5 ms·
“Not proven” is a verdict available to a court in Scotland
- matthewmacleod 8y agoIt’s likely that the 3-verdict system will be reformed at some point. The Scottish Government is currently conducting a research project into various aspects of jury decision making policies (https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Research/by-topic/crime-and-justice/Juryresearch https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Research/by-topic/crime-and-jus...), and there’s definitely some pressure to remove a verdict which has relatively little actual purpose - though of course we’ll have to wait and see what the outcome of the research says. (Late 1600s the outcome of a case before a Scottish jury would have resulted in either “proven” or “not proven” verdicts, with the verdict of “not guilty” re-emerging in the 1700s in response to a particular case where the facts were proven, but the jury did not support conviction. Along the lines of jury nullification, which I know has been the subject of some interest in the US court system.)