Osler's Razor

There's a good reason that instruction was overruled; it represented a... quixotic... ideal that we might strive for in the law but never really represented the essence of what reasonable doubt means. I much prefer the current standard.

Still, try convincing a career defense attorney he can't say the old definition in voir dire.
 

I am convinced there is no justice. I mean even if someone gets life in Jail or Life Without the possibility of parole or even whatever Death by whatever it STILL does not undo the crime they did.

The wrong people get convicted for stuff they did not do ALL THE TIME. Sometimes guilty people go free. But whatever the outcome the crime is never UNDONE.

I hate to be so cynical but there is NO justice in my opinion. I have never been any part of a criminal case or trial but some people blew up my house and ruined our lives for three years and pretty much got away with it. They never even apologized. It was a joke.

Even if we had gotten EXACTLY what we wanted I mean in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE it could still not undo the mess, the upheaval, chaos and the time we spent dealing with it all. They blew up our whole life and walked away.
 

I made the quixotic decision to attend Baylor Law by spinning my Twister move predictor. Left foot Green. Right foot Yellow. Seemed reasonable to me.
 

I think there are too many ideas in that last sentence. I find it hard to follow.
 

Tyd - agreed. The crime is not undone, no matter what the instructions.
 

When I've made big decisions in my life (lots of job decisions; moving to another country; changing major in college), the hardest thing to do is to listen to what your gut (that truth way deep down inside you that you know about yourself, but don't always want to listen to) is telling you.

It helps to make lists of pros and cons, and to prioritize which of the pros and cons are most important. I'm always too much in my head, and it helps me to put the decision-making factors on paper so they are outside of my head and I can see them.

But there's also an element of just knowing what's best for yourself or for the situation. Getting out of my major in music after a year and a half and switching to English was incredibly traumatic because of what I was leaving behind, but I also knew deep down that I didn't want to spend all day in a practice room for years to come . . . something that was hard to admit about myself. So I had to find other ways to incorporate being a musician into my life. And it made a difference in the direction of my life . . . not better or worse, but just a different path.
 

I still have no idea what a reasonable doubt means, or when something is beyond that. I can, however, generally tell if someone is guilty by looking at them. Also, I'm sure the PC profs have seen worse jury instructions.
 

Reasonable doubt means what it means to you: if the evidence put on at trial is such that, considering all of it, you can say, "I have no doubts that are reasonable," then you've been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. That may be a low bar for some people; it may be high for others. But no one can tell you what should or shouldn't convince you beyond a reasonable doubt.
 

I was once on a jury for a DUI case. We listened to both sides. The defense had basically nothing to work with; while the prosecutors did a piss poor job presenting their case. We went to the jury room.
ALL of our guts told us the defendant was guilty, BUT none of us felt the prosecutors (junior to say the least) had done their jobs. We sent several questions back to the judge. Got brought back and forth to the court room each time for the clarification. This action apparently got our message across. The Defendant took a plea and we felt pretty good because our guts had won.
 

Your cool points just went WAY up in my estimation. Laswell is amazing and this song is him at his best.
 

That jury instruction on reasonable doubt presumes that there is a right and a wrong decision . . . "doubt" implies that, doesn't it? It's a terrible jury instruction that distracts attention away from the case at hand, it seems to me . . . and not such a great instruction for life's decisions, either.

Of course you're going to hesitate when making a big decision. It wouldn't be a big decision if it was a slam-dunk.