The Metamorphoses of Reasonable Doubt: How Changes in the Burden of Proof May Weaken the Presumption of Innocence

The standard of criminal proof beyond a reasonable doubt is believed almost everywhere to be a bulwark of protection for the accused, an assurance that the state will not punish the innocent to snare more easily the guilty. This Article, presents a brief history of the reasonable doubt instruction. Historians have examined the origins of the doctrine, its antecedents in seventeenth-century England and its use in eighteenth-century common-law courts. The standard's evolution after 1850 and the significance of this later history upon the criminal law have remained largely unexamined. This Article seeks also to correct this omission.