Talk:Not proven

References to 'defendant' in this article are not really appropriate as under Scots law the person after being charged but before being convicted is known as the 'accused.' Likewise, the other party can be known as the 'complainer.' This differs from English law where it is the 'defendant' and 'complainant' respectively.

Not PROVED not "Proven"

Actually, the verdict is "Not Proved" not "Not Proven."

not proven

In an unusual use of the not proven verdict, Senator Arlen Spector voted not proven in the Impeachment of Bill Clinton, citing Scottish law. The verdict was unusal, because not proven is not a verdict available in United States criminal or civil law. Spector later wrote, "History will not say the president was not guilty, although he was entitled to acquittal because the charges were not proved at a Senate trial, but historians will reject William Jefferson Clinton's brazen contention that it was all Republican politicians and a right-wing conspiracy."

I wonder if this might be a suitable addition to the article? It's not clear to me, as the article is, after all, about Scottish law. On the other hand, this instance might be of wide interest outside of the UK. Michael Ward 19:15, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd happily go along with that, indeed the text you've used above would be fine (though I'd link 'Senate' and 'W.. J.. Clinton' personally) --[[User:VampWillow|Vamp:Willow]] 19:30, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I trimmed the Specter quotation, thinking the reference was enough. The evidence from the Senate trial is ambiguous: Senator Specter announced both not proven and not guilty, and in remarks soon after he suggested that he had meant not proven but had also said not guilty just to keep Chief Justice Rehnquist from counting him "present." And I changed impeachment to impeachment trial, because the impeachment happened in the House of Representatives. I revised the rest of the article, too. (February 26, 2006.)

"Not Proven" in caps

I've changed references to verdicts from capital letters to lower-case, as there is no case (NPI) in grammar for the use of capitals. Chriscf 17:48, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Not Guilty Vs. Innocent

"Some modern commentators have suggested that if a reduction in the number of possible verdicts is desired, it is the 'not guilty' verdict (in the sense of 'innocent') which should be discarded. This is based on the logic that if sufficient evidence exists to convict then 'guilty' is the appropriate verdict. If however insufficient or no evidence exists then the charge against the defendant can not be proved. Therefore the result should be 'not proven'. These are the only two logical and legal conclusions which can be drawn. To declare someone 'innocent' is a moral judgment, not a legal one..."

In legal terms "not guilty" and "innocent" are not synonymous. Not guilty means that the defendent has been judged to have not commited the crime whereas there is already the presumption of innocence until a defendent is found to be otherwise. This whole paragraph needs to be dropped.

Ironcorona 00:16, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

"Innocence" in a legal sense can be held to have been found when a wrongfully-convicted person is subsequently exhonorated. This differs from a reversal on appeal, a commutation of sentence, or a pardon, as it is a formal setting aside of the previous verdict and the declaration by a court of competent jurisdiction that the accused never actually committed the offense charged in the original conviction. After conviction, the burden of proof then switches over to the convicted, who can only truly be exhonorated by the discovery of or admission of previously unavailable evidence, or the proving that the original proceedings were fatally flawed due to corruption of the process by means such as bribery or other incontravertible demonstrances of error (such as the subsequent conviction of another for the identical offense). 166.152.222.225 (talk) 00:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Yellow Smiley

Although the editors on this talk page are unlikely to engage in anything less than polite discussion, this Yellow Smiley will nonetheless serve as a reminder for any future editors who may occasionally be tempted to lapse. Courtesy of the Random Smiley Project.

Since the above seems to have broken, may I add this as an alternative?! This flag once was red^propaganda_deeds 10:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Sources?

I have edited one sentence to include "citation needed", but I think to put them everywhere there is ambiguous language like "Some Historians" or people named without actual sources/citations to back them up would clutter the whole article with these edits. I believe this article should be reviewed and sources cited where necessary under WP:NOR and WP:CITE. I also suggest adding "Primarysources" to the top of the page. Wushupork 17:33, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Quantum of evidence?

In the U.S. and British system, conviction requires proof of guilt by the quantum of evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt." I gather this is also the quantum required for a "proven" or "guilty" verdict in Scots law.

In the U.S. and Britain, anything less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt requires a "not guilty" verdict. In Scots law, this could lead to a "not guilty" or a "not proven" verdict.

What quantum of evidence divides "not guilty" from "not proven?" Does a quantum equal to or greater than a "preponderance of the evidence," but less than "beyond a reasonable doubt" require a "not proven" verdict, while evidence less than a preponderance requires a "not guilty" verdict? Or is there a different quantum? Pirate Dan 22:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Piraten, you totally fail to understand the not proven verdict. The verdict is a statement of the facts and a not proven verdict is technically equivalent to not guilty. The real difference is that a not guilty verdict is a statement of the rights of a jury to judge the whole case, whilst a not proven verdict is the submission of the jury to confine its judgement only to the facts. The practical implication of not guilty is that it can be used in a wider range of circumstances. E.g. it can be applied when the verdict according to the facts would be "proven" but the jury feals justice requires a not guilty verdict, but usually it is brought in when a jury feals that a simple "not proven" verdict would be against natural justice and as such it is effectively a rebuke of the prosecution for bringing a case which was clearly not sustainable. Bugsy 17:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Piraten, it's safer not to refer to a "British system" at all - Scotland has always had its own criminal and civil legal systems (and education system, and banknotes...) and it's difficult enough convincing Americans that "England" cannot be used interchangeably with "Britain"! BTW - the sentence "The main difference between a "not proven" and "not guilty" verdict lies in the protections of double jeopardy not applying to a defended acquitted on "not proven"" in this article is wrong. Both verdicts are acquittals and - other than as provided for by the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 - both protect the accused from double jeopardy.86.130.149.145 (talk) 11:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

For the reason of the last sentence above, I removed the section "Modern Use" as it was factually incorrect. Quote from www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN02710.pdf: "judges have already taken action on their own initiative to ensure that juries understand that where the case against an accused person is found not proven, that person may not be prosecuted again for the same crime." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.58.117 (talk) 13:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Frequency

Are there any available data on the comparative frequency of Not Guilty and Not Proven, both currently and historically? Dynzmoar (talk) 18:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Scot free

I have heard a number of times that the phrase "Scot free" relates to a not proven verdict. As those who get away with a crime are said to have "got off Scot free", as if they had been given a "not proven" verdict in a Scottish court. In general though most internet sources claim that the "scot" was in fact about an old tax system. Can anyone clear this up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.111.162.127 (talk) 17:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Interesting line of thought! Control-alt-delete ★ user◾talk◾favs 17:31, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Interesting perhaps, but wrong. It comes from not having to pay 'skat', a 10th century Viking tax. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.220.35.161 (talk) 20:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Madeleine Smith

It isn't clear that the not proven verdict was particularly damaging to her (as compared to not guilty of course) since she had already been socially ruined by the revelation of her affair. In fact she seems to have lived quietly and respectably, albeit away from Glasgow. Madeleine Smith (talk) 11:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Use in Other Jurisdictions

The paragraph about three outcomes in the Anglo-American system is made-up garbage, at least with respect to American jurisdictions. Juries can return Guilty, or Not Guilty, but never Innocent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.84.198.154 (talk) 05:13, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

IANAL but based on the link provided, in my opinion none of the not guilty verdicts in the Italian system correspond to "not proven". Even though I'm a lowly IP address, I will remove that sentence if no one objects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.237.234.150 (talk) 18:38, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

If the line about one of the Italian verdicts roughly corresponding to 'not proven' is correct, then the page Italian Code of Criminal Procedure is incorrect in the meanings it provides for the five verdicts. I looked at the source for this line, it can be found here. This source gives these as the five acquittal verdicts ("from strongest to weakest"):

1) that no crime was committed;
2) that there was a crime, but the defendant did not commit it;
3) that the defendant is innocent of the crime, because evidence was insufficient to convict him;
4) that there was no crime, because the defendant had a justification for his action (such as self-defense or necessity);
5) that it was not possible to decide the case due to a procedural fault.

Numbers 1), 2) and 4) correlate well with the first three acquittal verdicts on Italian Code of Criminal Procedure. But 3) (the 'not proven' verdict) and 5) simply don't match the other two, which are

• Perché il fatto non è previsto dalla Legge come reato ("because the action is not included by the Law as an offence"), and
  
• Perché l'imputato non è punibile ("because the accused is not punishable").

If you read the interpretations of these in the wiki article, they look even less like what the source describes. The Italian wiki article Formula assolutoria provides more detail and agrees with the English-language article. So it seems most likely to me that the source is simply wrong. It's possible that 5) is actually referring to the non-acquittal non doversi procedere ("one must not proceed") verdict. Lukeuser (talk) 10:59, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Confusing verbiage

This paragraph goes back and forth between Specter/Clinton impeachment and the O.J. Trial, and is repetitive about Specter. I'd like for whoever wrote this in the first place to have a chance to edit it, but I'll check back in a couple weeks and fix it if no one has gotten to it by then.

The Scottish verdict has not been permanently adopted outside its home country, but it was sometimes used in colonial Canada, especially by some judges in southwestern Ontario[citation needed] . Its most famous use outside of Scottish law came when Senator Arlen Specter tried to vote "not proven" on an article of impeachment of Bill Clinton[5] (see Lewinsky scandal -- his votes on the two articles in question were recorded as "not guilty"), and when, at the O.J. Simpson murder case, various reformers, including Fred Goldman, Ron Goldman's father, pushed for a change to "not proven" because of what they felt was an incorrect presumption of innocence on the part of Simpson.[6] Despite the appeal to Scottish law, Senator Specter's vote was recorded as one of "not guilty".[7]

KConWiki (talk) 02:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

U of C Law Review Article

I don't think that this Law Review article implies what the "Not proven" article says that it does. Far from saying that this verdict should be added to the American system, the article rather argues that whilst it has been proposed that America add this verdict to the jury's choices that in practice such should not be allowed, due to an overwhelming public conception of the necessity of a high standard of proof prior to conviction, namely "proof beyond reasonable doubt", and the equally high recognition of "the presumption of innocence". The article argues that due to the public's knowledge and awareness of these concepts, that it is already aware that many of the persons found "not guilty" in all likelyhood actually committed the offenses with which they were charged but that the high standard required for conviction was not attained by the prosecution and resulted in acquittal; hence the verdict of "not proven" would be unnecessary and duplicative in the American system. 166.152.222.225 (talk) 01:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

A Third of Acquittals

In the 'Modern Usage' section, the article states 'Approximately one third of all acquittal verdicts by Scottish juries use the formulation Not proven', while in the 'Criticism' section, it says 'The number of "not proven" verdicts in sexual assault cases is proportionally large; about three out of ten of these cases end with an acquittal, and a third of these acquittals (a tenth of all verdicts in such cases) are judged "not proven"'.

Is one of these 'thirds' wrong, or is it not actually proportionally large in sexual assault cases? 86.135.43.140 (talk) 00:51, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

"Proportionally large" is an odd construction. the usual phrase is "disproportionally large." Proportionally large would mean the opposite. And would fit those numbers you cited. But even if that were intended, that would be a strange way to use words :/ Firejuggler86 (talk) 11:06, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Consequence and Difference

Can we have a section that explores the actual consequence/different between the two terms. What difference does it make in practice? IceDragon64 (talk) 00:30, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Modern usage statement in the lede is not properly sourced

Because of a recent high profile trial returning a Not Proven verdict of sexual assault there are a lot of claims being made on social media that "Not Proven" means the jury were convinced of guilt but didn't have sufficient evidence. I am alarmed to see this claim in the lede of the article referenced by one PDF of an official study which does not support anything like a statement of that concreteness.

Why has this study been cited and why has it been glossed in this apparently misleading way?

I can quite easily find another official source which states regarding the meaning of "Not Proven" much more clearly and unequivocally that:

"This means there was not enough evidence to prove the case 'beyond reasonable doubt' or there were other reasons why the accused was not found guilty.

Both these verdicts have the same effect and mean the accused will be excused from the court – they will be free to leave."

https://www.mygov.scot/criminal-court-case/verdicts/

One is left with the suspicion that there may be some editorializing going on by those with an interest in shaping the narrative around the mentioned high profile trial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.147.117.34 (talk) 20:25, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Sources

1. http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/227149/

PanagiotisZois (talk) 12:05, 8 August 2023 (UTC)