A Quiet Evening’s Reading: ‘Notable British Trials’ | Hacker News Reader

A Quiet Evening’s Reading: ‘Notable British Trials’

city-journal.org

37 pointsdangerman13 comments

>> He was found guilty of the second charge; but on the first, he received the peculiarly Scottish verdict of “not proven.”

This is an interesting alternative to the binary guilty/not guilty verdict. Notably, Senator Arlen Specter wanted to vote "not proven" on Bill Clinton's impeachment:

"Juries in criminal cases under the laws of Scotland have three possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty, not proven. Given the option in this trial, I suspect that many Senators would choose 'not proven' instead of 'not guilty'. That is my verdict: not proven. The President has dodged perjury by calculated evasion and poor interrogation. Obstruction of justice fails by gaps in the proofs."

http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/02/12/senate...

Juries in Scotland also have 15 people, not 12.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_jury_in_Scotland

I grew up in Australia where a jury consists of 12 people. I've lived in France for the last 12 years, though, and here the jury (when there is one) it will typically be either 6 or 9 citizens. One of the overseas territories uses a jury system that only has 4 people, and then expands to 6 on appeal. It would be interesting to understand how the 'Anglo Saxon' system (outside of Scotland, it seems) settled on 12 people.

It wouldn't surprise me to find it's based on the twelve apostles, that Jesus Christ used as his witnesses.

If you are interested in more literary variation of the theme, "His Bloody Project" by Burnet is pretty nice read. It essentially describes the proceedings of (a fictional) 19th century Scottish murder trial. It is well researched, and plenty of things from the article sounded familiar from it.

Some of the great historical and contemporary speeches are given at trials - think of Nelson Mandela's defence when on trial for his life as a fine example. The closing speeches in a criminal trial are an opportunity for oratory as a persuasive art.

‘Not guilty’ does not mean innocent. It means only that the prosecution has failed to prove the accused’s/defendant’s guilt to the requisite standard of proof.

Not guilty absolutely does mean (legally) innocent. You can argue the toss whether legally innocent should be understood as innocence in the wider sense of course, but the point stands.

If that were true then wouldn't the concept of double jeopardy not exist?

The UK has been phasing this out..

To the downvoter. I'm sorry you don't like this (I don't either) but you can't downvote away facts.

How would you propose treating people found not guilty legally?

That was a good read, thanks.

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