NEED TO CATCH up? TheJournal.ie brings you a round-up of today’s news.
A case against MMA star Conor McGregor over an alleged assault on a man at a Dublin pub was adjourned until 1 November.
#DEAL OR NO DEAL: The EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier secured approval from the leaders of the EU’s 27 member states to return to intensive Brexit negotiations, according to diplomats.
#MANCHESTER: A man was arrested in the UK after four people were injured as part of a knife attack in the city centre this afternoon.
#NOBEL PRIZE: Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
#LONDON: Met Police announced that they have arrested more than 1,000 people in connection with the ongoing Extinction Rebellion protests across the British capital this week.
If you’ve ever been in court (or watched some court dramas), you’ll be familiar with the concept of having to prove something ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’.
For the uninitiated, the phrase means that evidence in a criminal prosecution must prove that the defendant committed the crime, in such a way that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts in the case.
But while it might seem like a fairly simple concept, the idea brings up questions of what a ‘logical explanation’ and ‘reasonable doubt’ are to individual people.
To get to the bottom of it, British survey company YouGov carried out a poll asking how accurate a piece of evidence would have to be for respondents to consider it ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
The result? Just one in five would convict if a piece of evidence was 90% accurate, rising to one in three if it was 95% accurate. For a significant majority, evidence would have to be 99.999% accurate or more for it to be ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
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