. Which is exactly as it should work in the US justice system.
The question is never “did the accused do it” but “can the prosecution prove that the accused did it.”
But is it possible that part of the problem lies with the standard itself. Is it possible that beyond a reasonable doubt is too high of a standard? If we all thought OJ was guilty, then isn’t that evidence that the standard should be lower.
Agreed. The O.J. Simpson verdict was more a case of staggering prosecutorial incompetence than a perverse finding by the jury. Read Outrage by Vincent Bugliosi for the gory details.
To the OP, I think that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is a fine standard for criminal trials. There will always exist some element of doubt in every case. Evidence can be faked, witnesses mistaken or corrupt, confessions coerced or done to protect the truly guilty, etc, etc. Requiring absolute factual certainly would make conviction impossible, as Marley23 pointed out, which is not in the service of justice.
Hard cases make bad law. There will always be outliers, after all, but changing the entire system over one or two unjust verdicts is not a good practice.
And again, the standard of evidence being too strict is not why OJ Simpson was acquitted.
It’s possible, yes. Can you make any particular argument (without analogies or percentages) that that’s the case? There are other legal standards for proof, but I think the high stakes of criminal cases suggest that we should use the highest practical standard. Going with a majority of the evidence seems too lax.
Not in the grand scheme of things, no. It’s evidence that you can be pretty sure someone is guilty (especially if you’re not on the jury) and still not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. We want jurors to be more than pretty sure, don’t we?