Not Proven: Introducing a Third Verdict

In 1807 at the trial of Aaron Burr for treason, the jury was not content to return one of the usual verdicts, guilty or not guilty.The evidence at trial failed to prove Burr's guilt, but the jury was too suspicious of the scoundrel to declare him not guilty.Instead the jury offered this grudging acquittal: "We of the jury say that Aaron Burr is not proved to be guilty under this indictment by any evidence submitted to us."' Almost two hundred years later, a United States senator echoed the Burr acquittal in the impeachment trial of President Clinton.Disliking both of the traditional verdicts, Senator Arlen Specter offered a verdict drawn from Scottish law: not proven His vote was recorded, however, as not guilty.3 Verdicts other than guilty and not guilty are exceptional in American criminal law, 4 yet some legal systems routinely use more than two verdicts.In Scotland, judges and juries in criminal trials choose from three verdicts: guilty, not proven, and not guilty.Not proven and not guilty are both acquittals, indistinguishable in legal consequence but different in connotation.Not guilty is for a defendant t B.A.