The absence of the phrase “any rational Trier of facts” becomes evident when considering how review tribunals determine whether the evidence in a civil case is so convincing or so clearly erroneous that the case cannot even be examined by a jury. In this situation, where the standard of proof is the preponderance of evidence, review tribunals order trial judges to take over the jury`s case “if the evidence is such that, without weighing the credibility of the witnesses, there can only be a reasonable conclusion regarding the verdict.” [lvi] In the civil law context, a judgment for an applicant is upheld not only because “any rational judge of the facts could have found the elements of the applicant`s claim,” which are supported by a predominance of evidence. Conviction in a criminal case naturally requires evidence to the highest standard of reasonable doubt, but the jury`s conclusion that this standard was met should only be upheld if the review tribunal determines that the jury acted appropriately in applying that standard. There is a sense in which “probability” as a statistical concept could be applied to the “probability” that a defendant committed the accused crime. For example, if some say that “beyond a reasonable doubt” should be understood to mean that jurors should not convict a defendant unless they conclude that at least a very high probability (e.g., 95 percent) insists that he committed the crime, this could mean that if the same evidence was presented to 100 jurors examining the same charges against 100 defendants and 95 of those defendants actually committed the crime, then there is a 95% chance that the accused committed the accused crime in court. In 1960, ten years before Winship made the reasonable standard of doubt a constitutional requirement for sentencing in the courts of first instance, the Supreme Court first considered whether a conviction had been obtained without due process for lack of evidence. In Thompson v. City of Louisville[xlvii], the “Shuffling Sam” case (so called because a charge of loitering was brought against a man standing alone on the dance floor of a café stirring his feet to the sound of music), the court ruled that the conviction was unconstitutional because there was no evidence of guilt. [xlviii] Beyond a reasonable doubt, the legal burden of proof is necessary to confirm a conviction in criminal proceedings.
In criminal proceedings, the onus is on the Crown to prove that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This means that the prosecution must convince the jury that there is no other reasonable explanation that can come from the evidence presented at trial. In other words, the jury must be virtually certain of the guilt of the accused to reach a guilty verdict. This standard of proof is much higher than the civil standard, which is called the “preponderance of evidence” and requires only more than 50% certainty. [xxxv] Jack B. Weinstein & Ian Dewsbury, Comment on the meaning of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” 5 L. Probability & Risk 167, 167–73 (2006). It can be difficult to answer the question of how reasonable the doubt is, as each court case, judge and jury evaluates all the evidence and the results can take different forms depending on the case. Reasonable doubts mean a high level of certainty based on the evidence that the accuser is innocent. Unfortunately, federal courts of appeal have repeatedly used Justice Stewart`s second version of a constitutional standard to verify allegations that the reasonable standard of doubt was not met. As shown in the table below, at the end of 2018, the phrase “any rational Trier of facts” was used in the overwhelming majority of criminal appeals challenging the constitutional adequacy of the evidence, and the phrase “could reasonably support a guilty verdict” had rarely been used.
Justice Stewart`s first version was perfect. A guilty verdict should only be made if a review court finds that the evidence was sufficient to enable a jury to reasonably establish its guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.