![]() In conclusion, reasonable doubt should be well thought out and well presented. the jury should also weigh between the girl’s evidence and the missing DNA and decide which takes precedence and if both sides have adequately presented and defended these issues. The absence of DNA can be attributed to many factors e.g. The jurors should have considered if the defense had provided any credible reason with which to doubt the girl. In my opinion the jurors did not use common sense as well as moral certainty in offering that verdict. The article has a case where a girl points out her dad’s killer but the defendant is still found innocent due to lack of DNA. ![]() When juries take what they have seen on TV shows as the guiding block they are prone to mistake that may be costly to the participants in the case. Reasonable doubt applies where one feels that the accused is likely guilty but not to a total certainty in this case, one has to give the defendant the benefit of the doubt since you have not been satisfied with his or her guilt. It must be based on common sense and must be logically derived by the presence or absence of evidence. According to Hails reasonable doubt cannot be a frivolous doubt and must not be based on either sympathy or prejudice (16). On analysis Wright and Hall discovered that in the first experiment 33% used the principle as a guide as compared to 66% in the second (16).Īccording to Greenhouse, it suggests that the evidence so supplied by the prosecution reaches a point that it is beyond dispute and whereby a juror has the moral certainty that another reasonable alternative can apply to the case (23). Very few used their personal beliefs to convict. The second group on the other hand mainly used the reasonable doubt principle to give their verdict. The result showed that the first group used reasonable doubt to justify their guilty verdicts since although they were not positively sure of guilt what they believed exceeded the principle’s threshold. Jurors were given a case file and one group was told to use the principle of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to convict and the other was instructed to use their moral sense and that they did not have to be 100% sure that the defendant is guilty they could just infer (Wright and Hall 2). A university student, Wright, carried an experiment to show the effects a reasonable guilt instruction affects the decision of guilt by the jurors. This thus means opinions and other forms of evidence can be used to convict a criminal. The police force uses specific instruments that can only perform to certain levels and their knowledge usually plays a big role in their interpretation. This notion is however flawed as in most case the evidence is usually tampered with or contaminated by the many police officers and detectives in the scene and also technology as shown in these TV shows are mostly fictional. These shows portray how police forensic scientists go to great lengths using advanced technology to obtain all forensic material that is presented to the jury and used to convict the criminal. But on the other hand, shows like CSI have created the notion that only forensic evidence can be used to convict a prisoner. The director of the Law and Order series views his show as an achievement as it educates people on how the justice system works and why sometimes evidence is not presented to the jurors (Cole 14). It is true that these TV shows are educational in that a juror knows what is expected from the prosecutor. In this article that jurors derive their legal expertise from TV shows which in essence can be very counterproductive to any particular case. Where the freedom of a person or their life is on the line, it is necessary to be absolutely sure that the person did indeed commit the said crime. The reason why this standard has been in use for a very long time in our legal system is that at times criminal proceedings may deny a person of his rights and may also lead to his death. This legal standard is the highest standard of proof that prosecutors must meet in all criminal trials. The term guilty beyond a reasonable doubt is used to apply to the requirement that the prosecutor has to prove that the defendant is guilty without any reasonable doubt before the defendant can be announced guilty (Hails 4).
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