See-Dubya: Patterico’s Firebird and the Phantom Satanists
Ordinarily I’d be a little trepidatious of disagreeing too strongly with Patterico on his own site. But he’s suggested I go ahead and link this criticism of his new, unworkable standard of proof in death penalty cases.
Long and short of it: Doubts are either reasonable, or they’re not. Prosecutors should have to deal with the reasonable ones. The unreasonable ones, they shouldn’t. Either the reasonable doubt is there, or it ain’t. This is a qualitative standard, not some quantified percentage of certainty, which is pretty meaningless anyway.
You know the joke, right?
Guy thinks his wife might be cheating. Hires private detective. Detective stakes out house. Returns with a report:
“I saw your wife return to the house with a man. They went inside, had a drink, turned on the music, began to dance.”
“Then what?”
“Well, they went upstairs, turned on the light in the bedroom, and started taking off their clothes.”
“And then what did you see?”
“They started kissing and caressing each other . . .”
“Then what?”
“Then they turned off the light and I couldn’t see any more.”
“Damn, that reasonable doubt!”
Attila (Pillage Idiot) (471b7c) — 11/27/2005 @ 10:06 am