BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
Casey Anthony
These four words seem to have a lot of people confused. In the Legal world, the word reasonable is often used - “what would a reasonable person do....”; what would a reasonable person think....” And so it follows, if a jury finds one guilty it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt.
People confuse “beyond a reasonable doubt” with “beyond a shadow of a doubt.” In other words you can have some doubt, but it has to be less than a reasonable doubt. The question now is what is “reasonable?” Maybe they need to quantify reasonable. So that, if you are 80% sure the person is guilty, you have a 20% doubt. If 20% is a reasonable doubt then beyond a reasonable doubt would mean you are 81% or stronger sure that the person is guilty based on evidence and the person's behavior.....and 19% doubtful.
Common sense has to come into play along with the evidence presented in a case. Unless there was a camera to record a crime, or the person confessed, no one can be completely sure a person is guilty.
In O.J.'s case I was 98% sure he “did It” based on all the evidence and the car chase. However, his lawyers were able to use a lot of technicalities so that certain evidence could not even be brought into the decision making.
In the Casey Anthony case, if you ask most people, they would say they are more or less 95% sure she did something to her child so that she could have a happy-go-lucky lifestyle. She partied, she frolicked, she chilled with friends when her child first went missing. She told countless lies about a nanny kidnapping her daughter. Investigators found searches of different ways kill on her computer. She asks the neighbor for a shovel...... the car trunk smells of a dead body.......... then boom – the child's body is discovered near the home.
Again, I think the jurors felt they had to be sure "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that she was guilty. I believe “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” has to be clarified and or quantified in future cases.
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