Word: doubted
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Conrad Black, the press baron accused of looting his Hollinger International media empire, began his current trial in Chicago with at least one thought on his mind. "The prosecutors will soon, finally, have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the guilt of completely innocent people," he wrote recently. "They will fail, and justice will be done...
Well, maybe. The strength of the government's case against him and his co-defendants aside, "beyond a reasonable doubt," the level of proof required to convict a criminal suspect, may not be as high a barrier between Black and jail as he thinks...
Black's lawyers seem partial to an approach that worked flawlessly for Johnnie Cochran in the O.J. Simpson trial. They've suggested that they will create doubt by roughing up the prosecution's star witness, Black's former partner David Radler, on the stand, thereby persuading jurors to acquit because the proverbial glove doesn...
...tactic that exploits confusion over the meaning of reasonable doubt--and how much is needed to acquit. Even jurors in the trial of I. Lewis Libby, a well-educated bunch, stumbled over the term's definition. And it is supposed to make convictions difficult. The Constitution requires the government to be damned sure someone is guilty before taking away his life or liberty. "Reasonable doubt," though "quantitatively imprecise," denotes a high "degree of confidence" in a suspect's guilt, wrote U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Harlan in the 1970 case that gave a constitutional imprimatur to the standard...
...practice, reasonable doubt may make convictions too easy. At least half a dozen studies have found that when the prosecution's case isn't airtight, juries often interpret "beyond a reasonable doubt" to mean, in effect, probably guilty. In one study, prospective jurors said they would be willing to convict on a 60% chance that the suspect had committed the crime. The problem: it's that word, doubt. In a criminal case, prosecutors have the sole burden of proof. Yet the way most courts define "beyond a reasonable doubt" seems to place the burden on the defendant to show...