Beyond all reasonable doubt / on the balance of probability

[Oneeyedvic]

Currently I believe (and I have no legal qualification) we have two forms of court: Civil and Criminal.

In a criminal court, then the accused has to be shown to be guilty beyond all reasonable doubt (I have a feeling that there are some exceptions to this, but generally this is the case).

In a civil court the accused only has to be proved <on the balance of probability.

A good example of the difference is that it you see a person wearing a Man Utd team shirt, then on the balance of probability<i. they are a Man Utd supporter, but if you see them in the stands at Old Trafford cheering and wearing the shirt then they would be a supporter beyond all reasonable doubt

Do we think that this is still fair. Think of a rape trial - could it ever be possible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that rape has taken place? - obviously it is easy to prove whether intercourse has taken place, but very difficult to prove consent.

How about terrorism? Should that need to be proved beyond, or is balance enough?

What are your views?

[Octavius]

In British trials, there is a presumption of innocence - it is for prosecutions to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that defendants are guilty, not for defendants to prove their innocence. So all we need to do is to make reasonable estimates and show that these lead to reasonable doubt.

A similar scenario involved a couple whose baby died aged 11 weeks, everyone was sympathetic and the death was registered as �natural causes�. There was evidence of a respiratory infection, and no sign of any failure of care. A couple of years later, their second child died aged 8 weeks. This time, there was no sympathy from the professionals. Four weeks after the death the couple were arrested, and eventually the mother was charged with murdering both children. She was tried and convicted and is serving a life sentence.

From this, we must presume that the mother was proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, in order for the jury to find her guilty. Although forensic evidence was slim and the real reason for death was disputed amongst professionals. Simply put, she was convicted because the prosecution argued, and the jury accepted, that lightning does not strike twice. A leading paediatrician speaking as an expert witness for the prosecution stated that �the chance of two children in the same family both dying a cot death was 1 in 73 million. This would mean that such a double death would occur less often than once a century in England'. Thereby condemning the woman on the basis of statistical probability as a muderer. Unfortunately this statistic has been proved wrong and perhaps had the courts presented a probability based on Bayes� theorem, this would have proven she was not-guilty. Whether she is or isn�t guilty is not for me to judge, but the use of probability is frightening since as we know statistics can be manipulated any which way we choose in order to meet our outcome requirements.

[New Judge]

The case mentioned by Octavius is indeed disturbing. However, we don�t have the full facts and I find it hard to believe that a judge would allow a jury to consider only a statistical probability that something might have occurred without there being corroborating evidence to show that it did.

The �beyond reasonable doubt� requirement is fundamental in jury and magistrates� court trials. A 50.001% belief that something took place is all that is needed under the balance of probabilities. No defendant, however trivial or serious his alleged offence, should be convicted on that basis. The prosecution has a duty to provide evidence to convince a tribunal to a far higher level than that. If we start picking and choosing the burden of proof required to secure convictions for various offences it is a slippery slope.

It must be borne in mind that �beyond reasonable doubt� does not mean beyond any doubt whatsoever. Nobody other than those present at the time can be sure beyond any doubt what happened (and even some of them are often not quite sure). If there is reasonable doubt based upon the evidence presented the defendant must be acquitted.

[Octavius]

Perhaps the sides didn�t argue strenuously enough, but surely the probability in my case by its very notion identifies some reasonable doubt, since the charge is to some degree, unproven. So the woman would have been convicted in the basis that is quite likely the children did not die of natural causes. However, she has been convicted of double murder, so the evidence of probability must have been shown to be overwhelming, regardless of any doubt that might have been present in establishing whether �murder� actually took place.

[New Judge]

As I said, we don�t have all the facts. Where I think your idea may go slightly adrift, Octavius, is that you are making the assumption that the jury was swayed heavily by the statistical inferences. So heavily that they did not need to consider any other evidence.

It is likely is that the statistical evidence (which has since been largely discredited) was provided to support the other evidence and was not presented so as to overwhelm it. The probability issue may well introduce �reasonable doubt� into the minds of some jurors if taken alone. However, what often happens in trials is that a number of strings of evidence are put together and it is only when they are taken as a whole that the notion of reasonable doubt disappears.

The essence of a strong prosecution is where many differing aspects of the evidence point to guilt, although any taken alone may not be sufficient to dispel doubt. That is why I said in my first post that I cannot believe that the judge, in summing up, directed the jury to the probability issue alone.

[Octavius]

But that is my point. They (the jury) decided that beyond reasonable doubt it was murder. So the �beyond reasonable doubt� must have been from more than just �probability�, hence the probable cause can have no real basis in law or justice.

It would essentially just be like us looking at a picture in a newspaper article about a crime and saying ' yeah they probably did it', although surely we might have reasonable doubt. We couldn't convict someone on that basis...?

[kempie]

The prosecutor's fallacy (a fallacy of statistical reasoning often used in legal arguments) central to this debate is that used for many years within the realm of child protection and named for paediatrician, Professor Sir Samuel Roy Meadow. The precept was that in child cot death (SIDS) "One is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder unless there is proof to the contrary."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadow's_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Meadow#Cot_de ath_trial_controversies

[raysparx1]

Lets face it if yo go to court and you are innocent but a coppers says you did it, you did it, end of story, this has happened to me twice, The Copper never lies. I therefore must be telling lies, easy as that.