r/law 15h ago

Legal News The judge in the Lindsay Clancy case is admonishing jurors who are refusing to follow his instructions

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u/cbs-anonmouse 13h ago

That note does make it seem like the holdout is against aquittal.

Of course, the jury note itself is wrong — just because one juror has a different opinion than the others doesn’t itself mean that juror misunderstands the concept of reasonable doubt. He or she just may have a different opinion about whether it is met in the case.

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u/NecessaryClothes9076 13h ago

Hell, it very well could be that the other 11 misunderstand the "reasonable" part of reasonable doubt and ignored the part of the instruction that says "reasonable doubt does not mean any doubt." It's isn't at all uncommon for people to think that if they have any doubt whatsoever, or if there are some far fetched what ifs, that they should acquit.

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u/Legionof1 9h ago

BEYOND reasonable doubt.

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u/Tardisgoesfast 11h ago

But through discussion it may have become clear that this juror doesn’t understand reasonable doubt.

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u/HailMadScience 13h ago

True, but if they used that wording, its possible the juror outright said something indicating that they didn't care about the standard. Which is something they should have noted.