The standard for US criminal law is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". I think "100% proof" is a close enough summary of that phrase... If the proof doesn't 100% convince the jury, then reasonable doubt still exists and prosecution should fail.

Beyond reasonable doubt can admit that doubt does exist, it's just not reasonable to entertain it. 100% proof strongly implies that there is no doubt at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_doubt

I don't think there's a difference. For instance, let's say we have a video of little Timmy shoplifting a candy bar. Clear face shot, maybe the video even has sound and there's a vocal-print match. Pretty slam-dunk case, right? Not much room for reasonable doubt there.

Oh, but you see, little Timmy was actually being telepathically controlled by a diabetic alien about to pass out from hypoglycemia, who had him steal the candy bar. Can you prove this was not the case?

This is what reasonable doubt protects against. There will always be the ability to create a (probably fanciful) scenario in which the defendant is not guilty. An unreasonable scenario, one might even say. Being able to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt is as close to 100% proof as you are reasonably going to ever get.

> Beyond "the shadow of a doubt" is sometimes used interchangeably with beyond reasonable doubt, but this extends beyond the latter, to the extent that it may be considered an impossible standard. The term "reasonable doubt" is therefore used. [Emphasis mine]

I understood that reference to "Impossible standard" to mean from a jurisprudence perspective.

If you want to insist that "100% proof" and reasonable doubt are the same, that's of course your choice. I think you'll find that people will tend to disagree with you.

Fair enough. I think anything beyond this point dives pretty fast into a philosophical debate on "knowability", which I don't think either of us are actually interested in. Cheers.

Indeed! I'm sure there's a lot of great judicial literature on the topic if you're interested in diving further. My armchair is pretty comfy though, and I think I'm likely to doze off before getting too deep into it. :)

That seems like a silly distinction. It's easy to come up with "unreasonable doubt" for any argument.

"I doubt that, because a fairy whispered something to me in my sleep."

I've expressed my layman's understanding of reasonable doubt. How does your understanding differ?

> I think "100% proof" is a close enough summary of that phrase...

Not even close.

Do you have any refutation to the logic in the rest of my post? Or is "nope neener neener" the only thing I get?

That's just semantics. He's jailed without a conviction at this point.