Quote Originally Posted by KerrAvon View Post
?Reasonable doubt? went out a long time ago. The direction given to juries is that they must be 'satisfied so as to be sure? before they can convict. I?m not sure where that sits with the notion of ?beyond any doubt? and I?m not sure what ?beyond any doubt? means in any event. It all comes down to the opinion of the jury hearing the evidence and given that juries are human, they are open to human error.

And, of course, juries base their decisions on the evidence that they hear, but what happens if that evidence changes? The Birmingham 6 were convicted in part upon the basis of forensic evidence that was later discredited. More recently, Sally Clark was convicted on the basis of expert medical evidence that later proved to be not so expert. I?ve no doubt that they would have hung had the death penalty been available. In any event, the reality for Sally Clark was that being found guilty of murder killed her.

Brin mentioned forensic evidence, which generally turns up whenever this thread appears, but it can rarely, if ever, provide certainty. DNA evidence, for example, is subject to issues such as innocent transfer (we all leave our DNA wherever we go) and the outcome of DNA evidence is expressed in a statistical form, because the reality of even a high order match is that there may be several people in the country at any one time who could leave a particular DNA trace behind.

And forensic evidence is rarely going to help if the issue in a murder case is, say, whether the defendant was acting in reasonable self-defence

I wouldn?t even take a guilty plea as proof ?beyond any doubt?; I have had several clients who have entered guilty pleas even though their instructions to me were that they were not guilty. Sometimes that would have been because they were guilty and didn?t know how, or were too proud, to change their instructions to me, but in others, I had little doubt that they were innocent, but entered a guilty plea because, for example, they couldn?t bear the prospect of having the case hanging over them for any longer.
Like many others, I oscillate between the two poles of thought on this. Your professional comments are very helpful.

I was friendly at school with a girl who was the niece of Derek Bentley who was hanged in 1952 for a murder that he may well not have committed in the famous Bentley and Craig "Let him have it" case. I've always taken close interest in those proceedings as a result (and the jury's very debatable verdict) and this continues to inform my opinion of capital punishment.

On the other hand, I see Brin's point of view and wonder whether there is a case for it when there is incontrovertible proof (if such a thing can be arrived at.)