Reasonable doubt is one of the more difficult concepts in criminal law. If my memory from my days as a prosecutor serves me correctly, the Judge will instruct jurors that it is a doubt based on "a reason." Rather circular but it makes sense.
Reasonable doubt. It seems attorney John Dowd is left with that amorphous standard to keep his client out of jail. When a defense attorney relies on reasonable doubt they are in trouble. Surely it brings a smile (albeit hidden) to the prosecutors lips as they sit politely and listen. They know if the defense was strong, they would be pounding on the facts and not what to many laypeople is a technicality.
Reasonable doubt is one of the more difficult concepts in criminal law. If my memory from my days as a prosecutor serves me correctly, the Judge will instruct jurors that it is a doubt based on "a reason." Rather circular but it makes sense. It must also be a reason that is supported by or flows from the evidence. It is not a doubt that is fanciful or irrational — such as "Lloyd Blankfein took over Raj’s mind and body and instructed him to make the trades to take pressure away from Goldman."
Here Raj can point to a couple possibilities for establishing a reasonable doubt based on the evidence. One, that government witnesses, hoping to avoid jail, lied. Two, that the information they are calling "insider" was public and just part of the "mosaic" of information available to the hardworking managers at Galleon (snicker, snicker).
I’d put the chances of a "not guilty" verdict at 100 to 1. But juries can do some strange things.